Swampwater Debutante

OH. Shall I tell you how I did THAT?

I have been working on my knee highs (yes. I know. I said I wouldn’t, but I also said I wasn’t going to buy extra yarn last week and I think we know how THAT went). Now they are kinda big around, since I have Godzilla Chonk Calves. So they get a little boring sometimes. Fortunately, since I never clean out my purse , I had a spare circular needle and skein of yarn bouncing around (the previously mentioned pink yarn, Fibranatura Yummy, which…I dunno. it is pretty and goes smoosh. and for once I liked the pink better than the blue, though that might just be because I have a hell of a lot of blue sock yarn, how many pairs of blue socks does one need? as for the purse…well, it is a really, really BIG purse), so I pulled them out. The needle was a size one, like the one I had been using on the knee highs, but I had elected not to use it because it was a shorter length. Further, it was a Harmony birchwood needle rather than the slinky nickel plated needle in the knee highs. This is relevant.

I decided to ball up the skein first, rather than knitting directly from it. I felt to do that was courting disaster. I tucked the needle into my lap and chatted to clients, all the while balling up yarn.

But I fidget. I am a twitchy, fidgety, movy sort of person. So I kept shifting about in my seat, first this leg tucked up, then that one, sometimes both.

Thirty minutes or so later, I finished the ball and looked around my desk for my needle. Hmm. Where is the needle? I poked about in my black hole of a handbag, thinking I’d thrown it back in there. No. To the left of my computer, with the knee high? No. To the right, behind the bag? No. In my lap? No. Wait. What?

I looked over the side of my chair and confronted that most gruesome sight - a very nice knitting needle shredded to splinters by the wheels of my office chair. I felt my eyes start to swim in tears; it’s not that this is that expensive a needle, but I’ve been trying so hard to be more responsible, and I have a big bill coming up this weekend for brake repairs. Also, it’s a really NICE needle. Knitpicks does a lovely job with the Harmony line, I love them.

I can’t justify replacing it until mid-August (as I do have a couple of sets of perfectly good DPNs I could use, rather than Magic Looping - I knit socks with both methods), and I hate that I’m down a needle; I have not built the same needle stash as I have my yarn stash. But to have been so careless with a knitting needle! It’s the equivalent of letting your dog use your good d20 as a chew toy.

Two packages waiting in my mailbox helped a bit, though. Not my latest MadelineTosh acquisition, unfortunately, but this -

Two enormous skeins of sock yarn from Fearless Fibers, a ridiculously soft and squishy and delectable yarn. I got Spellbound (the blue…which, so much for scaling back on blue sock yarn, I guess) and Brick House (HA! NOT BLUE). I cannot wait to knit with it, but in the meantime I just remain flabbergasted by how touchable it is, and how HUGE the skein is! 550 yards, it’s unheard of. And of course, I want more.

Another package had the ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yooooooooooooooooooooooooootest Hello Kitty bag from my Auntie Space! It’s going to be the perfect knitting bag. Thank you! And the pen, too. I can always use more Hello Kitty pens. Ironically, I got HER a Hello Kitty pen as well, in the haul of her presents from Manila. Which I will either send out eventually or bring to The Ensign’s wedding. Whichever. Hee. I hate the post office.

Separately from anything else today, I bought the girls a catnip toy. I think if I keep them stoned for the next few weeks it’ll be easier to integrate Trilby into the house. Maybe. I’m not sure about this. I DO know my cats are hilarious when stoned, and that Mina came down the stairs earlier and hurled the toy off the landing nearly directly onto Callisto’s head.

Don’t worry about Callie. She’d already had her turn with the thing and just sort of stared at it blankly as it hurtled beyond her ears. Hee.