the lights they fill the air

Before we begin, I hope you all watched this video. It explains everything you are about to see. (Not to make it sound more exciting than it is, but...) Please realize that I suspected this was a bad idea before I even started; for my purposes of scientific experimentation, though, I had to follow instructions exactly. Ah, it was just a couple posts ago when I introduced this yarn, the faaaabulous FLYING SAUCER!

Here's the Flying Saucer in its proper setup (above). Well, sort of. (Excuse the somewhat odd pictures, I was at a cabin and had possibly enjoyed some tequila the night before...so I wasn't really up to par.) Anyway, I have stabbed a pencil through the center of the spool as instructed- well, they suggested a knitting needle but it is HARD to stab through that plastic spool, so really you'll actually need something much sharper (screwdriver?) and something quite forceful (hammer?) to get it through there. I blame tequila for my weakness. Anyway, let's go on, shall we?

Even with help, the simultaneous winding of two balls of yarn from the "proper" wobbly setup was just a disaster waiting to happen. (This is especially problematic if one of the helpers drank more tequila than the other the night before and is therefore much slower at winding.) We had to enlist a third helper to hold the pencil-dowel to regulate its twisting, spinning disastrousness. I really wasn't kidding about enlisting the knitting group, but I did exaggerate...three of us was only half, not all were needed! So we wound, patiently, and got this:

What? It's practically white! With accents of washed-out yellow! It was ugly. IS ugly. After all that, you get a ball of yarn that looks like dirty laundry? I then wound each ball AGAIN (this time on a ball winder, looks more professional) to get back to the pretty colors that had enticed me in the first place:

Ahh, much better! I wonder if I can get through each sock entirely before I get to the colorless length of yarn. I started knitting, and my patterning doesn't much look like the pictures. I don't really care, except I'm still pretending that this is a scientific-ish process and trusting what the label says it will do. They say the socks will knit into a very awesome, swirly pattern and that they will match! I don't know if I believe this. Stay tuned!