Spend enough time around knitters and crocheters and eventually you will overhear something like this: “I took my WIP to the LYS, but now I may have to frog it. I’m losing yarn chicken, and I really don’t need another UFO.”
To everyone else, this sounds slightly unhinged. To Yarn People, it makes perfect sense. Somehow, we have developed a language all our own—a mixture of abbreviations, inside jokes, dramatic warnings, and very specific names for the things that happen when yarn refuses to cooperate.
If none of that sounded strange, you are clearly one of us.
WIPs, FOs and UFOs
Let’s begin with all those projects occupying our bags, baskets, closets and—as I know from personal experience—far more space than we intended. A WIP is a work in progress. It is something you are actively making, or at least still sincerely believe you will finish soon. A FO is a finished object. The ends are woven in, the blocking is complete, and it is ready to wear, use, photograph or proudly show to anyone willing to look. Dare I admit I have far more WIPs than FOs?
A UFO, on the other hand, is an unfinished object. It began life as a WIP filled with promise but has not been touched in so long that you may no longer remember what it was supposed to become. Some UFOs are eventually rescued. Others remain tucked away so long that, when we finally find them again, even we have no idea what we were making.
Frogging and Tinking
Most of you are probably already familiar with frogging—that delightful moment when you realize the last four hours of work must be pulled out. The name supposedly comes from “rip it, rip it,” although the actual experience involves considerably less cheerful croaking and considerably more muttering. My six-year-old grandson loves asking whether I’m “frogging” something and cracks up every time. Clearly, frogging is much funnier when it isn’t your project.
Tinking is the more controlled version—the slow, civilized cousin of frogging. The word tink is knit spelled backward, and it means undoing knitting one stitch at a time. Frogging is pulling the emergency cord; tinking is carefully reversing course before things get any worse.
Yarn Chicken
Yarn chicken is the suspenseful game no one intends to play. You are nearing the end of a project, your remaining yarn is getting alarmingly small, and you keep crocheting or knitting while pretending not to notice. Will you finish the final row, bind off and weave in the ends—or run out with six stitches left?
There are no spectators, no official rules, and usually no backup plan. Winning yarn chicken leaves you with a finished project and a scrap of yarn barely long enough to identify. Losing it sends you searching through stash bins, online discontinued-yarn groups, and every shop that might still have one skein in the right dye lot.
Yarn Barf
Yarn barf is the tangled clump that suddenly erupts from the center of a skein when you try to find the center pull. You tug gently, expecting one neat strand, and instead extract what appears to be half the skein in a knotted lump.
Sometimes the working end is hidden somewhere inside it. Sometimes untangling it becomes an entirely separate project. I’ve tried to think of a more appealing name for it, but “yarn spill” or “yarn explosion” simply doesn’t capture what just happened. I like center-pull catastrophe, but I suspect it won’t catch on.
Second Sock Syndrome
Second Sock Syndrome occurs when you finish one sock and discover that making its identical partner is far less exciting than making the first. The first sock is a new pattern, a new yarn and a small adventure. The second is simply proof that feet inconveniently come in pairs.
This can also happen with mittens, sleeves and anything else that must be made twice. Some people avoid the problem by working both pieces at the same time. Others accumulate a collection of beautiful single socks and remain optimistic about their future.
Sleeve Island
Sleeve Island is the place where sweater makers become stranded after finishing the interesting part of a sweater and realizing that two entire sleeves still need to be made. The body is done, the garment already resembles a sweater, and enthusiasm begins to fade at precisely the moment the rounds become smaller and more repetitive.
Second Sleeve Island is even more remote. You have already made one sleeve, so there is no longer anything new to discover—just another long stretch of exactly the same scenery. I’m pretty sure I have at least three sweaters stranded on Sleeve Island, although I continue to refuse to admit it—even to myself—especially since it would require opening all of my WIP bins.
Stash and SABLE
A stash is technically a yarn collection, but that sounds far too organized and intentional. Mine includes yarn purchased for specific projects, yarn that was too pretty to leave behind, yarn bought because the price was irresistible, and yarn I have absolutely no memory of buying. Finding that last kind is basically shopping—except everything is free and apparently selected by someone who knows exactly what I like.
SABLE stands for Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. It describes the point at which you own more yarn than you could reasonably use in your lifetime. This sounds alarming only if you assume the sole purpose of yarn is to be used immediately. Yarn can also be admired, organized, rearranged, protected from moths, and occasionally taken out simply to remind yourself how pretty it is.
LYS and the Wild
An LYS is your local yarn store: the place where you can see colors in person, squeeze yarn, ask questions, and accidentally leave with three skeins when you intended to buy a crochet hook.
Finding yarn in the wild means discovering it somewhere you were not specifically shopping for yarn—perhaps at a thrift store, estate sale or tucked into the corner of an antique shop. The yarn may be discontinued, unlabeled or completely mysterious, which naturally makes it even harder to leave behind.
Knitting and Crochet Monogamy
A monogamous knitter or crocheter works on one project at a time and finishes it before beginning another. I am told these people exist.
The rest of us may have one project for television, one requiring concentration, one that travels well, one waiting for more yarn and one we started because the other four suddenly seemed less appealing. This is not disorganization. It is project diversity.
When Yarn Starts Flashing and Pooling
Hand-dyed, variegated and self-striping yarns can behave in unexpected ways once stitched. Pooling happens when the same colors line up across several rows or rounds, creating larger patches rather than appearing randomly. Flashing occurs when those colors form zigzags or lightning-like streaks across the fabric.
Sometimes this is exactly the effect you want. Other times the yarn creates one large, oddly placed patch that seems determined to become the only thing anyone notices. Changing stitch count, gauge or pattern can alter the effect—but occasionally the yarn has made its artistic decision and refuses to negotiate. I personally hate it when that happens (and away to the WIP bin it goes).
The Language of Yarn People
This strange vocabulary makes the frustrating parts of knitting and crochet a little more entertaining. Running out of yarn is disappointing; losing yarn chicken is funny. Abandoning a half-finished sweater sounds wasteful; becoming stranded on Sleeve Island sounds almost adventurous. And “yarn barf” remains the official unofficial term because every more dignified option falls short. Perhaps I’ll start a petition for center-pull catastrophe.
Learning to knit or crochet means learning stitches, tools, fibers, patterns, gauge, and dozens of other things you didn’t realize you needed to know. Somewhere along the way, you also become fluent in Yarn—and eventually stop noticing that non-Yarn People don’t understand a word you’re saying. You also stop thinking of an ever-growing stash as a problem.
At least, not until you run out of storage. Then you simply open a yarn store.