I didn’t mean to do it.  Honest.  I am not that woman who drove the family Mercedes into her husband, backed up and rammed into him again.  That’s just not me.

I loved these mitts.  They were special.  Beautiful hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn that I purchased at the Mass Wool and Sheep festival many years ago.  I saved this one beautiful blue and purple hank for some exceptional project.  The lovely “Maine-Morning Mitts” from The The Knitter’s Book of Yarn by the delightful Clara Parkes was the project.  I enjoyed every minute knitting these mitts.  The pattern is easy to follow and fun to do.  In fact, I made a number of mitts.  Well....actually...seven in one season ( I told you I get carried away!)  But that doesn’t take away from the tragedy that befell me last year when my very favorite mitts met their doom.  Yes, last year.  It has taken me a year to bring myself to talk about it.

Those of you who are squeamish about the abuse of beautiful virgin wool may want to stop reading now. For the rest of you who can tolerate a tale of knitting gore, here are the sordid details of this horrid event:

It was cold.  I mean really bone chilling, what the @*#!! am I doing living in the Northeast freaking cold.  I cleverly concocted a way to warm my perpetually cold hands by layering the mitts over inexpensive knitted gloves.  My hands were toasty and stylish, too. ( below is a photo of what the layered gloves/mitts look like- they are not the actual fatal pair of mitts)

I pulled into the driveway early evening ( it was already pitch dark at 5pm) and took my mitts off in the car so that I could more easily handle my keys because I wanted to get into the warm house as quickly as possible. My mind was on a million other things like what I should I make for dinner and where did I put that skein of Rowan Biggy Print?  I must not have noticed that the beautiful mitts had fallen from my lap onto the ground as I got out of the car---the cold, hard ground that soon would freeze and take my sweet innocent mitts into it’s icy clutches.

The next day, I was frantically looking for my mitts.  Where could they be? When I got to the car, I was aghast to see my beautiful hand dyed mitts frozen into the ice like some Neanderthal fossil.  I pulled gently and they didn’t come loose.  I got frantic.  What will happen if I run over them with my car?

I must free those mitts NOW!!!! 

For what happened next, I must plead insanity. This surely goes into the category of “What was I thinking?”

I ran upstairs to the house and put the tea kettle on.  My rational mind told me that boiling water will melt ice.  But while waiting for the kettle to whistle, I became increasingly agitated.  I dunno, maybe I turned into the Hulk, or had a blackout because it is hard to remember what ensued.  I ran downstairs and back out to the driveway and grabbed the ice scraper.  And then I ferociously began to hack away at the ice and tried to scrape those beautiful, innocent mitts off the frozen ground like a half cooked pancake.  I wonder what my neighbors thought seeing me so completely out of control.  (Probably business as usual, actually. They see me lugging twenty bags of knitting in and out of my car all the time- they already know that I am nuts)

I ran back upstairs.  Finally the water was boiling.  I grabbed the pot and rushed back to the driveway, splashing hot water everywhere- leaving puddles that marked my path of insanity.

I brought what little water left in the kettle to the driveway.  I poured it all over the mitts.  Now they were a soggy mangled mass of mush. Still, they were glued to the asphalt.  I stepped back in horror at what I had done. OMG!  I was a mitt murderer. Why?  Didn’t I realize that eventually the ground thaws here?  Don’t I know that patience is a virtue?  Why would I destroy these lovely mitts that had nothing against me? 

I cannot continue to berate myself with these questions.  At this point (my therapist tells me), I must move on.  But I do have a suspicion about the underlying reason for my irrational behavior. I understand that part of the issue is that I need to trust that nature will take her course. Spring does come after Winter.  Ice will melt.  I must learn..... (ugh)....patience.

Yes.  Patience. 

I always laugh when non-knitters see me knitting and inevitably say, “Oh, I couldn’t do that.  I don’t have patience.”

Yeah. Right.

Don’t they understand that  I AM HORRIBLY IMPATIENT. I knit because I have NO patience.  I can’t stand lines, sitting still or waiting of any kind. (Yes, I knit at stop lights).  I must fill time with knitting.  I can’t do “nothing.” I am a Buddhist nightmare.

But after this debacle, I want to develop trust that things will evolve in the ways that they must.  Sometimes I should just let things take their course and not interfere. I must learn to...well...wait. Breathe and wait and not over-react.  I also must accept that nothing in life is permanent and certainly knitting cannot be counted on forever. 

The sun is out as I type these words and the breeze has a hint of warmth. Winter ends and Spring begins.

Maybe there is some redemption to be found in this story. For me, one of the most reassuring lessons of this experience is the thought that  “This too, shall pass.” 

There is loss in life-- but you can always get more beautiful yarn and cast on again.  “Nothing is irreversible” as they say in the TV program  “Lost.”

So, that is exactly what I am going to do.  I have some amazing hand spun, hand dyed ( from real plants) wool from La Lana Yarns in Taos New Mexico that I’ve been saving for the right moment.  I have a feeling that they will make some fine looking “Maine Morning Mitts.”