The REAL Roadkill Story!

Well, I WAS writing about the first few days of my Week of WOW in France.  After several days and many pages and pix, I LOST the whole thing.  So....I need to take a break from that before I try to rebuild it.  And so here is a cute, true, and rather funny story in the meantime.

About a dozen years ago, I started knitting again, creating a plethora of eyelash and novelty scarves when those yarns were first produced to become an instant RAGE.  My DH sort of affectionally called what I produced "roadkill!"  We often referred to it as that, preferring to call is "Rhode Kill" since we lived in Rhode Island at the time.  I made and gave away a ton of scarves before realizing that I simply had to find an outlet for my work if I wanted to continue to invest in these luscious new yarns.  So I started to sell my work - first through home shows and then in galleries and boutiques.  It's now been years that I seem to be successfully selling all this colorful roadkill!

Several weeks ago, one of the other members of my gallery bought one of my Loopies.  She loved the colors, and so did I.  It was made entirely of hand-dyed rayon ribbons from Judi & Co, yarns that I covet and buy only when I can afford to.  She wore it on HER trip to France several weeks before mine, and she claims she could have sold it many times over.  Happily, she didn't sell it!

When she returned to NC, she wore it one day on her many errands.  When she returned home, she realized that the scarf was not on her, not in the car, not on the floor, not anywhere!  It was gone!  She scoured her house and car - to no avail.

About a week later, she entered her local CVS parking lot and saw a colorful mass of mess in the middle of the area.  She stopped her car to get a better look, and discovered a filthy, muddy, run-over wreck of loops.  HER SCARF!!!  She carefully retrieved it, brought it home, handwashed it, and threw it in the dryer.  The hand-dyed rayon ribbons responded well to her ministrations, but the resulting piece, though intact, was clean, colorful, but crumpled, wrinkled, and quite sad-looking.  She was embarrassed to tell me about it.

Finally, one day when we were working together at the gallery, she told me her story.  I asked her to bring it back to me so I could inspect the damage.  Today I saw it for the first time.  Oddly, the piece was undisturbed, retaining its color completely, but it truly was a crumpled mess, needing ironing of each individual loop.  Not I!  Not she!  No one wanted to attempt to iron this bugger.  So we arranged a trade: a new Loopy for her and some of her pottery for me!

You might think this was the end of the story, but now hear the REST of the story (RIP, Paul Harvey!)  Today I had BOTH the new and the old Loopies side by side on the desk in the gallery when one of my funky friends came to visit.  Now this friend is an art appreciator par excellence and she is a faithful supporter of my work and of other members of my gallery.  She commented immediately on the pile of Loopies.  I said, "Which one do you like?"  First she pointed to actual roadkill version, then vacillated and picked up the new version for a second.  Then she said, "No, I really like this one!" pointing to roadkill.  She picked it up, put it around her neck, walked to the mirror and back, and said she loved it.  My comment: "Take it!  It's yours!" And out she went to her meeting!

All's well that ends well!  Don't you agree?

(I was going to take both home to photograph again to show the difference, but my friend escaped before I thought to do that.  I have now asked her to take the photo and send it.  I'll add here it as soon as she does.)

Moral of the story: don't drop your scarf in the road, leave it for a week, and expect to even find it.  And if you do, please don't bring it to me - or even tell me about it.  Just do try lovingly washing it in Woolite, AIR-drying it, and then if necessary, iron it with a cool iron.  But just don't tell me the results!  OKAY????