I swear the other night I rocked my sweet precious baby to sleep. I lovingly laid her tiny body in her crib. She sleep the deep sleep of the pure and innocent.
And the next morning I woke to find gremlins had taken my sweet precious pure angel, and replaces my teeny tiny baby with a sassy pants toddler.
Toddler is really a polite synonym for terrorist. A tiny terrorist who destroys everything in their path, leaving behind them a trail of crumbs (because if you can entice a toddler to eat they will only eat on the run, never in the high chair.)
Why, for the love of all that is good, why did this have to happen????!!!!!
But this toddler vaguely resembles the sweet tiny baby I love so much, so I cuddle a wiggly toddler and go about my day.
I know I have five children. Which means I have survived the toddler stage four times. I know this. But the extreme sleep deprivation that was the first year of The Queen's life seems to have completely addled my brain.
I made a rookie mistake, and ventured into a store...alone...with my newly minted toddler.
I just had to run in real quick and see if they had any Ocean Blue Simply Soft for Pork Chop's sweater (quick recap, they didn't). In an out. Easy Peasy. A five minute trip.
An older gentleman was at the front of the store in a mobility scooter, blocking all the carts. He appeared to be having issues with the scooter. He was pushing buttons and muttering but not much else was happening. The scooter was not budging from it's current position, guarding all the carts. Rather than bother him on what already appeared to be a rough day for him, I skipped getting a cart. I can snuggled a Bean for five minutes while I grab a skein of yarn right.
On to the yarn section which is located in the back of the store.
Seriously?
The back corner like knitters and crocheters are an after thought?
Or is it just that the yarn section is such a money maker they want to make you walk past all the other useless stuff they carry in the store hoping that you will see their punny holiday sign and impulse buy it.
What?
I'm not the only one that trick works on.
Right?
(I know for a fact that Target also uses this strategic layout technique. Dollar spot I'm looking at you.)
We boldly resist the adorable Americana merchandise, as well as the super cute mirror/jewelry holding (where would I even put it? I don't own a vanity.) and arrive at our true destination. (The Greatest will never understand the will power I display when I go into a store for one item and only come out with the predetermined one item). The Bean is cute and sweet and adorable, and also twenty pounds. Twenty wiggly pounds, that are starting to get heavy.
Why didn't I push that old man out of the way and get a cart?
We find the aisle of acrylic only to discover three women and two carts have set up a temporary residence in front of the Simply Soft. And they do not appreciate my intrusion.
I stand there, clutching my ball band and tiny ball of yarn in one arm, my baby who is growing heavier by the minute in the other. (Seriously, is she having a growth spurt right there in JoAnn's?)
I try to see around them. I try to keep the wiggly baby off the dirty floor. I try to find Ocean Blue.
They block me with their carts. They step in front of me, as if they are afraid they are finally going to realize the orchid purple is the color they've been needing all their life and I'm going to buy the final skein out from under them.
I wait. I try to peer around them. I jiggle a wiggly baby. I give up and let the wiggly baby have the tiny ball of yarn I'm trying to match.
I contemplate using the orchid purple yarn to finger knit a garrote to strangle the rude women with.
Seriously, would it be that hard to move the cart away from the blue yarn? I'm holding a ball of blue yarn, with a ball band. Obviously I'm trying to do something here, and it isn't steal your orchid yarn.
After what feels like an eternity, just when my arms are going to fall off from holding the wiggly Bean who now weights at least fifty pounds, the women move on, WITHOUT PUTTING A SINGLE SKEIN OF YARN IN THEIR CART!!!?????!!!!!
and when the aisle clears I discover to my dismay that the yarn I need wasn't hiding on the bottom shelf after all.
As I search the Bean arches her back. She has had enough of cuddling. She needs to roam. Arms aching I give up. I should have returned to the front of the store for a mobile play pen (better known as a shopping cart), but I'm already twenty minutes into what should have been a five minute easy peasy trip. Onto the dirty floor the baby goes to pull yarn off the shelf to her heart's content. With two free arms the search goes faster. I'm determined that I can will the needed yarn into existence by sheer force of will.
It turns out that even with two free arms I can't.
Suck Monkey.
I did find the Ocean Blue colorway in a similar yarn from the same company, so clutching my desperation skein I head for the front of the store.
And this is where my will power breaks down.
It shattered when I walked past the sock yarn.
Unable to resist the siren song of yarn calling to be made into mermaid socks, this was the perfect opportunity to grab some yarn that could be used for color work.
But pushed past her breaking point The Queen can not handle another delay.
Quickly I grab the closest thing they have to white sock yarn, and I grab something soft in shades of purple.
These socks are going to be AH-MAZ-ING.
That night I sit down to wind my skeins into pretty yarn cakes. I don't feel like dealing with ball bands, so I add the project into Ravelry so they can keep track of what yarn I used.
This is where I got my first hint that something might be wrong.
The off white yarn was just your basic sock yarn. I was surprised to realize it wasn't just the wool acrylic blend you typically find in JoAnn's. It also has 25% bamboo.
Fancy.
But then I entered my purple yarn into the Ravelry database. The purple yarn with the same brand, same label, from the same row as the off white yarn.
The purple yarn was not a wool/acrylic/bamboo blend. Or even a wool/acrylic blend. Or even wool.
It is 100% microfiber, which is just a fancy term for really soft acrylic.
This could be a problem.
and it isn't sock weight.
It is sport weight.
A really thin sport weight, but sport weight.
This could also be a problem.
Suck Monkey.
How could I have forgotten the most important rule of yarn shopping?
NEVER SHOP WITH CHILDREN.
They only distract you.
And keep you from noticing that the sock yarn in your hand isn't sock yarn at all.
Maybe I can still make this work?
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