Wasn’t me, didn’t do it, can’t prove anything.
Those of you who know me also know that I’m not much of one for the hard-core femme, girly-girl thing. Yes, I’ve had my moments with wigs and lipsticks and corsets and heels and what-not. And yes, one of my favorite colors at the moment is pink. However, it’s not any kind of gentle, feminine rose pink; it’s more of an in-yo-face, whachoo-gonna-do-about-it pink. And cute? Unh-uh. You’re reading the words of a woman who for eight years had a button on the dashboard of her car reading “Cuteness should never go unpunished.” And lacy stuff? Fugeddaboutit. Ribbons, frills, fripperies and lace are all things that happen to other women…women who don’t ride a bus alone for three days with a bunch of drunken, dancing Nepali men, for example.
As you might imagine I suffered a bit of a shock when just the other day I realized that my attempts at the fiber arts were undergoing a kind of sea change.
Exhibit A: Tatting.
I can hear y’all now: tatting–WTF? I know what it looks like; but the thing is, I’m not really responsible for that bit of traditional fiber arts there. See, what happened was, eight months ago, there I was in Berkeley, SOCKMOB*, when This Dude** just runs up on me, grabs my purse, and stuffs some tatting shuttles, two tatting books, and four balls of DMC #10 cotton into it, and runs off. That’s what I get for going anywhere near LACIS. My friend Sylvia was there and she not only saw the whole thing, she enabled it later by showing me how to tat while we recovered over a cuppa coffee at her parents house. So the tatting thing? Totally not my fault. Blame the Beadlizard.
Exhibit B: Lace knitting.
Yes, I did buy a whole skein of Baruffa merino laceweight to commit this heinous crime. And yes, that was me printing out the pattern for the Snowdrop Shawl. And yes, those are my circulars supporting that incriminating bit of lacework you see there.
Okay. I can explain, y’all, I really can.
See, what happened was, I was just surfing the Internet (this was before getting to India), when I made the mistake of turning to the Yarn Harlot’s blog for some mental amusement and relaxation. And she’s got this shawl pattern, which just happened to load up on my monitor screen, where I couldn’t help reading the damn thing. And it’s written in such a straightforward, you-can-do-it style that I just couldn’t help myself. The next few moments I can remember about the whole thing are kinda blurry. Somewhere in there was a trip to Stash, in Albany…my friend Tien standing by and helping me to fondle skeins…a swipe of the debit card…hogging the store’s ballwinder for a while? Something? I dunno. And recently I was digging through the travel stash (yes, Joy and I packed yarn stashes to go to India, so yes, you can laugh) and the merino laceweight came into my hands and exerted this um…hypnotic force style of thing. So, you see, the Snowdrop Shawl isn’t my fault either. Blame the Yarn Harlot.
* SOCKMOB: - Standing On the Corner, Knitting, Minding my Own Business. A fiberly variation on the SOCMOB stories most Emergency Room medics deal with. These tall tales usually start with “See, what happened was…”
** This Dude: Of the legendary Dude brothers. You know, “This dude, he just up and hit me.” and “Some dude started talking trash, so I hadda…” and the ever-popular, “Those two dudes over there started it all, Officer.”
