A Bluestocking Knits

So I'm knitting merrily along on the Fourth Doctor scarf, having made only one row-counting error and thinking I was going to offer a prize to anyone who could spot it, ha-ha! when all of a sudden —

wait a minute, I'm only on row 36 of this fifty-six-row section of green (okay, "green") and I've reached the end of the ball!  No-o-oh!  And I've even been skimpy with the ends at the color changes!

I stared at it for a while in dismay, then went to bed, and this morning counted up how many rows there are of each color.

• gold = 92 rows
• purple = 122 rows
• brown = 128 rows
• red = 150 rows
• grey = 158 rows
• green = 166 rows
• tan = 228 rows

So if 220 yards of wool is only enough for 146 rows (not even counting the fringe, wh. is considerable), then I will also be short on the red and the grey as well (since the pattern did call for 2 balls of the tan, yardage-wise).

This means I used approximately 1.45 yds. of wool per row, which seems astonishing but math doesn't lie, right? (she said cynically, remembering the checking and double-checking on the Big Bad Baby Blanket from a second person as well, who is much better at math than I am, and look what happened there).

So if I used 1.45 yards of wool per row, then the yardage should be

• gold = 133.4 yds + 8 yds fringe = 141.4 yds = 1 ball of Cascade 220 Superwash
• purple = 176.9 + 8 = 184.9 yds = 1 ball of Cascade 220 Superwash
• brown = 185.6 + 8 = 193.6 yds = 1 ball of Cascade 220 Superwash
• red = 217.5 + 8 = 225.5 yds = 2 balls of Cascade 220 Superwash
• grey = 229.1 + 8 = 237.1 yds = 2 balls of Cascade 220 Superwash
• green = 240.7 + 8 = 248.7 yds = 2 balls of Cascade 220 Superwash
• tan = 330.6 + 8 = 338.6 yds = 2 balls of Cascade 220 Superwash

QED.

PS: I have ordered this morning three more balls — red, grey, and green — and got a message within an hour and a quarter that the delightful folks at Loopy Ewe had not only shipped my order, but managed to get the same dye-lots as well.