So last Sunday night I was sitting in my very messy living room, surrounded by my daughter’s craft supplies and a fine layer of dust, in denial about the whole thing and happily knitting away on the Gryffindor Fuzzy Feet – when the doorbell rings. At the door is a complete stranger, holding a knitting bag. “I totally messed this up, I don’t know what I did, and the yarn store isn’t open until Tuesday PLEASE can you help me?” said the stranger. So of course I bit the bullet and invited her in.
How did the stranger find me? Remember the Halloween post when I said I had taken my knitting outside to relax and hand out treats? This woman’s daughter came trick or treating at my house and commented to her father that I knit “just like Mommy does”. He and I exchanged a laugh and said I should meet his wife some day. Apparently, the lack of knitting was driving her so crazy that she would rather knock on my door than have to wait 36 more knit-less hours – and I have to say I respect that.
Other than the fact that I was completely humiliated about the state of my house, it was actually kind of fun. I saw instantly the error she had made, frogged a few rows, and got her back on the right track very quickly. My daughter took it upon herself to do a show and tell on all the cool things I had made for her – the poor woman didn’t know that she was in for a fashion show when she knocked! She turned out to be a very nice person who lives on my block, and the next day I dropped off a bunch of patterns and books for her to look at. End of story, or so I thought.
Thursday I went into the LYS to pick up some Lamb’s Pride in green for yet another pair of FFs for holiday giving (for biggest big sister, who also doesn’t read this blog). The owner of the store wanders out of her office and said she heard I was now giving lessons in my living room! Turns out the neighbor had gone into the LYS the day before to buy some yarn for one of the patterns I had given her and told the owner the whole story. So now it is urban legend in my small knitting community – drive-by knit-fixing on demand.
The Knitting Whisperer – I kind of like it…
Finished my Project Linus blanket, and a cloud hat that should probably go into the Dulaan box since I snagged a hat that was already there to send to Indiana for that knitting drive. Love the cloud hat pattern, although I must knit much more loosely than Ms. Ryan so will have to make it a bit smaller next time. My local AC Moore is having a huge sale on Patons Divine, so I can bang a bunch of these out pretty quickly.
At the risk of offending my wool-devoted sisters in knitting, I am coming out of the closet right now and saying I am using up some acrylic that was laying around for these hats. I know the A word is a dirty one in most knitting circles, but the fact of the matter is the hat looks just fine with the acrylic, and the more stash yarn I can use, the more charity knitting I can do. Like most knitters, my yarn budget is finite, and a LOT of it just went for Christmas gift yarn. I use the good stuff when I have it, but have been known – horror of horrors – to use cheap yarn on things for the kid. I just don’t feel like I need to use merino or alpaca all the time when I know that there will be grape juice spilled on it someday. There, I said it, I feel so much better now 🙂
Photos tomorrow of all the finished goodies, that Knit Unto Others knitalong really has me on a tear.