I hate tidying up, and I am no real fan of cleaning.  This has proved to be a minor source of drama in my life, because I like things tidy and clean.  I feel like if you don’t mind cleaning, you sort of do it as you go along, and if you’re me, and you want to live in a shining and organized home but really hate getting there, then you sort of do it in bursts, breaking out the vacuum and the dust rags, or tipping out a closet when you can’t stand it a minute longer. Something happens, it crosses my personal threshold and I have to clean it.  In my experience, this tip over the edge is usually accompanied by some feelings of resentment and anger towards the other people who live with you who don’t seem to have a personal threshold for dirt or mess and would simply wallow in their own filth forever, like a barnyard animal who doesn’t even have a closet to put things into.  (How many feelings of rage you have while cleaning is, and should be, related to how many young, strong, beautiful human beings who are depending on your for support are lying on the couch asking you how much longer you’re running the vacuum for because they can’t really hear the stereo. By the time they were grown my girls used to leap to their feet when they saw a dustrag in my hand.)  Now that only one of my kids really still messes up the house, I’ve learned a few things, like that a lot more of the mess belongs to Joe than he would have had me believe, and while I knew he was paying the children to clean so he wouldn’t have to, didn’t quite believe he had managed to cover for him completely – which he apparently did. 

The upshot is that I like things tidy, and while I hear legends whispered of people who find fulfillment and happiness in cleaning, not a single one of them lives here, and so I have to have strategies to keep the house in something close to a state I can live with, without cleaning all the time.  The answer to this has been to try and have very little stuff.  The more stuff we have, the more cluttered things are, the harder it is to manage our stuff.  Dusting is easy if there’s nothing on the table.  Washing the floor is easier if you don’t have stuff thrown all over it – and for this family, the only way to keep things off the table and the floor is to not own a lot.  People can’t throw eight weeks of laundry on their bedroom floor if they don’t have eight weeks of clothes.  This has worked really, really well for us over the years.  Every time I feel like the house is out of control, I know what’s wrong – we have too much stuff, and some has to go.   I watch three or four episodes of Hoarders to get myself in the mood, and off I go.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking "Big talk from the lady with yarn everywhere.  What’re you doing about that, Queen-tidy-pants?" and to you I say that the stash is mostly under control.  I have rules, and I check in with them every so often so that the stash doesn’t turn into something that gets me on TV.  Rule #1 is that if I don’t love it, it can’t stay.  That rule means that if a skein of yarn accidentally shows up in my house because someone gave me a bag of stuff that used to be their mums, or I realize that something I bought three years ago really isn’t anything I love anymore – or even if I try a yarn and don’t like it – it and all its mates hit the donate pile. I don’t keep yarn I don’t love.  I don’t try and figure out how to make it useful, I don’t keep it because some day it might come in handy… I give it away to someone who will find it useful and does love it so that it might brightly flower into its glorious destiny – rather than rot away in the back of my closet. 

Rule #2 is absolute. If it can’t fit, it can’t stay.  Over the years I have created several stash containments zones.  I have the stash room upstairs, I have the built in closet in my office, and a few other spots like baskets and bins.  This is where stash must go.  Stash cannot go other places, or soon you’re like that lady in Hoarders who was just going to put a few extra canned goods under her son’s bed and now the kid’s sleeping in the bathtub clutching a mangy towel and crying at night.  (I like to think of that show as what’s keeping me scared straight. One episode and I’m upstairs getting rid of all the old toothbrushes screaming "THIS IS WHERE IT STARTS.")  My point is that I’ve got ample space for stash. Lots. The textile arts are important to me, I earn part of my living at it, and it’s only reasonable that I have a space dedicated to managing the accoutrements of my craft.  If I was a carpenter, you would expect me to have a big workshop all full of the stuff that I used. You wouldn’t expect me to have boards and saws all over the house, and that’s the rule here.  Stash stays in the stash zone, and if stash is leaking out of the stash zone, then something must be done.

People. Stash is leaking out of the stash zone.  In specific, the spinning stash has gotten out of containment area 1, and after having made incursions into the temporary holding zones, it has now seeped further into common living space.  I told myself that the 4 batts I made with Judith were too beautiful to put away, and that’s why I was keeping them on the bookshelf outside the bathroom, but that’s not what happened.  There was no room for them in the spinning bins, and the spinning bins already had bags stacked on them, which is a violation of containment rules. (Holding areas outside of containment zones can only be temporary, like when you buy something that will fit, but you didn’t put it away yet. Like that.) Then Tina bought me four big batts at Madrona – I wasn’t going to buy anything because I knew I was in trouble, but Tina saw them (I wasn’t looking, that’s what saved me) and the next thing I knew she’d bought them as a present, which was so sweet, but really- it was about 400g (almost a pound) more fibre coming into the house.  Then, just to prove that there’s something wrong with me, as I was standing there looking at those batts thinking "I love them, but where will I put them" when Judith offered me fleece and I was like "HIT ME."

So now here I am, with a spinning stash problem of a fairly decent size, and I only have a few options.  I can go through the spinning stash and get rid of some things, which frankly isn’t going to happen because I love it all, or I can use some of it up, turn it into yarn and give it away so that the stash fits again. You can bet which one I’m running with.  I’m going to go on a sprint and move all the fibre I can through this house until it fits.  That BFL the other day was a nice start, but the four batts I made and the four Tina bought me and the fleece from Judith still don’t fit, so off I go.  The first thing down the chute: The batts Tina bought me at Madrona.  I don’t know where she got them (I’m not sure she knows where she got them. Blasted wool fumes, maybe someone will recognize them.) The first one was a beautiful yellowish wool batt, with locks of mohair thrown in for interest, and what looks to me like little shots of silk here and there.


This kind of batt can’t make a really smooth yarn, so I’m absolved from trying.  The singles were beautiful,

and I love the 2-ply I ended up with. It’s got Denny’s name on it I think.  I love the colours – but the texture’s sort of whacky, and I feel like it is calling Denny’s name into the air.

I turned to the other two batts in the bag then, and I think these sister ske
ins might be Denny’s too. 

These batts were mostly brown/burgundy/red, and had the same little chunks of mohair locks throughout.  Very fetching.  

I’ll ply later, those singles need to rest.  Next up, at least two of the batts outside the bathroom door.  Then a few more goodies from deeper layers of the stash. Then maybe a few spinning things I’ve been hiding in the yarn stash can go where they’re supposed to, which might actually mean that all the yarn would fit, which might free up shelf space for the books that are spilling into the kitchen, and then the whole stash will be under my total control.
I bet that’s exactly what’s going to happen.  I’ll spin four things and the house will be clean.  Also, my tiny yarn elves will clear up the mess that the magazines are in, and their trusty wee unicorn steeds will clear up the bags of yarn we’re pretending aren’t in the office, right before the fairies make a rainbow bridge to the button box, and clear all the buttons out of my office, complete all my paperwork, and leave only happiness and sparkles in their wake. 

You bet.

————–

More housekeeping:

I gotta go spin now.  Wouldn’t want to let the elves down by not doing my part.

Today’s a quiet day here, and in between work and writing I sat down and plied up the BFL I’ve been spinning for ages. 

When I’d started this, I’d taken the two big bumps of roving, and using my handy dandy scale, divided it into three equal piles.  Each of those was spun up into singles, with the hopes of ending up with a beautifully bouncy 3-ply.

It remains to be seen if it’s beautifully bouncy, but it is a three ply, and if my measurements are okay, it should be about 270 metres – which is enough for… well.  I don’t know what it’s enough for.  I actually have no idea at all what I might use it for. 

This happens all the time to me.  When I started spinning, I thought that I would mostly use handspun – which has clearly not turned out to be true, even though I produce more than enough.  I thought I would buy fleece or fibre, imagine what it would be, spin it, then knit it – all with a specific "thing" in mind, but it’s turned out to be nothing like that.  It happens, sure.  That time that I got the Jacob fleece I knew exactly what I was going to make.  I got the fleece knowing I would make a graduated shawl, and that went from start to finish just the way I always expected.  (More or less.  I’m not a good enough spinner that what’s in my head is always what my hands can pull off.  Bit of a crapshoot some days.)
Those times seem to be a little rare though, and mostly I find myself spinning the way I knit… for the experience of the thing.

I don’t always even want the yarn that I make – I’ve given away pounds of handspun over the years, and the knitters I give it to always seem shocked that I’d let something so dear go – but the truth is that by the time it’s spun, it’s done its thing.  The fibre’s gone from one state to another, from fleece to yarn, or roving to yarn, and I’ve sucked all the satisfaction out of it that I need to.  Sure, if I knit with my own handspun there’s another layer of satisfaction – there’s almost nothing that feels as good as starting with a sheep and ending with a hat, having only your own two hands to thank for it – but for me that must be like some kind of bonus round, since I regularly buy and spin fibre that can’t possibly become yarn I like. 

This yarn, I really do love.  It’s plain and traditional and those two skeins are totally something I would use, and as I took them off the heater where they were drying, I realized I have no plan for them.  None. Zip.  I don’t think I’ll give them away – but I realized that as I lifted them up and hugged them (they are pretty bouncy) that what I was thinking was "Good. Finished" instead of what I always thought I would think – which is "Good, next step?"

This yarn doesn’t seem to want to be anything, except for yarn, and I need inspiration.  You know the way there’s product knitters (knitters who knit to get the stuff) and process knitters (knitters who knit because they like knitting)?  I think I might be a process spinner, and now I need help figuring out what the product part should be.
It’s about 270m of what looks to be a light worsted. 
Can you tell what it wants to be?

(PS.  A few words about the wonderful comments on yesterday’s post.  I know there are a few exceptions, but by far and away the debate was civil, respectful and reassured me about people’s ability to treat each other decently, even when they disagree fundamentally.  Thank you for making it possible to have these conversations.) 

This morning I marked International Women’s Day in what is for me, a fairly traditional manner.  I got on the phone with my friend Jen, and we talked about the state of women’s rights.  It will surprise no-one who reads here regularly to learn that I am a political person – and by political, I simply mean that I care deeply about the politics happening in the world around me. I read, I think, I debate and discuss what I hear, and I vote.  

Whether it’s my own country, or my neighbours country, or a country halfway around the world, I am interested in who citizens elect to represent their views, and what laws those people then make – because it represents who they are as people, and how they think things should be done.  At least here in Canada, I don’t think of the Government as some overlord,  I think of it as a group of Canadians selected by other Canadians to represent our views, and I like to know how they’re doing that, especially when an election doesn’t go the way I would like, and the majority of Canadians choose something I wouldn’t.  I watch even closer then.  The rules and laws these Canadians make are things that will effect my life, or the lives of people I know – or the planet I live on, or the lives of people I don’t know far away, and I’ve never bought that it’s none of my business what’s happening in the politics of places where I’m not a citizen.  That’s how genocides happen. 

So this morning, Jen and I were talking about the politics of lots of places, and how the politics and politicians of those places had an impact on women.  We talked about how only 1 in 5 land owners worldwide is a woman.  How even though this is the 101st International Women’s Day, which has to mean that we’ve cared about this problem for at least that long, despite that – only 12 of the worlds top 500 businesses are led by women. Despite that,  this week the Prime Minister of Afghanistan endorsed a statement that "Men are fundamental, and women are secondary." In Saudi Arabia,  a country that is considered a friend to Canada, the US and the EU, doesn’t even let women drive cars.  Half their population just doesn’t have that right.  Hell, after 101 years of worldwide political attention drawn to the problem, the Secretary General of the United Nations says that domestic violence worldwide is increasing, not decreasing, and that despite everybody agreeing it’s absolutely horrible, 2 million girls between the age of 5 and 15 are sold as prostitutes each year.  

It’s not just the Middle East and Africa either.  All over the world the politics of countries make laws and rules that tell women that they aren’t allowed to make their own choices.  Here in Canada,  The Prime Minister has been widely criticized as been no friend of women.  He’s closed 12 of the 16 Status of Women Offices, eliminated funding of legal voices for women, cut funding for women’s advocacy by 43%, and denied financial support to groups who support access to abortion, which makes it look a whole lot like he’s making it hard for women to speak up.  Thing is, he did a lot of that before he was re-elected and while he had a minority government. That means it’s no just him who holds these views, that means a lot of other Canadians agree with him.  In the US, all of the GOP candidates – not some, but ALL of them agree that a life should begin at conception – which would not just make abortion illegal, but it could effectively ban most contraceptives, which would mean that the only way for a woman to guarantee that she wouldn’t ever have more children than she could support, would be to only ever have sex when she was willing to have a baby. For me? That would have been three times.  (I don’t know how that’s an appealing idea to those men, but there you have it.)  98% of American women have used contraception at some point – and lots of them are GOP supporters.  It’s not like being a Republican (or a Conservative, if you’re Canadian) is wrong or horrible.  It’s a legal political position to hold, as valid as being a Democrat or a member of the NDP – it doesn’t surprise me that people could vote that way.  It does surprise me that if 98% of women use contraception, and 35-40% of them have had an abortion,  that so many of them are okay with voting for someone who’s going to make laws that won’t let them do that.

After we talked about all of that, I think that it’s safe to say that Jen and I were both a little hot.  There was lots of talk about how this is 2012, and how can women let these things happen, and that while worldwide, only 19% of politicians are women – but you know, women have the right to vote in Saudi Arabia – and they’re half of the population.  I get that in a country like Afghanistan, where there’s state sanctioned abuse of women – and men are regularly permitted to do things like light their wife on fire because she  got uppity, that women, even if they have the vote,  can’t create real change yet,  and that’s why their rights are underrepresented in politics, but here? In Canada? In the US?  Women have the right to vote.  Women do vote.  We’re mostly literate, with at least the minimum amount of education to be able to make our own decisions, and the amazing thing to me is that given the gift of choice, we would make a choice to vote to restrict women’s future choices. 

Then Jen and I got quiet.  Then we thought a bit.  Then Jen said something about how it’s like knitting something for someone.  You make it, you give it to them and then you’re done.  You don’t get to decide how someone treats or uses what you’ve given them.  That’s not the spirit of it.  If you knit your Aunt Mary a scarf and she balls it up in the bottom of the hall dresser and never, ever wears it because it’s itchy, there’s zip all you can do about it, because you gave it to her, and now it’s hers, and that’s how choice works.  You can then make another choice to never, ever knit her another one as long as you live – but it won’t change what she does with it.   I agreed with her, and I realized that this women’s day, as I wonder if things are really getting better for women (or if it’s just happening to slowly for my taste) and wonder at women’s support of policies that don’t seem to be good for them, I have got to stick with the real spirit of empowerment, and that’s respecting a woman’s right to choose what’s best for her, and the hardest part?

If you really believe in a woman’s right to make decisions about herself, her body and her politics, if you truly think that women can and must choose for themselves, then when women make choices you wouldn’t, you can’t call them stupid or regret giving them that choice.

Women have to have the right to choose.  Even if you don’t like their choices.

Happy Women’s Day. 

(PS.  I edited a typo at 16:56pm that was possibly creating confusion. I said the legislation "would not make abortion illegal, but it could effectively ban most
contraceptives" Of course it would make abortion illegal.  My apologies. )

1.  I am seriously excited about knitting things that are not a baby blanket. 

2. Not that knitting the baby blanket wasn’t fun,  it was super fun.  It just wore on a little towards the end.  I blame the edging. The first few peaks were fun, but there’s 80 on that blanket. Towards the end it took a certain fortitude of spirit that I usually reserve for cleaning out closets.

3. Just about the minute I finished that blanket, I looked around for something to knit that was totally and completely different and not at all like a baby blanket.

4. That was easy.

Thrummed mittens.  Mine are a kit from Liberty Fibers, bought at the Squam Art Fair last year.  I’m a little helpless in the face of thrummed things. Natalie was here this morning and we were looking at the mitten and she was asking me why I was knitting thrummed mittens in March (when winter is almost over) who they were for…. and I had no answers for her.  None.  I have no intentions for these at all.  I’m just knitting these because they’re fun, fast – and because they’re not a white baby blanket.

I also knit them because even though I’ve been knitting thrummed stuff forever, turning them inside out to reveal their Muppetesque innards always cracks me up.

5.  I’m also knitting socks, but you probably guessed that.  Ken’s birthday was a few days ago, and he always gets Birthday Socks.  This year I was a little bogged down with the Great White, and so he didn’t get them.  As compensation, he got to pick any yarn from the stash, and any pattern he could find. 

6.  The yarn part was pretty easy for him. He picked Dream in Color Everlasting in Congo.  I love that sock yarn.  I think it’s fabulous. Strong, bouncy – super cushy. 

7. Ken choose Francie as his pattern, which I’ve knit for him before, but I made them out of Alpaca Sox, and as beautiful as they were, they got felted. (I got them back. My feet are smaller than his.) He said he misses them.

8.  Yesterday was Tuesday, and I spun.  I’m still trying to finish the cream  BFL (there’s a lot of it) and I admit that I’m feeling a loss of momentum on it.  Maybe  having finished a big white thing I can’t face another big white thing, but this morning found me with a big chunk of CVM that I got from Judith MacKenzie at Madrona – all spread out on the living room floor like a buffet.

9.  I’m trying to get it into my head that if I just finish the BFL, then I can have the CVM.

10.  I’m also trying to convince myself that washing up that fleece so that I’m ready when I finish the BFL doesn’t count.  I think I’m buying it.

11.  BFL is Blue Faced Leicester.  CVM is California Variegated Mutant.  They are kinds of sheep. 

12. I love the mutant part.

Dear Luis,

I know you’re too little to know it, but you’re sort of a big deal around here.  Not only are you one of the worlds most wanted and celebrated babies, you’re also going to go down in history as the only baby I’ve ever loved who got born before their blanket was finished.

Yesterday when I finally brought it to your mum and dad and they put it around you, I felt a profound sense of relief.  Your mum looked so pretty, and like she was finally feeling better, and she said that she hoped that the circus the two of you have been through for the last few weeks was over, and I said that I thought it was.  I told her that I thought she’d run out of trouble.  That there was just nothing else left for her to navigate,  and that I really believed now everything would be smooth sailing.

My small friend, the truth is that in my heart, I had started to believe that nothing could go right for the two of you until I’d handed over that talisman, and that on some level, the blanket was more essential than I had thought.  Those are probably the crazy thoughts of a superstitious auntie, but I just got it into my head that maybe the hours of love in these blankets are somehow protective. A shield of sorts.  A symbol of how loved and wanted and unique you are in our world, and how grateful we are to your parents for bringing you here, and how everyone in this family is here for you, and intends to stand between you and trouble for every day of the rest of your life… as much as we are able.

I started thinking, as I was rushing to finish, that maybe this whack of trouble was the result of that blanket not being in place.  That maybe once I had you wrapped in that thing, it would be a sign to the universe that you have an army of love around you, and that anything that wants to mess with you has to go through us first.  I hope that’s how it works, because that’s what that blanket means.

Like you, your blanket is one of a kind. 

There’s Madeira Lace on the border, because your dad Carlos is Spanish.  There’s snowflakes because your mum Katie is Canadian, and there’s the old tree of life motif there too, because those two things have come together to start a whole new family. (You’ll learn that I’m big on symbolism – it makes me killer help for high school English essays.  Remember that.)

The blanket is big, and I thought it was bigger than I wanted it to be, but now that I think about you and how you’ve arrived and the impact you’ve had – I don’t think that it could be one centimeter smaller to do you justice.

Like you, this blanket looks delicate, but is strong.

I was thinking that maybe a ginormous swath of white lace wasn’t really a baby boy thing, but I realized that it makes total sense, since somehow this blanket is as much for your mum as it is for you.  Your father loves you to distraction, and is entirely devoted to you – any fool can see that, but I think your dad would be the first person to stand up and say that what your mum has been through and done for your little family in that last few weeks was brave, and she’s bloody fierce, and your arrival has only made her more strong and beautiful. 
It almost seems silly that all I’m giving the three of you is a blanket.

Welcome.  Be safe. Be warm.

love,

Auntie Steph

(PS. When you’re ready, I’ll teach you to knit.)

This blanket might be the death of me. Yesterday I was so full of hope, I even imagined (briefly) knitting other things.  Maybe a sweater, finish some socks.  I bought the latest knitting magazines and the world of possibility stretched before me.  I might knit something red I thought.  Or blue.  Or Green – anything except for the eternal white that’s stretched out for so long.  I felt sure that it was all going to work out.  I’d have enough yarn, I’d apply myself, maybe stay up all night and just get it done.

I’m not done.  I knit the snot out of it and it’s still not done, and I think I can say with confidence now that there’s not going to be enough yarn.  I weighed the ball and it was 19g.  Then I worked one repeat, and weighed again.  16g – so that tells me that each repeat takes about 3 grams. Then I counted the repeats left – which was a rather heartbreaking 16.  If each repeat takes three grams, then I need 48 grams, not  16 – and that means it’s back to the store for me. 
Just to be sure, I actually weighed my swatches, thinking maybe I could ravel them and get the extra yardage there. No dice.

Even if I use the swatches, I still need 19 grams, and as I realized I was going to be going to the store for so little, I was suddenly demoralized.  I can’t go to the store today because I have to drive aways, and while I’m driving I won’t be knitting or yarn shopping, and so that means that even though tonight is prime knitting time and I could finish this bad boy? I won’t be able to. 

I was sitting here trying to fetch the yarn with the power of my mind when the phone rang.  It was the lovely and charming Rachel H, on her way to the yarn shop close to her work, and she asked me if I wanted her to score a ball, and maybe drop it in my mailbox so it would be there when I got home?

I almost fell over.  It was a miracle.  It was actually like I was sitting there just wishing the yarn would appear today, and there’s Rachel H solving the whole problem.  I gratefully accepted, and made a mental note get her a little present, or kiss her full on the mouth or something.  Relieved, I started packing up to leave, thinking about how happy I am, and about how great it is that that little problem evaporated totally, and about how tomorrow I’ll knit something that isn’t white while the blanket blocks.  Rachel H is totally the kind of person who texts you pictures of yarn from the store, so a minute later when my phone went off, I expected a picture of the yarn and a very Rachel-esque text message like "VICTORY IS MINE" or "SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES!!" Instead?

"They don’t have it."

This, clearly is a crushing defeat.  That store was my whole backup plan. That’s where I was going to go in the morning, and now they don’t have it and I’m going to have to start calling around, and I’m absolutely sure I’ll find some,  for the love of wool, I’m sure one of you has 19 grams of it, but whatever I do now, it’s going to take me a bit to get it, and that brings me to my next great idea.

We should be able to fax yarn. At least small quantities.  No reason humanity can’t work that out.

(PS. Because you’re all going to ask now, the yarn is Lanett superwash baby yarn, in colour 1001, lot number 713636, although I don’t think lot matters much. If you see a ball of it somewhere near Toronto, let me know. I’ll go get it until we have the fax thing worked out.)

This blanket can be finished.   I believe that now.  I’ve been knitting like a demon on it, and after putting in some solid work, I think the end is in sight. The problem now is that the end of the yarn is in sight as well.  It’s looming actually, the little half ball remaining to me sitting there and looking leaner with every repeat.  Last night at knit night someone looked at how much I had to go, and how much yarn I had left and gave me a worried glance.  "Do you have a plan for what you’ll do if you run out?" they asked tactfully. 

"Do you have a plan for what you’ll do if you run out" is knitterese for "You’re never going to make it – you see that don’t you?" and I’ve been friends with knitters for long enough to make the translation straight away.  I mumbled something about how I’d had two balls, and the first ball did half so the second ball should do the other half – but in the back of my mind, I wasn’t really worried.  I was convinced that somewhere in this house there was another ball of that yarn. When I got more, I’d put the old lot of yarn into one bag, and the new in the other, and set aside three balls to do the edging, because I wanted to use all one lot for that. I’ve used one, I’m knitting the second, so upstairs should by my ball remaining.

I just trotted myself upstairs to dive into the little paper bag sitting in the stash room that held the insurance ball, and it’s not there. Odd, I thought, but things have been a little hairy here, so I checked another couple of likely places.  Then I checked some unlikely places, and now I’ve been checking really super unlikely places and it’s stopped being "checking" and is now right on the edge of  just ripping the house up – and that ball isn’t here. It’s nowhere. I thought maybe I left it in the Dominican – but I know I didn’t.  I remember putting it really carefully in my suitcase, because the blanket was too important to screw up.  Same thing for when I was at Madrona, and besides it stands to reason that if I had it at Madrona, I couldn’t have left it in the Dominican.  I know it was here, I know it was. I’m absolutely positive – and now it’s just gone, which is making me a total crazy person.

It really isn’t that big a deal.  If I run out tonight, I know where to get more, and it’s not a big trip and it can be easily handled.  It won’t even put off finishing the blanket by much, it’s just that I feel like I need an explanation for where it has gone.  It can’t have disappeared.  It has to be here somewhere. I know that I haven’t had a lot of sleep since I got home, and I’ve been all over the place, but I’m just not the kind of person who misplaces something as important as this yarn – and that means it’s somewhere, or something happened, and try as I might to just sit down and knit, I keep thinking of another place it could be – or another thing that might have happened.  I’m so disturbed by it that a few minutes ago I checked the fridge and a suitcase I haven’t used in two years. I’ve spent more time looking for it than it would have taken to get on the streetcar and get more, and that means I have to let it go.

There’s one explanation that makes sense, and for the sake of my sanity, I’ve decided to accept it.  This blanket is now so big, and has so much yarn in it, and it’s been run in at such a great rate of speed over the last few days, that the blanket is now working like a yarn siphon, or a black hole.  It now has so much yarn mass squeezed into one spot that it has started generating its own gravity, and because like attracts like, out of all the balls of yarn in this house, the blanket has already reached out on a molecular level to the stash room, and sucked in the ball that I was going to feed it.

It’s that or I lost it, but in all seriousness I think the black hole is more likely.