As a general rule, I love color. Pops of red, rich browns, soft grays, soothing blue and a snap of orange: all these colors are lovely. Longtime readers know, of course, that I will drop everything and swim through an alligator tank to get to any shade of green.

But the pink is bringing me down. Ballet pink, the color I used to knit a warm-up for Hermanita several years back, is ok. Not my favorite, but I can work with it. Bubblegum pink alternating with fuchsia? I just can’t get on board.

At this point you’re probably wondering how said pink yarn came to be in my possession. Well…When I was knitting my super-long stockings, I had a moment of panic towards the end and decided I was in imminent danger of running out of yarn. Viewed on Etsy while consumed with the fear of being yarnless, the color seemed ok. More rationally, I told myself that the base was Vermont Grand View Farm’s lovely crispy sock yarn (less weird than it sounds: I highly recommend you go get some), so whatever the color I still was working with a great base.

I never did need the extra skein, and although the base is terrific, the color has been jarring me every time I open the lace weight/fingering bin (Yes, I have my stash organized by weight now. It makes my order-obsessed librarian heart so happy). Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I became overwhelmed with a desire to knit *everything* in my stash. Diving in for the black sock yarn for a hat turned up the pink–again. This time, I was thinking of an upcoming birthday and realized the recipient was very, very likely to appreciate yarn in a color that shouts PINK at you when you say hello.

Knowing that the recipient will love this gift is keeping me on task, and thank goodness the project needs to be finished by this weekend, because two days in my eyes are already straying back to the green and black yarns on other projects-in-progress.

Have you grappled with a gift knit in a color that emphatically wasn’t you? How did *you* make it to the end?