Don't try to play yarn hero.

This is what happens.  I pulled out two partially used balls of Filatura Di Crosa Zara to use for the medium gray for Dad's mittens.  Since the yarn is a light DK weight, I held two strands together to get the same-ish gauge as the rest of the mitten which uses worsted weight.  These balls of yarn were kind of tangled up and a mess when I pulled them out.  But, in an effort to cut corners, I decided just to wing it and detangle the yarn as I knit figuring that it would be ok.  Well, it didn't turn out to be ok.  It got to the point where I could not pull anymore yarn because it was tangled up so tight, and some strands were stuck together because of the little felted fuzzies that develop around the yarn from the friction of pulling it against itself.  At about 9pm, this is what I had.  Boo.

So, I decided to stop knitting and get out the trusty ball winder and negotiate my mess.  I sat on the couch and detangled one of the balls successfully.  Of course, when I brought this over to the ball winder and started winding, the new pile separated from the rest of the ball got tangled all over again!  But, I did it.  One ball done.  I thought the other ball would take way less time since the overall yarn is less (this seemed logical at 10:30pm last night).  So, I found the end of the ball and stuck it in the ball winder right away without untangling the rest.  Well, that was the wrong move.  After sitting there struggling with the tangled part for a while, and Jay Leno's face appearing on my TV, I sucked it up and unwound the partial ball I had started and started untangling the last of the mess.  I don't remember the last time I watched Jay Leno.  He's really not that  funny, and I REALLY don't like Kevin Eubanks for some reason.  I mean, I'm sure he's a fine guitarist, but his little jokey things that he tries to make are WEAK.  He's almost as bad as Brian Surgeons.

ANYWAY, the only good thing about Jay Leno is that Conan O'Brian comes on after.  And, yes, I was still up trying to make sense of the 2nd ball of yarn.  I finished just as David Duchovny was finishing up his interview.  He's actually pretty funny.  David Duchovny is weird to me because I never watch the X-Files or any movies he's been in.  I only really know him from that show with boobs and dry humping he was featured in on Showtime.  Do you remember what I'm talking about?  Ok, so anyway, AFTER that, I ended up with all the yarn in these nice neat little balls, ready to knit.  This ended up to be a huge chore and I didn't get nearly as much knitting on these things that I wanted to last night.  I really want to try to finish them tonight.  Next time, I will spend some time making tangled yarn into nice ball-ish yarn before I put it away for a while so it won't turn into a cup of coffee later down the road.

Also, it snowed for the third time in a week yesterday!  It did make the trees outside of my window look beautiful, though.  There are so many piles of snow, it is getting kind of out of hand.  I finally got my ipod fixed, and I get to go pick it up today!  I have all of my music and most of Santina's music on my hard drive at home, and I can't wait to put most of it on my ipod just in time for my road trips.  I miss listening to XTC so much!  I only have those albums in digital format, so I haven't listened to them in a while.  I miss a lot of music, but probably XTC the most.  It will be a good ride home tomorrow.

Comments

[naomi]

Okay, first of all, you've been posting so fast and furious I haven't had time to comment fast enough. Here's a recap of some things I'd like to say...
(1) Oh, those mittens look great
(2) You have a lot of goals, they seem to all be knitting oriented. Are you obsessive-compulsive?
(3) David Duchovny is tasty, there is evidence of this in the movie Kalifornia which stars Brad Pitt as a serial killer. Also, Bree Sharp wrote a song to him like a million year ago which I still listen to.
(4) We miss you! Have a Merry Christmas!