The Dark Knitter Rises

So there I was, lounging on the couch at Stately Holly-Turner Manor, reading a thriller, when an email blipped into my inbox. I glanced over and leapt into action, "It's the Knit Signal, Biscuit!" I announced. "Somewhere in this city, a knitter needs help."

Biscuit yawned and closed his eyes. It's one of the downsides of having a cat as a sidekick.

The knitting emergency was in my neighborhood, so I didn't have to break out the Knitmobile (cleverly disguised as a 12-year-old Saturn). I just snatched up my current project and jogged across the street.

"It's this hat," my neighbor explained mournfully. "I think it's kind of large." She is a beginning knitter of great promise, with two FOs under her belt already, and she's starting her first hat.

We extricated the hat from its circular needles and laid it down to take careful measurements. "Twenty-six inches," I confirmed. "Unless your daughter has a very, very large head, this will be too big."

"I was trying to avoid doing a gauge swatch," my neighbor admitted. "I see now why they are important."

"Yes, yes, they are," I told her. "But never fear- you may need to frog this, but at least you can measure your gauge on this hat-swatch."

We walked through the gauge calculations together, and she bravely frogged and cast on again, while I kept her company, drinking tea and working on a project of my own.

At last I returned home, confident in the knowledge that she had two rounds of the new hat done and everything under control.

"The city is once again safe for yarn," I reported to my sidekick as I returned home.

Biscuit meowed for cat food. Such is the life of a knitter.

Until the next time the knit signal lights up the skies over New Hampshire....