Monday 23 April 2007

The House of Flying Knitting Needles!

Hi everyone!
Sorry I have been away for a while but it has been due to circumstances beyond my control, namely Mum not being available to type for me.

Firstly because she had to go back to work last week, so hasn't had as much time and secondly because of the 'great knitting disaster'! Notice the title of my post!!
Read on and I will explain.

One evening last week, all was calm in my house.
Dad was watching TV, so were the tiddlypeeps and myself. George was dozing and Little Mummy was deep in sleep land, which is nothing unusual, she sleeps most of the time!
Mum was knitting her Forest Canopy shawl, muttering things like yarn over knit one, yarn over knit two, which doesn't mean much to me but seems to keep her happy!!! Now and again she glanced at the TV but wasn't really bothered about it.
So as I said a calm, peaceful evening, until .................... all of a sudden this yell and a rude word, which I can't repeat, came from my Mum (who is normally the calmest of all of us).
Everyone looked round and poor Dad was the one who dared to ask what the matter was (silly man, I kept my mouth shut). Apparently Mum had accidentally caught her left hand knitting needle and pulled it out of about a dozen stitches (at this point she had about 180 something on the needles and was getting close to the end). Dad tried to comfort her, but made the mistake of saying 'just pick them up again' (even sillier). Mum screeched that she couldn't just pick them up and tried to explain about the yarn over things making the holey pattern and the leaf pattern. Dad still trying to be helpful (I tried to tell him) said he couldn't see the leaves and (trying to be more helpful but failing miserably) what difference would a few more holes make anyway! (Has he got a death wish?)
At this point Mum went a bit purple in the face, (I think she may have called Dad a name but I was trying to run for cover), and wrenching the needles from her knitting threw them across the room! (Narrowly missing piercing my ear!) Then she left her mangled knitting on the floor and stomped off to bed. Not being one to miss a bit of comfort I curled up on the wool and went to sleep, until Mum came down again and put it all back in her bag, then stomped off again. That is a lot of stomping for my Mum!

Hence, the name of my post, very witty I thought and now Mum can see the funny side of it (just) so she agreed to type it.
She knew she should have put some lifelines in, but didn't (she has now)!!
I think she's remembering the pattern better after all that practise with the first attempt.
Anyway, due to this all other knitting has been abandoned and Mum is on a mission to finish the shawl. Dad has even agreed to buy her more wool for another one (to keep the peace I think).

Thank you to those people who made suggestions for the next sock wool to be used, I decided on the Peacock, but did laugh over the Crazy Frog and Crazy Peacock idea. Mum has put the progress bar up but hasn't started yet.

This knitting business is a bit dangerous sometimes!

2 comments:

Knittingknutty said...

Well maybe you can do the crazy thing another day. I know that feeling when all those stitches fall off the needle.You can go from anger to crying and then swearing. It's just not fair.I need to go, I smell a dirty diaper. I bet there is one laying around here some place. (I left the kids at home with dad tonight)

rachel iufer said...

free-flying stitches in lace is a horrible, terrible thing. i've put down the rowan butterfly dress for this very reason. i hope this accident doesn't happen again. it can be very stressful.

in response to your question, my trick is to look the teacher or the pastor in the eye while i knit so that they can see for themselves that i can successfully knit and pay attention at the same time. the pattern has to be simple enough, and i still contribute to class discusions and the like, and put the knitting down as needed. there are some classes that just can't be knitted in, and others where i knit the entire time. several of my teachers simply know me as "the knitter" :)