03 March 2008

Knots


I'm not a patient woman.

That is one of the many reasons that I've decided to not have children; I think I'd be a terrible mother due in part to my lack of patience.

Somehow, though, when it comes to unraveling knotted yarn, I can put aside my impatience and gently, carefully, slowly work it out. If anyone you know is into the fiber arts and they tell you they've never had to work out a knot, they're either lying or just learned how to knit/crochet/spin/cross stitch/whatever yesterday. Because the rest of us have had the dubious pleasure of having a ball of yarn deteriorate to a mess like the above, or somehow ended up with a knot in whatever the current project is.

I joined yet another social networking site; this one for knitters and crochet fanatics. Ravelry has quickly become someplace that I'm spending lots of my online time. The cool tools they've got!

Part of the fun has been cataloging all of the yarn that I own. Which has forced me to spend some time organizing that which I own, again. Finally, finally!, I have it separated into a more reasonable manner, and can find what I'm looking for quickly in the boxes. Hilariously, though, I don't need to look in the box to see what I've got; I can look it up on Ravelry. Also entertaining is the fact that among the bits and pieces that I have leftover from various projects are small balls of yarn that I haven't the faintest idea where they came from, what they are (i.e. brand of yarn and or fiber content...are they wool? Cotton? I don't know). In some cases, what I used them for is also a mystery. Did I make E's scarf with that burgundy and black? What the heck did I use this ugly blue stuff for?

They're all in the bottom of the box, waiting for there to be enough of them to make a stash sweater or other project like it. I used up some bits and bobs in that blue/green/yellow hat I made a week or so ago. But the ones that I didn't use were in sad and sorry shape indeed, knotted and a mess. I spent nearly two hours winding each of them carefully into a nice ball, so that when I want to use them, they aren't in worse shape.

Yarn, apparently, is like the wire hangers left alone in a closet; abandoned to its own devices, it tangles and multiplies, making a general mess of itself. I'm astonished that it took me nearly two hours to work through all that stuff, and that I did it without getting stressed or anxious, or angry. There have been times, when faced with a mess of yarn to untangle, I've chucked it rather than mess with it. A hot pink yarn that was scratchy and cheap particularly comes to mind. I remember spending about 2 minutes trying to find an end to the yarn, where I could start from, and failing that, tossed it in the trash.

The knots I get from stress, in my back, shoulders, and neck, are not so easily worked out. I have a magic massotherapist that I see when it gets bad, and it takes him usually about the same amount of time--2 hours or thereabouts--to get rid of them for me. Usually over several days.

Several things about that are interesting to me. One, I can't fix those knots myself. I don't care how much time you spend in a hot shower, or lying with a heating pad, or even sitting in the sauna, nothing gets rid of those sore spots like my magician. Two, although he uses the same terminology, as in, "Man, your shoulders are knotted up!" there is no untying of the muscular structure. Three, it requires as much or more patience to work out those knots than it does the yarn knots.

I see the massotherapist on average about once a month. One of the indulgent things that I do for myself. Well, sometimes its indulgent, and other times it is a necessity; there have been times when I've walked in to his office barely able to move my neck, or with my shoulder so torqued that it is twisting my whole back into a bad shape.

What he does, deep tissue pressure massage, hurts. Make no mistake, this is in no way similar to a massage at a spa. This isn't a relaxation massage per se; what Mr. Magic does is therapeutic massage. Sometimes, yes, I do leave his office more relaxed, but usually I'm hurting as bad or worse than when I went in, just in a different way. Which, of course, begs the question, why on earth would I continue to go see him? Because several hours later, or sometimes the next day, you feel like a million bucks, pain free.

I wonder if my yarns feel the same way, relaxed and soothed after being untied, and placed in orderly color-coded rows. I know it makes obsessive-compulsive me feel better that they're finally organized.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not patient either. And I don't have children. Thanks for letting me know that there are others out there like me.

Lucy Arin said...

Thanks, Trish. It is nice to hear that I'm not the only one either. Please, come back often!

~LA