Saturday 3 October 2009

Stitch Markers: The Agony and the Ecstasy.

Yes, fellow knitterly friends, this week I lost my all-time favourite stitch-markers. Having searched the entire house and stash I finally concluded that I must have thrown them out with the old newspapers.
Trying to handle the pain of the loss, I took myself off to Stash on Thursday for the new Thursday Knit Night (it has changed from Monday nights since the merger with Socktopus) and took the opportunity to replenish my stock. However, imagine my sadness when I arrived at the counter where they normally keep the same version of my beautiful stitch-markers, to find that not only did they not have the same ones, but they had a different version, which were HARD PLASTIC. Obviously I still bought them (I needed some for a project and was coming around to the new colour scheme).
Here are the new little guys:
*** I have now abbreviated stitch-marker to SM - takes too long to type ***
By this stage, I've got to admit, I was loving the peach against the pinks, oranges and reds (yes, it's another Umbilical Cord Hat - below). However, I digress. Not wanting to be unfaithful to my original SM's, they just didn't quite compare. My original SM's were in the best purple and green shades you could imagine, and were rubber, which crucially meant that they didn't fall off the needles, roll away or get snapped. The new ones are alright (OK, now I really like the colours) but they're just not the same.

So imagine my ecstasy when I came across these:


Yes, this is the original set. I found them in my needle case, where I'd clearly been hiding them in case I lost them. Yes, the irony, I know. I'm sooo happy: now I have my favourites plus some new little guys to play around with (which have the added bonus of being much bigger, so will fit around larger needles.


Bear in mind that these are bog-standard SM's, nothing fancy. Furthermore, until this week, I also only had one set; I am not a collector/horader of beautiful and different SM's, like a lot of knitters. Then you will see that this dilemma I faced for a grand total of two days was indeed completely ridiculous. However, I'm admitting that, and I think admission is the first step towards recovery. It's just that the colour of an SM is really important; the way it looks against your knitting can really make the difference between loving that huge sweater and giving up half-way through. Fellow knitters, I know you'll understand.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I completely and totally understand the SM separation anxiety, including the attachment to certain colors and how they look with your project.

If one slides off my needle and into some abyss where I can't find it - even if I have a bunch more in the pouch, and even if I didn't lose my spot in the knitting - it makes me very grumpy and unpleasant in general, which is unfortunate for those around me. I proceed with knitting very uneasily, as if there's a pea underneath my mattress that shouldn't matter but does.

It's even worse when I lose something from my knitting case altogether, with no backup at hand; worse still when I haughtily blame someone else for causing its loss...and then I find it the next day, right where I left it.

I sooooo get what you're saying!