Yes, Amy, There is a Yarn Fairy

Remember Amy--the startlingly beautiful young lady in my office whom I (brought over to the dark side) taught to knit? We were eating lunch today and discussing knitting (what else?) and she mentioned that she's knitted a blanket for her new puppy (miniature doxie--and so cute he kind of makes your teeth ache) is about to start one for herself and that's when she made this statement:

"I have so much yarn I can hardly believe it. I don't know where it all came from, but it's suddenly overflowing my yarn basket and I need a new place to put it all." Proof positive, by the way, that Amy has been a knitter all along, just needing to grab that first pair of needles: she said she needed another place to put it--not that she needed to get rid of any or stop buying it. That's my girl.

Anyway, I wanted to help her with this yarn explosion issue, but the same mystery seems to take place at my house on a startlingly regular basis and I've yet to figure it out. I've had some guesses, though.

1. There are several sheep holding AA meetings at my house when I'm asleep (wouldn't you drink heavily if you knew the world was populated with people holding pointy sticks who wanted to make you naked?), and they leave behind bits of yarn in lieu of coffee and donut money.
2. The dust bunnies under the beds, the fridge, and possibly under any cat who lies still long enough, have started their own version of "Extreme Makeover: Dust Bunny Edition" wherein they turn from disgusting clods of dust into lovely skeins of fiber (I could possibly debunk this one by looking under the bed....but I don't wanna).
3. The ghosts of all the handknit items I received but failed to appreciate BK (Before Knitting) are haunting my house. Fortunately, they are all happy and lovely ghosts.
4. A herd of Alpacan rebels, fed up with the cold climate of their native home, have taken refuge in my craft room. They don't want to be sent back, so have perfected the art of lying very, very, very still. In brightly colored mounds.
5. Unbeknownst to me, one of the plants Mr. K brought into the house when we married is actually a yarn tree. I've never seen it blooming, but I'm loathe to let go of such a delightful possibility.
6. I've been the victim of a drive-by yarning. Many, many times.
7. In a heretofore unknown weather phenomenon, banks of yarn clouds regularly move into my craft room and rain heavily. Not anywhere else, though.
8. The cats have located my drop spindle and become more adept at spinning cat hair than I ever will with any other fiber. They can apparently dye it, as well.
9. Fairy tale characters have been sneaking in and out of my house for some sort of nefarious purpose, and Rapunzel got sick and tired of all those witches and children and princes and dwarves climbing up her hair. It's obviously taken many tries to find just the right substitute. In fact, based on the amount of fiber, she may still be trying.
10. The universe, impressed by my patience and fortitude (shut up, it could happen) has decided to reward me with a new ball of yarn every time I swear at my current knitting project.
11. There's a hole in the time-space continuum that allows the gentle yarn people of Woolotopia to leak through into this reality. They like it in my house, though, and have given up trying to explore our world or spread their message of peace and lanolin.
12. I don't just sleep walk--I perform stand up comedy in my sleep, but am so bad at it that I get pelted by the audience. Thankfully, they do not have rotten tomatoes, but merely balls of yarn to throw (they are sadly mistaken if they think this will discourage me, but there you are).
13. They've started giving out yarn with every fill-up at my local gas station. Judging by the size of the infiltration of fiber products, it would seem that my car gets about 17 inches to the gallon....give or take.
14. My collection of sweaters have been getting way too friendly with one another, and the house is filling up with their love children.
15. Santa Claus totally gets me. And I've been so good, I don't even have to wait for Christmas.
16. It's really an infestation of very cleverly disguised mice. Which would also explain why it's so hard to keep the cats out of the yarn.
17. What yarn? I don't see any yarn.
18. It turns out that spinning your swift very, very fast while winding hanks of yarn actually produces a worm hole in space though which balls of intergalactic yarn hop like little wooly rabbits until the spinning stops. Like the Tribbles on Star Trek, they're soothing, soft, comforting, slightly addictive, and born pregnant. They have litters of about 50.
19. When I wanted to confront a co-worker but was too chicken and uttered the slightly crude phrase "I need to get some balls", a genie in the watering can overheard me. He didn't understand the reference and couldn't quite figure out what I wanted balls OF, but figured yarn would be a place to start. Good thing I didn't say I wanted balls of steel. I don't think the floor boards would have held out.
20. Every time a new ball of yarn is purchased, a yarn fairy gets her wings. And I feel a personal responsibility to make sure that there are no fairies run down while jogging or trying to hail cabs. Or falling off of ferries. Fairies falling off ferries would be bad.

Have any of these things happened to you?

Square count is holding steady at 150, meaning I need just 30 more. I believe the Yellowstone Unravellers were hoping to send another 16 to complete one blanket made just by them (they're so cool) which means I'm even closer than that! I'm so excited. Miss is, too. I've not had the heart to tell her I'm mailing them all away.