Progress and Panic

I'm making progress on Dwarrowdelf -- it's starting to be possible to imagine that this will ever become curtains.

I'm likin' it a lot.  But I'm now encountering a bit of panic.

You see, when I started this project, I bought two cones of yarn.  I was sure that each curtain would take less than a cone (by a lot).  I was sure that I was buying at least a little bit of extra yarn.

Each cone of 3/2 cotton is a full pound.  They look like this:

I've  knit 15 inches (a backing for the rod that's about 2") ... which I'm sure will stretch considerably in blocking and after hanging ... but that leaves another 66 or so inches.  So I've knit about 20%.

But my cone, which started like that one up there... .now looks like this:

 

When I weigh them, I've got about 575g with the cone in the original (one pound cone).... and 330g with the cone in the one in process.  Since one pound is about 450g, that cone is about 125 g.  which means that the remaining cone has only about 205g in it.   I'm seeing myself running out of yarn. 

Of course, one pound of pearl cotton is only 1200 yards. Now, 1200 yards is what Dwarrowdelf calls for, and I suppose I had (wrongly) imagined that one Dwarrowdelf stole is approximately equal to one panel of curtain.  Either that, or I had calculated based on a different weight of cotton. 

The original Dwarrowdelf stole is 22 inches by 72 inches.  My curtains will be 46 inches by about 81 inches.  Thus... I'll need at least twice as much yarn per curtain.  Right?  (I'm counting on the extra stretch for the heaviness and the cotton to mean that I don't need much more than twice as much yarn.)

So... my panic is not paranoia.  I need to order a couple more cones of yarn(Perle cotton 3/2 in dk green (color 26)) -- and pray that the dye lots won't be so very different that I daren't hang the two curtains side by side (which, um, I kind of need to do).  Deep and heavy sigh.  (This means I have to go to a very tempting website and resist ordering anything but cones of cotton.... or figure out a way to go there (MAINE TRIP!!) and buy the yarn in person -- which can't happen for three more months.)

So much for reasonably priced curtains.  (Crazy people interested in underwriting this project are invited to send gift certificates for Halcyon Yarns.  I'm holding out until I figure out whether a trip to Maine this year is feasible -- the $11.25 shipping charges make me wince too much).