Friday, August 14, 2009

Lost.

I lost my knitting bag. Not my real knitting bag which is about one cubic metre in size and can hold small children, but my travelling one. I'd taken it with me to Amsterdam and had last seen it while packing up to come home.

It took me a few days to realise it was missing. We'd emptied the car first day back of course then on the next fine day after that the kids and I had opened up the trailer tent, stripped everything out of it including the canvas and cushions (they get stored in the dry attic over winter) and carried it all up from the garden to the house. There are still odd heaps of camping equipment all over the house. But the knitting bag? Nowhere to be seen.

Now I didn't care about the actual bag. It was a freebie with some toiletries I got from Boots and I've got two more identical ones. What I did care about was the contents.

Two sets of Boye needles.
The last five balls of Linen Drape for the sweater I am currently knitting. (Actual pieces were in the teeny bag I use in the car.)
One half finished Forest Canopy in KnitWitch silk.
One ball of sock yarn, hand dyed by me.
One braid of Yarn Yard fibre. (Yes I did take a spinning wheel to Amsterdam!)
The latest Spin Off.
And my sock knitting kit. Two sets of dirt cheap charity shop circs in two sizes but they are MY sock needles and fit MY hands and I can't knit socks without them, okay?

Anyway. Over the course of the week I searched and searched an searched for that bag. I knew I couldn't have left it in Amsterdam, that was one good thing. When you drive off a camping pitch you leave an area of flattened grass, nothing more. I'd have noticed a red spotted knitting bag sitting there, honestly. But could I find it in the house? The kids and I had stripped the trailer tent to the bare wood, almost, so it couldn't be still in there. It had to be up here and somehow got muddled in with something else I had put away.

One week later, no knitting bag. I had run out of yarn for my sweater. I was desperate to cast on a sock. I cast on a sock using my Addi lace needles and Magic Loop. I changed to dpns. Not satisfactory. I had to find my charity shop sock needles! (Not to mention the other £200 worth of other things in that bag...)

Finally, when I'd looked in all the corners of the house I admitted I'd better check the trailer tent again. But how could it be in there? I'd stripped it bare. Plus Lad and I had battened it down for the winter, pushed it with some effort into an inaccessable corner of the garden and arranged two wheelie bins, a bench, a parasol and four pots of geraniums across the front of it. I didn't want to unravel that lot again.

I did though. And yes, there was my knitting bag, inside a locker which I had definately, 110% thought bare and empty. I was so bloomin' relieved I could have kissed it. Then I reclosed the trailer tent, pushed it back into the corner and re-arranged all the garden stuff in front of it. Took me an hour in total.

Then I went upstairs and ripped back the sock I was knitting and started it again on the right needles. And I was happy, lol!

11 comments:

Katie said...

I've done that sort of thing so many times. You do wonder how you can fail to see things don't you!

Rosie said...

Oh, what a relief! I'm so glad that you found it again.

FUZZARELLY said...

What was it that Sherlock Holmes said? Something like, when all the impossible things have been ruled, the thing remaining, no matter how improbable, must be it.

Mangled.

Glad you found it.

Helen said...

I can't bear it. I thought it was all really really gone. You're very cruel to mess with us like that, but I'm so glad you found it all the same. And it probably wasn't in that locker the last time you looked.

Daisy said...

Phew thank goodness you've found it! Similar things have happened to me SO many times...

Hat said...

My 90 yr old mother was always losing things and when they turned up in a place that she had searched half a dozen times, she swore it was magic!

Karen said...

That's the best feeling--to find something that seems well and truly lost. I felt soooooo relieved for you! Whew!

Locket Pocket said...

Hi - thanks for visiting my blog!

I'm so glad you managed to find your knitting bag - even if it did take some effort!!! I've always thought how horrendous it would be to lose something you were working on!

Lucy x

Spydergryphon said...

Oh that is so infuriating when that happens. A friend of mine used to blame it on the fairies... So relived that you've found them :).

Joan said...

I always love a story with a happy ending!

Anonymous said...

I felt anxious just reading through the post! I identified and empathised way too much. especially with the bit about battening down the hatches for winter. Desperation makes persistence come natural.