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Some back story on this anecdote: I have only one set of size 0 DPNS. I happened to be working on a part of the Skunkworks Sock which requires all five needles - one could theoretically try and use four, but not if one was completely exhausted and strung out at the time, you know?
I board the bus for Everett, and take the seat directly behind the rear door. A guy in his early 20s wearing some kind of sports team’s shirt takes the seat beside me, plugs in his ipod, and proceeds to start text messaging his friends. Cool, cool.
So I’m knitting along, when suddenly one of the DPNs goes zzzzip and falls out of the stitches. (They do love to do that, don’t they?) I peer down between my feet in vain, for I had heard at least three or four clatters, which meant that it went far, far away. No needle. I stare at the knitting. I think, I’m going to start crying, right here on this bus, just because I’m so fricken’ tired, and everyone’s going to think I’m a nut. Not knowing what else to do, I use the free needle to pick up the loose stitches. Then I stare at the knitting some more.
After a few minutes, the guy sitting next to me unplugs his ear buds and asks, “Did you need that?”
I mumble something meaningless and stuff the sock into my bag. He smiles, gets up from his seat, and peers over the little wall, down into the narrow stairwell, which leads to the rear door of the bus, and which - yes, there it is - the little DPN has fallen into the crack between the stair and the door.
You may not know this about bus doors, but they are designed to open if you push on them hard enough. This is probably some sort of safety feature. But if, for example, you were to attempt to reach head-first down the stairwell and try to fetch a teeny weeny needle before it fell out the door (which is rattling ever so slightly with the breeze) and the bus hit a bump, and you tipped forward (being a full-grown male of the species) and fell against the door? While the bus was moving at 65MPH down the interstate? Not such a safety feature.
I watched, a little bit frozen with terror, as this complete stranger carefully reached down there, plucked the needle from certain doom, and handed it back to me. I was all like “YOU’RE MY HERO!” and maybe I said this a little bit too loudly, because everyone on the bus stiffened up in that Crazy Lady Alert! sort of way, but I did not care.
Thanks to Guy In Sports Shirt, I was able to keep knitting on the ride back to Everett, and did I keep a firm grip on all five DPNs at all times? Oh my, yes.
Saturday I had to make a run back to Seattle for the final cleaning/key hand-off at the old apartment. It coincided nicely with Ryan’s Dulaan yarn giveaway so I stopped in there first. So much yarn! For free! As much as you want! (Here, have a few more.) Meeting Ryan, TMK, and Frankie was a blast - and yes, Frankie is every bit as cute as her pictures would lead you to believe.
Ryan and TMK were both super nice, and Ryan even brought kleenex when we were watching The Movie and I started freaking out about sitting in a stranger’s living room weeping - people, The Movie is really sad. Fast forward to the happy part where the little kids get their knitwear, then pick up your needles and knit like crazy. Trust me.
Here you can see what Ryan’s up against. These are two of the mega-skeins. Each of them weighs, oh, about 10 pounds. I propped them up on the built-in porch bench with a roll of packing tape, for perspective. They’re about the size of an eight year-old child. They’re so large that you can’t help but giggle when you see them.
As you can see, I took some of the much-maligned gold yarn. I like the gold yarn! Particularly when paired with the darker-than-red-but-lighter-than-maroon yarn. Doesn’t it look just like the Dulaan logo?
These are some of the “normal” skeins. Don’t they all go nicely together? Well, you can’t really see the dark color very well in the picture - it’s a brown so dark, it’s almost black. Call the color Special Dark. I’m crazy about this color!
A close-up picture of the Special Dark in the sunlight.
These mega-skeins are a real storage issue. (And I only have two! Think of Ryan’s garage!) I cleared out a big sweater tub, thinking that it would be plenty of room for the Dulaan yarn. Here’s what the yarn thought of this plan.
That’s two mega-skeins in the tub, with three or four normal skeins kind of tucked into the cracks, plus a garbage bag of normal skeins on top. I did finally get the tub’s lid closed, by virtue of leaning on it with all my weight to snap the ends closed. Then I had to weight down the middle, because the yarn bowed the lid up. And cram a few dozen normal skeins here and there in some other knitting tubs. Holy crap, that’s a lot of yarn.
_Random Pictures_
The “driveway”
Secret Sock waiting for the bus at 4th and Union, downtown Seattle
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