S.O.C.K.S...A Very Good Thing.

It is fortuitous that I have elected to enroll myself in the Summer Of Compensatory Knitting Socialization. This program forces me to leave the confines of my home, interact with other knitters in their natural habitat and perhaps increase my pathetic social skills to some degree. It was particularly good for me to exit Sheepie's House of Yarn Induced Stress today. There was something of a fiber related "incident" that has obsessed me since last night with its utter stupidity. I needed a distraction.

Not that there aren't one or two issues associated with traveling an hour or so in a southerly direction during tourist season in Maine. There are the forty-six million people, all clad in Capri pants and who don't live here, that want to cross the street simultaneously. I know that they don't live here because they are using the crosswalks. Don't get me wrong. Mainers really do like the crosswalks. We are always so pleasantly surprised when a clump of walkers all decide to helpfully stay within the painted lines. We are often heard to comment on how useful this is when navigating the streets during the summer seasons and wonder how long these things have been around. We debate whether to add a few more around the state. We really do like the crosswalks. We just don't necessarily believe that the rules around their use should apply to us, is all.

Wait...where was I? Oh, yeah. The yarn. The yarn which is currently suffering my displaced rage.

It all started with the skeining. I've been spinning for a number of years now and have skeined my share of yarn. It's not all that hard. I even have a skein winder in order that my delicate wrists not be overburdened with the winding action imposed by the niddy noddy. I take the yarn off the winder in its circular state after tying it off in four spots using contrasting, colorfast acrylic yarn. It then goes into its bath for twist-setting. Once the yarn is nice and dry, I clip the offending acrylic and tie the skein using a matching yarn and a pretty ribbon to gussie it up a bit. Not all that challenging. And I pulled it off last night without a hitch...

Except that it didn't look as neat as I liked. I could have just left it. But, in my state of skein-related confidence, I decided to do it again. Make it nicer. Make it neater. Make it perfect.

And I dropped it. There was nothing to hold it together. I tried to catch it. All I snagged were a few errant strands. It slithered to the ground in a clump of matted lamb and silk.

Did I mention that I was performing this act of yarn stupidity in front of a fan? A fan that was cranked up to full power in order that I might make as much of a mess of this as was humanly possible?

I stood there for a moment, the full import of this event eluding me. As the degree to which I had screwed up this simple operation began to slowly sink in, allowing the full horror of it all to ooze though each cell of my brain, I cried out. I cried out in overly dramatic tones usually reserved for the moment just after a homicide or bad dinner theater:

Dear God, what have I done????????


I then began the process of untangling the yarn clot that was my beautiful lamb/silk handspun. This led to the rage. It was a profound rage that meant I could not attend to this task for any length of time. I now work on the untangling for a while, then set it aside when the rage threatens to boil over. It is displaced anger. I know this. It was my mistake, not the yarn's. The sweet little lamb, who did nothing save give of her soft, soft wool, does not deserve it. And I don't even like to think about the sacrifice that the little silkworm made for this endeavor. I'm really mad at me, but it seems healthier to roar at the yarn periodically.

"Stupid yarn! Why couldn't you just stay in my hands? You are very, very bad yarn! You deserve to be in a big, ol' yarn clot! That's right! You heard me! You don't deserve the time and energy I am taking to painstakingly return you to a form that makes some sort of sense to a knitter's eye. You are not cooperative yarn and you think that because you are pretty that you are better than other yarn. You are not. You are very, very naughty!!!"

See what I mean? Getting out of the house was a good thing. Seriously...

SA