balls!!

oh rats!! I’m having one of those days!!! I think Cindy jinxed me!! I’m knitting for No 48, knocked off a couple of designs already and a couple more are percolating... I spent most of yesterday swatching for a tuck rib design in another wide wale corduroy look that I was going to make using a handknitting ‘balled’ yarn - in a real pretty sage green (I don’t care whether you’re sick of green or not, I still have some to use, so there! It’s either a few more green things or make the next issue in all red!!) Anyway, I used red for my practise swatches and came up with my final product, made up my gauge swatch in the sage green, washed and dried it overnight, all set to start this morning. Now, this yarn is a lace weight alpaca, 437 yds in each 2 oz ball. Thanks to my ‘Silver Needles’ electric wool winder, not a problem. Did I mention I have 10 balls of the sage green? Sounds like plenty to me. I’ve used this yarn before and made a tuck stitch maternity tunic (No 35, Make Room For Baby) that only took less than 6 balls. My plan is a cardigan/jacket with the tuck rib on the body, changing to pintucks for a yoke above the bust, with the tuck rib also on the long sleeves.
I wound three balls into one cone and began knitting the back. After 2 false starts, what the heck is going on?? On the first piece, at row 70, the yarn inexplicably broke when I was half way across. Talk about dropped stitches! Well, never mind, it’s quicker to start again than try and rehang double bed tuck... my second attempt, I forgot to transfer to every other needle on the rib bed after the cast-on...I noticed about row 14. Okay, so third time’s a charm. I’m up to row 300 and I realize there is no conceivable way that I’ll have enough yarn to complete my original design, but maybe if I make it shorter... I take 8 cm out of the length because I haven’t begun shaping the underarm yet. But, after beginning the pintucks, in which the yarn is double stranded to maintain the same width as the tuck rib, I know I have to change something else - and I’m not a vest person. I’m getting stubborn now. I've got too much time in this already to abandon it now! I’m not going to give up...
That darn Cindy!! She never starts anything unless she has 2 full cones of the yarn the pattern calls for, even if it says she only needs one. And all her questions about what to do if you run out of yarn and how you could stretch it and on and on... well, take this, Cindy! Here’s a lesson on how to salvage a run-short-of-yarn project but you’re going to have to wait for No 48 for all the details!!