A Yarn Yarn

So, my friend Gemma gave me a book called Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter for Christmas. Its highly entertaining, written by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, someone can both Write and Knit. I do a little knitting but don't consider myself all that highly advanced, but was very inspired to knit a pair of socks after reading said book. I looked on the Lion Brand website because they have patterns for everything you would want to knit for yourself, your home and our pet. I found one for socks, and off to AC Moore I went, to check out Lion Brand Magic Stripes. Its a yarn which is variegated so make things striped as you knit them without changing yarn colors (hence the name, apparently). There were only two skeins left, not in the charming colors I had found on the website, but what the heck. I also needed a set of 5 double pointed needles, size 3. AC Moore only had sets of 4 double pointed needles, size three, so off I went to the Fabric Place. Of course, they have an entire SECTION of yarn for knitting socks. Why I didn't go there in the first place, I will never be able to explain. Anyway, they had a lovely version of Magic Stripes-style yarn by another manufacuturer, so I bought it along with my beloved set of 5 bamboo double pointed size three needles. Knitting on bamboo or plastic is the best. I hate the raspy sound of metal-on-metal, and unfortunately, my mother passed along all her knitting stuff to me with tons of metal needles. Anyway, back to AC Moore to return the yarn I didn't like that much. OK, ready to go. I dutifully and clumsily cast on my 56 stiches across the four needles, using the 5th as the one to knit with. I am challenged enough using 2 needles let alone 5 so I was a little strung out doing this (pardon the pun). I knit on the train on the way to and from work, so the cramped quarters and frequent jabbing of the cuffs of my big winter coat with the needles creates a bit of an undesirable setting. Working in this fashion a very delicate process until there is enough knitting done to give it enough heft to keep all the parts together without a lot of prayers and swears (ever notice that those two words rhyme?). So I did my knitting through the ribbing at the top of the sock and had started on the part that goes down your leg. I was starting to cook. It was looking good, but a little lacy which I hadn't anticipated. I guess I knit either loosely or with trepidation. I think on this project it was the latter. I showed my sock to my boss as he's fascinated with such activities and he totally mocked it saying it looked like a headband and that no one in the world except the Elephant Man has legs big enough to wear a sock that size, etc. You get the picture. And I can't say he was wrong. As I was walking from work to the train that evening, a kind woman stopped me on the street to say that I had dropped something. It was the instructions to my socks. As I turned back to pick them up, my macho little denim knitting bag fell to the ground as well. And it was EMPTY. The freakin' partial sock and the freakin' ball of yarn and 4 of the 5 freakin' double pointed size 3 bamboo needles were gone. I dug through the rest of my rather large work bag and nope. All kinds of other sources of entertainment for the commute, but no knitting. A retrace of my steps turned up nothing. All I can hope is that some far more talented knitter than I recognized that ball of fiber for what it was and what it could be and is now knitting up a luscious something for someone special.