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Most of the time, Yarn Stash Cabinet was a cheerful, laid-back community. The population was large enough to allow for a diversity of colors, weights and fibers, yet not so large that any of the residents were strangers to each other. There was a fair amount of turnover as some yarns departed on their project journeys and new ones arrived to take their place, but overall, the pace of life wasn’t nearly as hectic as it was in the Spice Rack (though still faster than Oil Painting Cupboard, where nothing ever seemed to happen after the initial flurry of activity three years before).
The crafter, Emily, knit mostly for herself and for a few local charities that had been thoroughly vetted by her local Unitarian church-slash-mindfulness meditation center, so all the yarns knew that when they began their new lives as finished projects, they would be useful and appreciated. The hats, socks, mittens and blankets that came off Emily’s needles were happy to be shipped off to hospitals and shelters, or presented as prizes in fundraising raffles, and the sweaters and shawls enjoyed keeping Emily warm in winter. Yes, life in Yarn Stash Cabinet was good.
Except during Holiday Knitting Season.
“Maybe she won’t do it this year,” Malabrigo Sock said hopefully.
“You say that every year,” Noro Kureyon muttered, “and every year you’re wrong.”
Red Heart Super Saver gave a disdainful snort. “I don’t know why you all get so worked up about it. It’s really not that big a deal.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rowan Cashmere Haze snarled, “you’re practically indestructible.”
There was a faint rustle from the top shelf, where the single hank of handspun qiviut peeked shyly from its tissue-paper cocoon. It had only recently arrived from a small farm in Alaska, and was still settling in.
“Is it really so bad?” It asked in a delicate laceweight voice.
“It’s horrible,” Malabrigo Sock said. “But you don’t have to worry. I heard Emily on the phone with Anika just after you moved in, and she said she was saving you until the perfect pattern comes along.”
There was a brief, slightly awkward silence as all the other yarns tried very hard not to feel jealous.
The problem was that every year, without fail, Emily insisted on making hand-knitted holiday gifts for her bevy of uncles, aunts and cousins. And every year, without fail, they failed to appreciate it. And Emily’s Stitch-and-Bitch group met at her house every other Sunday, which meant the yarns got to hear all about it every year. They knew about the cashmere socks that Cousin Lucy threw into the washing machine on hot, and the lace shawl that Aunt Clara left draped over the back of a chair to be shredded by the cat, and the argyle vest that Older Brother Tom spilled marinara sauce on and threw out without even trying to clean it, and the cabled afghan that Uncle Fred gave to the dog. (Malabrigo Sock’s cousin Worsted still shuddered at any mention of that last one.) Year after year, Emily’s best friend Anika tried to convince her to “just screw it and give them all gift cards or something. Or better yet, coal.” And yet, year after year, Emily tried again.
This year, Emily’s holiday knitting season seemed to start out in a promising way, as she dug into her stash to make a number of small, quick gifts, simple by her standards. Fingerless gloves with a single cable on the back; a hat with a simple mosaic pattern; some colorful dishcloths; a couple of headbands with a clever twist that looked like a bow in front. All very pretty and well-made, but easy enough not to be to upsetting if the recipient didn’t appreciate the effort.
“Maybe she’s finally learned,” Malabrigo Sock said hopefully.
Perhaps the optimistic words served as a jinx, because two days later Emily came home late from work carrying an oversized paper bag with the logo of her LYS printed on the side.
“Oooh,” Cashmere Haze said in a nervous voice, “that’s an awful lot of yarn.”
Kureyon was offended. “What does she need so much new stuff for? She has us!”
The yarns watched in anxious anticipation as Emily began removing skeins from the bag and laying them out on her coffee table.
“That’s a sweater quantity…” Malabrigo Sock breathed.
“Sport weight?” Kureyon wailed. “She’ll never finish in time!”
“Five colors… no, six!” Supersaver, usually so unflappable, was shocked. “What is she thinking?”
“Oh no!” Malabrigo Sock quivered. “I’m so nervous, I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Don’t,” Kureyon snapped. “The last thing Emily needs to deal with now is yarn barf. Especially in fingering weight.”
While they were talking, Emily took out her ball winder and swift, and began winding the first skein, a lovely deep green that promised to be the main color in her project.
“Can anyone see who it is?” The qiviut yarn asked shyly. “I hope they’re nice.”
“I can just make out the label.” Kureyon edged forward a bit in its spot near the front of the shelf. “I think it says… Fine Donegal.”
“Oh, one of the Debbie Bliss Donegals?” Cashmere Haze perked up. “They’re a fine, reputable family. Though I do believe,” it added in a thoughtful tone, “that their cashmere content is rather low. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“Oh, don’t be such a snob,” Supersaver snapped. “Not everything has to be cashmere, you know.”
As it happened, the Stash residents never got a chance to speak to the newcomer, as Emily put all the unwound skeins into a basket next to her recliner and began knitting right away. By the time the Stitch-and-bitch group met that Sunday, she had finished the twisted ribbing at the neck and was well into the third repeat of the intricate pattern of stylized flowers and leaves that made up the color work chart.
The Stitch-and-bitch crafters were a small but close-knit group. There was Marisol, who came from a huge extended family and was always knitting baby things for some relative or other who was due “in a couple of months.” There was Ayesha, who knew seven different methods for turning a sock heel, and Stacey, who’d been with the group for three years and never made anything except garter stitch scarves. And there was Anika, the only crocheter in the group, who made tiny, incredibly detailed amigurumi that she sold on Etsy for surprising amounts of money. All four of them gathered around Emily’s coffee table to make appreciative noises over her new project.
“These colors are awesome!” Anika pickup up one of the unwound skeins in the basket and held it against her cheek. “And so soft!”
“It looks very fiddly,” said Stacey, “and you’ll be weaving in ends forever.”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t mind. I usually work them in as I go, anyway.”
“Who is it going to be for?” Marisol asked.
Emily blushed. “How do you know it’s for somebody? Maybe it’s for myself.”
“Please.” Anika rolled her eyes. “As if you’d ever make anything for yourself this time of year. C’mon, which one of your relatives is it for, and what did they do to deserve it? Did one of them give you a kidney or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emily said, still blushing. “But yes, all right, it’s a gift. Just not for a family member.”
“Emily!” Ayesha’s eyes went wide. “Is this a love sweater? Are you seeing somebody?”
This suggestion caused some commotion in the Stash.
“She can’t be seeing anyone, can she?” Kureyon said doubtfully.
“Definitely not.” Cashmere Haze agreed. “We would’ve seen if she brought someone home.”
“And she would’ve told Anika,” Malabrigo insisted. “She tells Anika Everything.
“Maybe she hasn’t brought them home yet,” the qiviut suggested timidly.
“Then it’s much too early to be knitting a sweater,” Red Heart Supersaver said firmly.
In the living room, the other crafters seemed to agree.
“Seriously?” Anika was saying, “you’re making the world’s most complicated sweater for somebody none of us has even met yet?”
“It’s not that complicated,” Emily said.
“Don’t give me that, I can see the pattern from here.” Anika pointed to the coffee table, where a computer printout was covered with multicolored bits of highlighter tape. “It has steeks.”
“Steeks aren’t complicated,” Emily said.
Anika snorted. “Only you would say that.”
“Seriously,” Stacey said, “is this a good idea? You know, the newer a relationship is, the more likely it is to be struck by the curse.”
“And also,” Marisol put in, “the more complicated the sweater is, the more likely it’s to be struck by the curse.”
“I don’t believe in curses,” Emily said firmly. “And I never said I was in a relationship.”
“And yet,” Anika said, “you keep blushing.”
“I’m not blushing.” Emily ducked her head and became very engrossed in her knitting all of a sudden.
“Fine.” Anika threw up her hands. “Don’t tell us if you don’t want to. But don’t come running to me when this mystery woman breaks your heart, because I’ll…” She trailed off, apparently trying to think of an appropriate threat.
“What will you do then?” Emily asked after a while, sounding genuinely curious.
Annika rolled her eyes again. “I’ll come over to your place with a quart of ice cream and a bottle of wine, and let you cry on my shoulder just like I did after your last relationship drama. And the one before that. And the one before.”
Emily smiled fondly. “And that’s why you’re the best, Ani.”
Anika looked like she had more to say, but at that moment Marisol dropped a stitch in a particularly tricky bit of two-color brioche, and everyone got distracted for a while.
* * * *
Over the next few weeks, the Stash residents had plenty of time to speculate about the sweater’s intended recipient. Unfortunately, speculation was all they could manage. Initially, they hoped that Emily would bring the mystery person home at some point, perhaps to view the sweater in progress or at least check the measurements. But Emily’s home socializing consisted entirely of Stitch-and-bitch meetings and movie nights with Anika, and both of those had been going on for years.
“I don’t understand!” Cashmere Haze cried in despair. “How can she be knitting something so complicated for someone she hasn’t even had over yet? Isn’t she worried about the curse?”
“She doesn’t believe in curses,” Kureyon pointed out.
“Curses,” Cashmere Haze said, “don’t care if you believe in them.”
Anika seemed to have a similar opinion.
“Are you sure you really want to risk it?” She asked one night as she and Emily sat on Emily’s sofa, eating Vietnamese takeout and watching The Princess Bride for what had to be the hundredth time. Emily was knitting away at her sweater, and Anika was crocheting a tiny reindeer to be made into a tree ornament. “If you really must make a sweater for this mystery woman, why not a nice top-down raglan or something?”
“Because,” Emily said, “anything worth doing —“
“Is worth doing well, I know.” Anika rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t suggesting you knit a top-down raglan badly. But ‘worth doing well’ is not the same as ‘worth doing on maximum difficulty.’”
“I like a challenge,” Emily said. “Besides —” she held up the almost completed sweater body to show off the pattern “—isn’t this worth it?”
“Well, yeah.” Anika gave the sweater a look that could only be described as covetous. “It’s gorgeous. Because everything you make is gorgeous. But aren’t you at least a little bit worried?”
“About the sweater curse?” Now it was Emily rolling her eyes. “You know that’s nonsense.”
“I know. I don’t believe in curses either. But when you take this much trouble to make a gift for someone… it sends a message. Are you sure you’re ready to send that message to… whoever it is? Who you still won’t tell me about?”
“I’ll tell you soon,” Emily promised. “And yes, I’m sure I’m ready.”
“It’s just that your last few relationships—“
“—Ended in giant flaming disasters. I know.” Emily sounded surprisingly calm about it. “But this time it’s going to be different.”
“You always say that.”
“But this time it’s true.”
“Well… that’s good then.” Anika stared at her little reindeer a little bit more intently than usual. “It’s just that… usually when you meet someone new, you talk my ear off about how awesome they are, and now you won’t say a word. It’s weird.”
“It’s early,” Emily said. “I don’t want to jinx it.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in jinxes.”
“I don’t believe in curses. Jinxes are entirely different.”
“Sure they are.” Anika shook her head. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me until you’re ready. But you know I just want you to be happy, right?”
“I know,” Emily said.
* * * *
When Emily got ready to steek for the sleeves, she took the Supersaver from Stash to use for the basting.
“It’s not fair,” Supersaver complained, “why am I always the waste yarn?”
The other yarns had more important concerns.
“Talk to the Donegal while you’re over there!” Malabrigo whispered urgently.
“Ask them if they know who the sweater’s for,” Kureyon added.
“Check their cashmere content,” Cashmere Haze put in, but Supersaver pretended not to hear that last one.
The yarns waited anxiously for information, but when Supersaver returned it had none to give.
“Donegal doesn’t know who it’s for,” they said. “All they could tell me was, Emily spent over an hour picking the colors, and when the lady at the counter asked if she was knitting for someone special, she said yes.”
Which was very exciting, but not at all informative.
* * * * *
The Sunday before Christmas, the Stitch-and-bitch group held its annual Secret Santa exchange and pizza party. Emily gave a hand-painted ceramic yarn bowl to Marisol and received an embroidered project bag from Ayesha. Much pizza was eaten and a fair amount of wine was drunk. Afterwards, Anika stayed behind after the others left, so that she and Emily could do their own “BFF exchange,” a tradition they’d kept up since college.
“I swore I wouldn’t give you another knitting-related gift,” Anika said as she handed over a small box topped with a giant silver bow, “but then I saw this and couldn’t help myself.”
“This” turned out to be a silver charm bracelet where the charms were also stitch markers, each one decorated with tiny crystals in a different color for a rainbow effect.
“I love it.” Emily put the bracelet on immediately. “You can never have enough stitch markers or enough sparkly jewelry. And here,” she passed a gold-wrapped box to Anika, “that’s for you.”
Anika carefully peeled off the paper and lifted the lid off the box.
“Oh,” she said.
Inside, nestled in layers of red and green tissue paper, was Emily’s sweater.
“I knew it!” Malabrigo Sock cried.
Cashmere Haze let out a loud snort entirely unbefitting a luxury yarn. “You did not.”
“Shh!” Kureyon hissed. “Some of us are trying to listen here.”
“—Fifteen years,” Anika was saying, “and you’ve never knit anything for me before.” She was holding up the sweater and examining the color work details with obvious admiration.
“Well…” Emily shrugged. “I didn’t want to make just any old thing. But then this pattern looked like exactly the sort of thing you’d love, and the green yarn matches your eyes, and I thought, well, maybe it’s time.”
“Emily.” Anika gave her a thoughtful look. “You know how I said making something like this sends a message?”
“Yes…”
“Was that the message you meant to send?”
“Yes…”. Emily bit her lip. “I mean, if you’re asking if that’s a love sweater— it is.”
“Oh, good grief,” Supersaver muttered from their spot near the front of the shelf. “That’s so sappy.”
“I think it’s sweet,” the qiviut yarn said timidly.
“Shh!” Kureyon hissed again.
Anika was still holding the sweater and watching Emily. The corners of her mouth twitched a little, like she was trying hard not to smile.
“Fess up,” she said, “is this some kind of backwards attempt to avoid the curse? Giving it to me before we start dating?”
“Kind of?” Emily shrugged again. “I mean, I still don’t believe in curses. But also, you can’t break up with me if we’re not dating yet, right? And if you’re not interested—“
“I am.”
“—We can just keep on being friends, I promise not to make it weird, and at least I’ll have knitted something really nice for someone who appre— wait, you are?”
“I am so interested.” Anika put down the sweater and leaned forward.
“Oh look,” Malabrigo Sock said, “they’re doing that kissing thing that humans do.”
“Don’t stare,” Cashmere Haze admonished as they wiggled forward on the shelf, “it’s not polite.”
* * * *
Anika wore the sweater at least once a week all winter. She never spilled anything on it, and she definitely didn’t put it in the wash on hot. And in the spring, when several colorful new families of cotton and acrylic yarn moved into the Yarn Stash Cabinet, chattering happily about amigurumi patterns, the resident yarns new that the curse had been really and truly averted.