I've been delaying writing about what happened to me on Friday night hoping that soon I would have a happy ending and that would make for a better story. Also, I've been avoiding it because it is too painful to discuss. It might be therapeutic and maybe help someone, so I'm going to start at the beginning.
As I already mentioned, my terrific SP sent my a third parcel containing a sock kit and it arrived Wednesday night. I was so excited and just loved the yarn. While I was at work on Thursday morning I decided it was finally time I bought myself a ball winder. I've been wanting one for so long now and I have a few skeins of yarn that I keep passing over only because they require balling up before I can make a swatch. Now with this sock yarn as one more incentive I rushed out to London-Wul during my noon hour to pick up the ball winder. I had decided to forgo purchasing a swift at the same time because there are ways to hold the yarn without it and together they would be a big purchase (this was quite last minute purchase and it's not like it's my birthday or anything).
I had plans on Thursday night to go out for a friends birthday so the ball winder and the new sock yarn sat in their respective boxes all night. All day on Friday while I was at work I dreamed of what I was going to do when I got home. The first chore was to ball the beautiful lavendar blue yarn then pack it and the proper needles into the lavendar travel bag it came with and head up to my room for an evening of sock knitting (jaywalkers I think) and TV watching. My husband was having guys over to jam with so this seemed like a perfect retreat for me.
Friday evening started off wonderfully. I got off work a tad early and headed to a tapas bar with some friends for a glass of wine, some jazz and some snacks. The sun was shining and the day was gorgeous. I arrived home a little later than expected, about 6:30pm, so I rushed down stairs to the ball winder and sock yarn. It was time to prepare for my perfect retreat evening.
I placed the yarn over my knees and began winding with the winder. I had a couple false starts but was soon on my way. The yarn kept slipping off my knees or getting stuck on my pant hem so I switched to the back of a chair. Then the yarn kept snagging on the chair hinges so I switched to my hands. Before I knew it I was in this mess...
I tried to fix it and was making it worse. I started to cry! I was angry, upset, embarrassed and panicked and I just could not take it. I actually screamed! My husband came running down to the craft room (thank god his friends weren't here yet) and saw what had happened. He tried to reassure me it would be all fine and I cried harder. I was having a real panic moment (i'm ashamed to admit that). There was no calming me so he removed me from the situation and told me he would fix the yarn for me tomorrow and told me that later it would make a good blog story. I told him I'd never write about this because it was just horrific to do something so horrible to something so beautiful.
This is what I ended up with (to make things worse I never took a picture before I started winding the yarn).
Skip ahead a day and here is my devoted husband attempting to keep his crazy wife sane.
What a savior he is. He is half way through, he worked 2 hours yesterday detangling. I really owe him a big huge favor when it's all untangled.
Meanwhile, I got him to assist me with balling some less precious yarn yesterday and when I hold the yarn on my arms and he works the ball winder we have absolutely no problems. It just takes two!
So after my emotional rollercoaster on Friday evening I needed a project I could complete and feel happy about. I dug out some left over wool from when I made a pair of the socks from Weekend Knitting. Troy had washed and shrunk one of them (but we are not complaining about Troy today, he is detangling!) so I've been staring at the one sock that is still wearable with it's unusable mate for months now. I took the left over yarn and knit up another sock. I ran out of the yarn with 2 rows in the heel left, but frankly I don't care. At least I can wear them now... that makes me happy. Now as long as I don't look at the other mess I can keep smiling.
