Houston - we have yarn issues.

Okay you guys, there is nothing on tv. This does not help.

So it all started - oooh - two weeks ago. Or so. I knew about the Hedera sock pattern from the latest Knitty (Spring '06), but it didn't really interest me until I happened to see a pair made for Sundara of Sundara Yarn by a secret pal (pal's site; Purly Whites blog; Sundara Yarn).

Ever since then, I've been obsessing a little about bright (but not quite neon) green Hederas. Except for some reason, I can't buy the yarn. Oh, no. I thought I might try to find a thrift store or clearance rack sweater in that perfect lime green that is also wool and fingering weight.

Hey, stop laughing!

So I went to Goodwill last Friday and found a wool sweater that isn't lime green, but it's a very dyeable cream color and $2. I bought it, brought it home, and proceeded to pull it to pieces. I had a front, two arms, a half unraveled back and an unraveled collar when one of the relatives we had dinner plans with called. At this point, I knew what was about to happen because I had already sneezed at least 50 times.

Me: Hello? (internally: OH NO, I sound like a man.)
Her: Hi.... Stephanie?
Me: yes?
Her: Are you... okay? Are you sick? We can reschedule, we don't have to go out tonight!
Me: Um... no, I'm not sick. I'll be fine for dinner, I promise. It's not contageous. I'll explain later.
Her: Oh, is it allergies?
Me: Uh ... sort of. I'll explain it all later. At dinner.
Her: You know the pollen count has been high, and May is a bad month. It seems like it just gets worse every year.
Me: ... .... yeah. I'll tell you all about it. Later.

Of course by dinner I sounded like Congested Me instead of Me Playing a Man, and I think they think I'm crazy. I left out the part about the socks.

So Paul tells me he's scared of me as a man, and that if I plan to touch that sweater again I have to put on a dust mask... probably a good idea. So I bought one (on clearance; I have a budget here) and got back to yarning this evening. After I shut the blinds (can't you just see that? the elderly neighbors see me in a mask - the young, new neighbor with all those cats and the two mismatched red cars - and clearly, with my mask, I am probably making meth. I fully expected to get a knock on the door from the cops because after I shut the blinds the cat went to sit in the window, exposing just enough for everybody to see my mask anyway. I wonder if the cops will show?). I first tried to pry my half-a-back off the chair I wound it on..apparently too tightly ... and decided I might as well finish the back and rewind the whole thing onto something else. Right. So I pulled and pulled - and sneezed - and pulled some more, and finished. Then I started poking around the house looking for something to wind onto. I had some inspiration involving two other chairs or a chair and the post at the bottom of the stairs, but the FREAKING CATS chose this moment to realize, "Hey, that's yarn! We love yarn!" and not allow anything remotely like moving.

So. Here I am. I sound like Felicity Huffman in Transamerica.


And the yarn? Still on the chair. Also? From the collar yarn that I've washed and swatched, the yarn is dk weight. Too big for Hederas.


I figured I might as well blog about it and give the cats a chance to head back to one of those 20 hours of sleep a day.