We have a big couch.  It’s old.  It’s ugly.  We like it anyway.  The one thing it has going for it is that it’s comfy.   My daughter loves to stretch out and relax.  I occasionally nap there on the weekends.   My hubby occasionally falls asleep there when he stays up too late watching movies.

The couch is also my favorite knitting spot.  Lately, I’ve been working on the Slippin’ Stripin’ Socks from Round 3 of Sock Madness 2.  (I’ve been eliminated, but I’m trying to see how many of the patterns I can finish before it ends.)  The pattern calls for two colors of cobweb weight yarn.  For my socks, my pal Taya picked up two skeins of Tess’ Laceweight Superwash Merino on her recent trip to Maine.  (I was going to mail away for it, but yarn mules are so much more efficient!  And they’re awesome at picking out exactly the colors I want!  I love my friends!)  The yarn is beautiful, but the gray bleeds a bit. 

So far, I’ve enjoyed knitting these socks, but I doubt I’ll be using laceweight for the pattern if I knit it again.  It’s way too fiddly to juggle four balls of yarn, and the pay-off, while nice, isn’t awesome enough to make it worth it.

This morning, I discovered the dangers of doing any project that requires four balls of cobweb weight yarn and leaving it on the corner of the comfiest place in the house.

I woke up to find my hubby sleeping on the couch.  No big deal.  It’s happened before.  I left the lights out and walked past the couch and into the kitchen.  I turned on a light over the counter in the kitchen and started to make coffee. 

A few seconds later, I heard a groan and, “Oh man!  I didn’t mean to fall asleep there.”

A few seconds later, I heard, “What the…”

And then, “Oh crap!”

I’ll relate the rest of the conversation as succinctly as possible.

Me: “What?”

Him: ”You’re going to be…”

Me: “What??”

(big pause)

Him: “I’m tangled in your yarn.”

Me: “No, you’re not.”

Him: (big sigh) “Yes, I am.”

Me: “You’re kidding.”

Him: “Unfortunately, not.” (another big sigh)

I went back into the family room and turned on the light.

I should have taken pictures (and probably would have, except for the fact that my hubby was clearly horrified and angry at himself for what he’d done).  The sight is one that I doubt I’ll forget anytime soon.

He was, indeed, tangled in the yarn.  Badly.  The yarn was snarled in the blanket that he’d pulled over himself.  The yarn looked like a psycho kitty had attacked it, so badly that I couldn’t even make out where the cuff of my sock started.

It seems that I had left the project, with the balls neatly in order, sitting on the arm of the couch.  Somehow, he had missed this fact when he got into prime movie-watching position.  He then knocked the balls of yarn off and didn’t realize that every small movement caused it to get more and more tangled.  By the time I walked in, the yarn was wrapped around his arms, legs, and blanket.

He sat there for the longest time while I untangled the mess.  After several minutes, he got up quietly, went to the kitchen, finished making my coffee, and brought it back to me.  He sat back down, head in hands for about ten more minutes, apologizing profusely the whole time.  I untangled some more.  (Anyone who knows anything about untangling laceweight yarn knows that maximum concentration is required.)  Finally, he got up, apologized one last time, and shuffled off to bed.

The poor man.  He’ll be traumatized for weeks.

I bet he will bring me flowers tonight.

Part of me thinks that I should remind him that it was my own stupid fault for leaving the project in a comfy spot.  (In my own defense, I *didn’t* move it because I was afraid I’d tangle the yarn balls.  The irony does not escape me.)  Then part of me thinks… Nah. 

Poor hubby.

Posted in: Knitting, That's Life!