I’m no Forrest Gump, but since I work with so much yarn, I often find the process of untangling a mass of yarn to be much like working through issues in my life.  Fortunately, I enjoy working with tangled yarn!

Why Tangled Yarn?

First of all, what knitter among us hasn’t had the arrogant thought, “I don’t need to put this hank of yarn on a swift and rewind it…I’ll carefully wind yarn off the hank and it will work out fine!”  Or another favorite when I’m knitting from both the inside and outside of a center-pull ball:  “Oh I have PLENTY of time before I have to untwist the two ends from that ball before it becomes a tangled mess.”

Similarly, my arrogance or over-confidence is often what gets me into problems in my life.

Also, anyone who has ever untangled a mass of tangled yarn knows that patience and deliberate slow and easy movements is one of the keys to getting a tangle back in order.  You ease out, and loosen the massive clumps of twists and knots.  You work on sections of the interlocking, grabby yarn.  It’s always great when  you can work out a small section that makes other sections go more quickly.  When it gets overwhelming on one end of the yarn, working on the other end restores some patience.  Sometimes I’ll wind small balls of yarn that are easier to weave in and out of the tangle of knots.  But there’s usually that one point in the untangling process where it’s clear I’m going to end up with a clean ball of yarn.

I’m an obstinate bastard.  But once in a while, I have just decided it’s not worth it, and I’ve chucked a hopeless mass of yarn.

But even total losses were life-lessons for learning to let go and cut my losses.

Current Knitting

Knitting time was lost last night as we went out to see a movie.  “Ready or Not” was worth losing knitting time, but my current project did suffer (in terms of not making a ton of progress.

I was honestly hoping I’d finish this one soon. But greasy popcorn hands and dark theaters don’t exactly go hand-in-hand with a silk knitting project.