It's Dead, Jim

Dateline: August 9th Desiree plops a small duffel on the table at SDCentral Knitting Group. "I want your honest opinion, girls," she says as she unzips the bag, "don't spare my feelings. I really need to know what you think." With that, she reaches in and begins to remove an amorphous blob of red and purple yarns. The expectation is that she is finished. Ah, if only. She reaches in again, pulling out more and more and more of it. Six feet, eight feet, where will it end? The unwieldy mass threatens to take over the room as knitters and non-knitters alike stare in fascination. Finally the last of it is laid upon the altar of knitting. Silky yarns, slubby yarns, eyelash, ribbon, fuzzy, shiny gold thread sticking out all over.

Silence. Dead silence. Finally someone ventures, "What is it?"

Ahh, yes. That's the question, isn't it? Started years ago, it was supposed to be a simple stole, but somehow refused to lengthen, staying at a stubborn sixteen inches no matter how much yarn it was fed.

The pattern for the Isis Stole was printed in here

And is supposed to look like this

But wound up like this

Much of yesterday was dedicated to taking it into its component parts. I was afraid I'd have to trash some of it, but patience and gentleness (traits which I tend only to show to fibers) won out. This morning I decided to have a little fun photographing the many many balls of yarns.

I just had to share this with you. If you seriously respect the dignity of the olympic dream, though, you might want to skip it.