It was late when M. entered her room, roughly around 1 A.M.. She had just eaten dinner and had a plan for how the remainder of her evening was about to go. She was only half right.
As was her custom, M. took a moment to check Ravelry (a website for yarn enthusiasts) and then her email. It only took a few minutes and then she turned around and picked up her project.
M. has been knitting a sock, and tonight, she was planning on finishing it.
One hour and then another slipped by unnoticed. M. was focused on her stitches and the shortening length of yarn.
To M., it seem to take forever to get within range of "casting off". Stitch by stitch, row by row she kept to her task. She later admitted that occasionally her mind wandered a bit. M. thought about funny posts she wanted to make in the CPaAG forum of Ravelry and other "such things like that, ya know?"
"Knitting a 2x2 rib is not the most challenging thing there is, okay?" said M. sounding a bit defensive. When asked what a "2x2 rib" was and what that meant, she looked around as if searching for words then frantically picked up two metal spikes and began waiving them menacingly. This reporter decided to let the question go and get M. back to explaining the events of the night.
It did finally happen and M. said that she felt a bit excited as she saw the length of yarn was finally within range to "cast off". She also claims that she gave herself a stern talking to, telling herself to "calm down before you mess up and end up having to rip back yet again."
M. made it through the first needle, carefully doing a loose bind off she called "k2, pass stitches back and k2tog, *k1, pass last stitch back, k2tog; repeat from * to last stitch." She assures us it is a loose bind off and since she was working from ribbing some times she "p2tog" but found that very uncomfortable.
According to M., 5 needles were being used to make the sock.
Tragedy struck when she was two stitches into the second needle. She was attempting another "p2tog" when she her a very soft snap.
"At first, I thought the cats were up to something out in the hallway. They stay locked out of my room, because of all the yarn-you see, and, anyway, they are always making funny noises trying to lure me out of the room, mostly in hopes I'll leave the door open behind me or something. I've often told the cats they should start an industrial music band or a kitty equivalent of STOMP or Blue Man Group, but anyway. So I heard this sound and froze for a second then ignored it. Then I noticed my knitting needle, the one holding the stitches yet to be worked, was a lot shorter than it had been and I couldn't figure it out. I think, like, my brain was trying to protect me or something. I didn't know it yet, but was 3 A.M. already and past my bed time.
So, it took a moment but I realized something was wrong. I had my working needle inside two stitches and somewhere around 45 stitches on the other needle so I was really, really careful to hold both those needles with one hand and not let them move while I opened my other hand.
Then I had one of those moments, you know, where you can't makes sense of what your looking at until your subconscious has had the chance to do whatever to cushion the blow. Eventually I sorted out the image. I had a snapped needle in my hand.
For a second, I was panicked. This was the second snapped needle from this sock just on this set of needles! I had a bamboo set I had started with that had a needle snap nearly in half, which makes three broken needles all together. Somehow this sock was eating needles!
I had all these stitches on the small piece and the rest of the needle was useless in my hand."
She admits that it took a lot of willpower to keep herself from blowing up and going on a killing rampage.
"Lesser things have tipped knitters off the edge and into pure madness. Just ask."
M. turned her panic into determination. She says that, for a moment, all her years of watching MacGuyver boiled up in her mind's eye, but in the end there was a simpler fix.
The needle she had already finished casting off of was with in easy reach.
"I don't think the stitches would have stayed still if I had to get up from my chair. Knitters know that stitches can be like three year old's, just give the parent some huge messy issue to distract them and the kids will take advantage of he distraction to make the mess worse in the name of play."
M. tossed down the piece of needle in her hand and picked up the whole one. She tried to be careful, sliding stitches over the sharp, broken end and onto the new needle but even she could not prevent some splinters getting into her yarn.
"All I can say is that my roommate better like splinters."
Eventually she did get the stitches moved over and was able to return to her task, but there was still another breath-taking moment ahead of her.
"I was starting on the last needle, and remember-we are talking 45 or so stitches per needle, when I noticed the end of the yarn was dangling from my hand a bit closer than I liked."
M. said she barely breathed at all while she worked those last stitches.
"I totally gave up on the p2tog and started pulling my stitches a little tighter."
In the end, there was a few inches of yarn left after the last stitch was worked.
"I was so happy that it was finally done. I mean, there were several times when I wanted to set the sock down and go get a big bottle of wine. After the needle broke, I wanted some strong port and when the last stitch was done all I could think of was the bottles of whiskey I've collected and how much I thought I could down straight before I lost consciousness. It seemed like such a good idea."
Yet, she resisted the urge and instead went to bed so she would be rested for work the next day.
Even as she laid her head down upon her pillow, she tried to dismiss the drama of the evening's knitting and instead focus on the accomplishment, but it was a challenge. In her mind's eye, the phantom of the second sock loomed before her and she hoped that it would not be needle hungry as well.
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