When last I checked, my friend Jesk had a white winter coat. So for her birthday this September, I was planning on knitting her a warm fuzzy something that would match her white coat. I had some very nice yarn for the main body of the project but needed a little zaz for the trim. And that's when I found the ball of gorgeous, pure white angora at Three Bags Full. It was a little pricey, but come on - it's ANGORA! And yes, it will shed, but it's white! And Jesk's coat is white! White on white!
I didn't even ask for a handjob at the till.
It was after I got the angora home that I started to have suspicions of the "sneaking" variety about this particular knitting project. Hadn't Jesk told me a story involving her winter coat on the phone this spring? Hadn't something unfortunate befallen the coat? Hadn't Jesk's sister dirtied the coat and then put the coat in the washing machine? And wasn't the coat a down coat? And hadn't Jesk's sister killed Jesk's white winter coat?
An e-mail was dispatched to the birthday girl to confirm.
In the meantime, of course, I couldn't leave the damn angora alone and was dying to see its sweet fuzziness in action. But where to start? Aha!
I taught Katr to knit in March, as she expressed an interest and also a jealousy around my t.v. watching industriousness. Being a genius, she picked it up quickly and actually knitted 3/4 of an attractive pink cellphone cosy before she completely lost interest. She'd repeatedly hinted that if I wanted, I could finish her cosy. And if I finished the cosy, I could trim it with my new fuzzy friend. Score! I couldn't wait to see how it looked!
Well, "darn cute" is how it looked (I'll try and get a photo of it later). But I noticed while I was knitting the three rows of fuzzy white trim that, for the first time in Vancouver, I was feeling . . . scratchy throated. Also, tickle-y. I sneezed violently once and rubbed my eyes. They immediately started watering. I also noticed that my fingers were very red and a little blotchy. Perplexed and on the verge of another life-threatening sneeze, I looked at the yarn label again. And that's when it hit me.
You were all ahead of me on this, weren't you? And you probably all figured out WAAAAAY before I did, didn't you? You probably all remember that angora comes not from sheep, but from RABBITS, don't you? And who's allergic to rabbits the same way she's allergic to cats? Holy shit. ME.
Sweet fuzzy Christ.
So there I was, with my tiny brain thinking I was knitting with a soft and extremely fuzzy version of this:
while instead, I was knitting with this:
which means that I might as well have been rubbing myself all over with these:
I am itchy just thinking about it.
So it turns out Jesk's new winter coat is forest green and my project idea is totally out the window. Which is fine, because clearly I need to take sometime to knit myself a brain. In other news, I'll be back in Toronto next week, for anyone's who interested in swapping me something for a ball of $13, pure white angora. Slightly used.
Edited to include sexy photos: Here is the cell phone cosy. Makes Katr's phone look a little racy, I think. Now if only she'd get that "If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right" ringtone, the package would be complete . . .
