An Untimely Demise

I'm knitting a pair of monstersocken for a friend in St. Louis. This is a German tradition which involves knitting a pair of socks from many little balls of leftover sock yarn. It's a great way to use up sock yarn, and it produces a fun result. Little did I know that it could also be perilous.

As some of you already know, I knit and walk. It's really not as hard as it sounds, as both activities only require about half of my attention. I most often do this for 50 minutes a day walking from the train station to the office. Usually it's a rather unremarkable experience, but occasionally something interesting happens.

So I was knitting and walking this morning, working on the monstersocken. The current ball of yarn I was using I kept in my front pocket. Now normally when I need to feed more yarn into my project, I just pull. Sometimes you just have to give it a good tug to get your yarn out.

Well, since this is a monstersocken ball, it's quite petite. My "good tug" sent the ball flying out of my pocket and onto the sidewalk. This would have been fine, except for the fact that I didn't notice this until I got about 30 feet down the sidewalk. And not just any sidewalk. It was a sidewalk over the Chicago River.

I scrambled back, hoping that the worst case scenario hadn't happened. I was wrong.

I found the ball, dangling off of the bridge, slowly unwinding its way down to the river. Had I remembered that my phone has a camera, I would have taken a picture. It was really quite spectacular. I suppose I could have pulled like crazy to try and recover the length of the ball before it hit the river, but it seemed like a losing battle. I cut the yarn and continued on my way.

I realized later that the Chicago River eventually flows into the Mississippi River, which runs right by St. Louis, where the recipient of these socks lives. So Martha, if you see a tiny ball of yarn floating down the Mississippi in maybe a day or two, can you grab it for me? Thanks.

Comments

Tola said…
id have pulled the yarn back up. it would have added so much to the telling of the sock story. i love monstersocken, they are the best idea!
Helen said…
It seems that 30 feet is your magic distance. Perhaps checking every 20 feet or so might save some yarn?
But I too would have tried to pull the yarn back up.... at least as much as possible.

Meanwhile, Monstersocken are starting to sound more and more appealing
Anonymous said…
You have the best adventures. I find that my hands get hot when I knit while walking if it's warm enough to go without mittens. Guess I should use cotton.
JustApril said…
I can just see that happening. I probably would have pulled it back up, too, just to find I didn't want it anymore. I hope someone finds it and asks, 'Now how did this happen?' If yarn could talk...
TurnipToes said…
Waaaa! That is a wonderful story, haha.

That image is just great.
LaurieM said…
Wacky!
Sarah said…
I think I might have a nightmare about that now. I've definitely lost most of a skein in a movie theater before, but I was able to roll it back up. Losing it in the Chicago river? Ouch. At least it was leftovers and not brand new cashmere or something.
Franklin said…
Okay. You definitely trump my "yarn loose on the bus" and "yarn loose on the El platform" stories. I bow to you.

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