The Kitten and the Yarn

We have a new kitten in the house. Samson or Sammy for short. Sammy has it in for my knitting. I started a new shawl, a very pretty seed stitch shawl from Folk Shawls. I’m working it in a beautiful green Shetland wool on size 8 needles. But back to the story…

I started the shawl and worked on it for a few rows before setting it down to grab myself a drink. When I returned to the couch there was Sammy, playing with the yarn, nearly all the stitches pulled off the needle. Three times this happened. And my coat very nearly had a new kitten fur collar if you get my meaning.

Sunday we were expecting some new furniture, so I set my knitting aside in order to go help my mom pick out a nice floor rug for the living room. When I got home I was helping my parents get things settled before going into the bedroom to pick up my knitting again. And then I saw it…

Imagine a huge plate of green spaghetti. That was what my bedroom floor looked like. The little shit had gone into my knitting bag, dug out the $8 ball of yarn that I’d been knitting with, never mind the 5 others NOT connected to the project, and gone to town with it. It was a mess, everything was all tangled and wound around the wooden rocking chair in my room. I saw it and just started to cry. There was no way to fix it, no possible way to untangle 220 yards of yarn. A hard blow to a poor college student who had splurged on the nice yarn.

Enter daddy, leaning into the bedroom to tell me that the water I’d started to make my lunch in was boiling. I tearfully told him to turn it off, then motioned to the mess on my floor. True to my daddy’s temperament, he rolled his eyes and snapped “For cripesake, I’ll buy you more yarn, don’t cry.” I continued to try and find a way to untangle the yarn, sniffling all the way.

A few minutes later daddy comes back into the room and sits down on the floor next to me. “Ok, lets figure this out…”

For the next two hours we sat on my floor and untangled every one of those 220 yards. He didn’t stop until everything was untangled, sitting cross-legged on the floor, tugging every little knot out, weaving strands in and out.

As we worked I kept looking over at him and smiling. I’m so lucky to have a daddy, to have a man who would sit for hours on the floor, untangling yarn because he knew it would make his little girl feel better. He didn’t give up on it, slowly working on each knot with the patience of a saint.

This is why my daddy is a daddy, and not a dad. Because, while he may not give me hugs every day or say that he loves me each time we part, I know that he is always on my side, even for something as simple as a battle against a ball of yarn.