Free Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee Page B

from four years ago, I know that I need to start a fair ways into the stash. Likewise, I know that if I want to find a neon-green oversized chunky-acrylic sweater with dolman sleeves that would put a flying squirrel to shame, I need only go down to the layer representing the early eighties.
    To enhance the element of surprise in my holiday endeavor, I decide to start at the bottom (oldest) layer and work my way up. I know what I’ve abandoned recently, but I usually manage conveniently to “forget” anything that’s been in the stash awhile. It may well be that I have so much stash that the newer acquisitions simply push the older stuff out of my memory. Every brain has its limits. I suppose there is also the chance that I don’t
want
to remember much of it—for example, that neon-green flying squirrel sweater.
    I pull out the top boxes, bins, and bags and work my way down to a plastic box that hasn’t seen the light of day in years. I’m extraordinarily excited as I dump the box onto the bed. What could be in it? The suspense is killing me. I root around among the yarn until I find a cloth bag. The first of many unfinished objects! What will it be?
    Briefly I allow myself to imagine what could be inside. A half-done sweater? Most of a scarf? A hat that only needs a seam? What treasure did I hide for myself? The possibilities boggle the mind. For the purposes of this experiment, I don’t allow myself to consider that what is in the bag might have been abandoned for a reason—say, a pair of slippers knit out of that weird plastic yarn that everybody’s strange Aunt Alma loves, or a foray into cotton intarsia kitty cats … It’s better not to imagine what sort of knitting breakdown from my past I might uncover.
    I decide that I want this moment of discovery to be perfect. I take the bag downstairs and snuggle into my knitting chair with a cup of coffee. My plan is all coming together.
    I open the bag and empty it into my lap. It’s a sock. A completely finished sock, along with the pattern I used, the needles and the yarn. A beautiful Fair Isle sock.
    A familiar Fair Isle sock.
Really
familiar, in fact.
    I look down at the knitting basket by my chair that holds my current projects and I quietly pull out another cloth bag. Unceremoniously I dump its contents onto my lap and a pattern, yarn, needles, and a single finished Fair Isle sock tumble into my lap.I confirm my suspicions and feel only unmitigated joy as I hold the current sock and the years-old one together.
    I have a pair.
    This system is going to be great.

Moth
    K nitters are, on the whole, lovely people. It is difficult to imagine that knitting could lend itself to hateful activity. I find it improbable that many knitters are plotting to overthrow governments or planning murder while knitting booties. The act of knitting and acts of violence seem so dissimilar that I like to believe that knitters are, without exception, kind and peaceful, without an adversary in the world. But I do recognize, for all our kindness and gentle ways, knitters have a natural enemy:
Tineola bisselliella,
the common clothes moth.
    On the day that this story begins, I was poking around a yarn shop. As usual, I had far more time than money and I spent a lot of time investigating sale bins, diving into the depths of clearance boxes, and gleefully excavating the backs of displays. Brace yourself now, and if you have a weak stomach, turn back here.
    I saw a moth. I also saw some little buggies of undisclosed identity lurking about in the bottom of a sales bin.
    Despite the fact that I am a knitter and, therefore, discriminate against moths in a reflexively unfair way, I do try to mediate my response. Perhaps this is a little too granola for some knitters, but the way I see it, it’s probably unrealistic to expect that there wouldn’t be some critters who eat wool in a wool shop. It’s an enormous buffet and the wool-eating infiltrators are only doing their thing. I’m sure that