Anyone spot anything different about my knitting room?
Wait, wait, let me give you a hint:
Wheee! Hurray for Joann and their lightning-fast shipping! I immediately wound the second skein for my Lost Coast socks (photo of at least one finished sock coming soon, I promise). Oh, and I almost took my hand off with the swift. (Note: you gotta pay attention while you do this stuff, try to avoid sticking your hand - or head - real close to a juggernaut yarn swift.)
A finished ball in about four minutes! Travis' arms give thanks for the swift, mine give thanks for the winder.
But then.....tragedy struck. I snatched my darling cashmere sock yarn off the shelf. I have one, count it, ONE skein of anything cashmere in my collection. I carefully snipped the loose ends free, put it on the swift, and....ooh, that's not a good idea. So I attempted winding it delicately off the skein. Nothin' doin'. This skein was ANGRY. This skein wanted to be a SKEIN, dammit, not a ball - and it certainly did not want to be knit! I spent probably twenty minutes accusing the skein, its cousins, relatives, friends, and even mother of being .... well, it wasn't flattering - and then I finally gave up. After 20 minutes I'd wound 15 yards and broken two knots, and I had a hopeless mess.
Here lies my cashmere:
It breaks my heart - I put her in a box and closed it up. God forgive me, I couldn't bear to look at her. I even emailed Yahaira to beg for forgiveness and answers. The skein was hopeless, I knew that - but where did I go wrong?? Goddess that she is, she offered, among other potential solutions, to try to wind it for me if I mailed it back to her. (No, no, no...I like her far too much for that - I can think of one person I would consider tying to a chair in a locked room with this skein of yarn and the instructions, "Figure it out," and trust me, she'd deserve it...no one else on the planet should have to suffer in such a way. Trust me when I say I REALLY mucked this up good. You've heard of making a bad situation worse? Yeah.) Long story short ("Too late!"), I ruined my cashmere, Yahaira is still a saint (once again, my heartiest endorsement her shop) and yet I'm probably going to end up trying this again very soon because I NEED cashmere socks.
Oh, but the rest of the evening - we had a nice quiet night, watched some Dane Cook Tourgasm on HBO over some calzones and Ritter's frozen custard. If anything can dull the pain of tragic cashmere loss, it's a Peanut Butter Mountain with cake-batter custard:
(Cue: "Only You" by The Platters, Peanut Butter Mountain spinning slowly in a dimly lit room.)
Meanwhile:
I found this photo on my camera this morning while I was uploading - I guess Travis must have taken it. I had to share - she's just so adorable.
oh no! just looking at that limp little cashmere makes me sad. you NEED cashmere socks...don't worry I'm working on something for ya ; )
ReplyDeleteSee! Did I tell you?! Goddess!
ReplyDeleteRene: I LOVE my wooden swift, so far. And there was minimal interest from Roosevelt (Indy wasn't present) until I started winding off of a ball I'd already wound. Since it was just a regular old ball of yarn, I just threw it on the floor and started winding it up - so the ball was sort of zigging this way and zagging that. Rooster, bless him, is well-trained enough to know not to attack yarn....but he did not take his eye off of that ball of yarn. It was cracking me up...I felt so cruel, though, like I'd just thrown cocaine on the floor in front of Kate Moss in a room full of photographers.