Gorgon's Knot

Inspired by Spindles and Spices... and a facebook friend getting into knitting, I have decided to [re]organize my yarn stash/ needles/ hooks. I have things is separate places right now because the stash is large, I am living in a small space and I am too lazy to put the yarn back into the stash hole after I do one project. That and my riffling around cause some serious damage to my neatness. I am like a gerbil trying to make my pine bedding comfortable, except I am a rat and the bedding is a pile of yarn. (I am tempted to photograph this as it seems like something I would do anyway.)

So, given my love affair with losing things, I tend to riffle through my yarn a lot and that causes some problems since yarn balls and skeins don’t hold up well to rampant riffling. A nice yarn ball will end up going from this... to this.

It's like looking into the mouth of hell.

I think the tail end in the tangled mass is just there to mock you. It makes you think that it’s one strand of yarn, that there is an end, when it fact it’s the infinite loop like unto the gorgon’s knot. Alexander the Great could only solve that puzzle buy cheating. In one version he cuts the knot in half, in the other the puzzle was simply to separate the horse from the cart by undoing the knot and he just unhooks the horse without dealing with the knot at all.

I am not Alexander the Great. First, I am a woman and Alpha would be distressed if I were Alexander, second I have patience for knots. I don’t have patience for anything else, but I can while away hours undoing knots that have formed in my yarn. I suppose that I sabotage myself by allowing my yarn to get tangled, so I can untangle it again. Some people spend hours playing video games, I spend hours playing with tangled yarn.

So while I am not taking a picture of the before state, that pleasure is mine and Alpha’s alone, I will happily share the aftermath, after hours and hours... you’ll see it sometime.