A Tale of Two Scarves & The Return of the Sasquatch

Installment 1 of Vintage Junk =)

Once upon a time somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant, there lived a very strange little girl who just loved to sing. She would sing along with Snow White, impersonate Cher and even do her best to keep up with Sarah Brightman's Christine, although everyone in her village would scramble for the earplugs at the very thought. You see this little girl, while being small, had the lungs of a long distance runner. She was a willful child, who really was convinced, in most cases, that she knew exactly what she was doing.

When the girl learned to knit, she was a little trepidatious at first, but once she "found her feet" in the craft, the old over-confidence began to slowly creep back in. So, the strange, yet melodious little girl, singingly subscribed to two knitting mags, Creative Knitting and Vogue. In spite of the small voice of reason that would not be tolerated, she embarked on a "Very Vogue" scarf that was just too cool to ignore, the Leaf Pattern Scarf from the Spring/Summer 2005 issue on page 91. Unfortunately, she was not aware of the fact that she didn't fully understand yarn overs yet. OH she could DO a yarn over, she just didn't know ONE KEY VITAL DETAIL: The yarn over is not a stitch unto itself.

Confidence bordering on arrogance bolstered her to dive headlong into the pattern, and the strange little girl worked and worked to get the numbers right in her head. She knit and knit and knit, hundreds of little lacy leaves that in NO way SHAPE or form, resembled the leaves of the scarf in the picture. She twitched and toiled. She tweaked and squirmed, perplexed and stressed. She reworked and even changed the sequence of the instructions and gallantly struggled to make it work out, shaking her fist at those people, that person, wherever they were, that wrote the pattern that just wouldn't work. Even though the leaves she made DID resemble leaves, the just weren't the SAME leaves in the picture! "why?" she squeaked, then louder, "Why?" A small pause ensued, and then one little tear that in no way could have given anyone a clue as to what would follow. "WHY DO I PICK THESE PATTENS WITH CRAZY ERRORS?" she roared, in a foreign throaty voice.

Yes, the poor strange little girl was now starting to shape shift from cute and strange to beastly and VERY LOUD. The long distance runner lungs began to kick in with a vengeance. She shook her fist again yelling, "Khan! Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

What to do? She decided very emphatically that HER leaves looked better anyway. What else was she gonna do? Give up? NEVER! She would have her revenge on the elusive Leaf Pattern Scarf. (She may have thought about cussing at this point, we can't be sure, but she very well MAY have thought about it.)

Whatever the case, it was a good decision. It was time to relax and accept that her leaves were different, yes, but they were leafy at least and they would have to do. By this time, she had completely forgotten to read the pattern and it TOTALLY escaped her that the scarf was done in Stockinette Stitch, not Garter Stitch, because (obviously) she wasn't gonna be purling AND thinking about leaves at the same time, are they INSANE? (no they aren't insane, in fact, the sweet yet strange girl was in fact, now insane herself, but that's neither here, no there)

In a flash, she churned out two of these scarves. One with mostly green leaves and one with purple leaves for her best friend who really loves purple. She'd won, or so she thought. Then she moved on to the Lacey Leaf Scarf, when she finally got an inkling of a clue and got on the Internet and started looking for help. She finally learned the proper way to do yarn overs and the numbers finally made sense and AT LONG LAST made a scarf correctly. But she never looked back at the original scarf and only ever wore it once.

That is, until the other day when she had once again shape shifted from strange little girl into something beastly. This particular day she arrived at her looking glass only to find Sasquatch Freak staring back at her. Apparently she had drifted into a time warp. She thought that her hair was clean enough to throw into a ponytail for the evening to go to meeting, but she was sadly mistaken. She had already gotten all three children bathed and dressed and ready, it was nearly time to go. So she decided to try a little trick she'd seen on a talk show that she loves but will remain nameless in this case.

This 'trick' consists of a little baby powder and a blow dryer. Well, suffice it to say that in the case of the Sasquatch formerly know as Strange Little Girl, it didn't work so good. The hair began to grow taller and thicker, and as we all know, Sasquatch hair needs NO thickeners; it's already pretty dern thick. In addition to growing it turned a very disturbing shade of gross. No longer brown, not quite gray but just very, very, horribly inexplicably not human. She was already late, she couldn't wash it out, if she could only THINK! No longer was she strange/cute, just fuming, puffy haired, SASQUATCH, rage monster.

Stomping through her bedroom frantically, “A scarf perhaps? Did she even HAVE a girly, Jackie O type scarf that she could wrap around her head?” she wondered stupidly. Well, neither Sasquatch Freak nor Strange Girl was girly enough to own such a thing. But then.... her Leaf Scarf caught her eye. "It'll have to do!" roared Sasquatch Freak, and she tied her hair up in a spikey "Phoebe Do" with the scarf spray glued to her head.

Yes, she was Strange Little Girl again - which although eccentric and confusing while wearing a freakishly long scarf on her head, is always much more pleasant than Roaring Sasquatch Freak.


How cool is it that I have the comments to this post? That's the part that hurts the most about losing a blog - all the comments! So I have comments from some posts, at least - these are some of my favorites =)