The Great Chocolate Disaster of 2008

So, I'm innocently working on the Sekrit Projikt, and making very good progress (something about having been out three days this week sick, with not quite enough energy to actually move off the couch, which, thankfully, is still enough energy to knit), when DISASTER STRUCK. See the photo. CHOCOLATE landed right there, in the middle of the red circle.


My husband baked fresh, yummy chocolate chip cookies last night, as a treat for his Poor Sick Wife. The first batch (of six) was consumed (five by him, one by me) without incident, but deemed (by him) "too crunchy". I thought they were perfect. A few hours later, he made another batch, again consumed five-by-him, one-by-me. And that one was out to get me.

You've seen the ads where the warm cookie splits apart, and the chocolate morsels get gooey and stringy? That can actually happen.

THEN, with UNCANNY ACCURACY, the warm chocolate will LAND ON YOUR KNITTING. Without the contributing facts that (a) a Tide Fresh-Food Stain Pen was at hand and (b) the Sekrit Projikt is being knit in cheap acryllic, the chocolate would be much more visible. And it wouldn't be quite so much of a disaster, but I was planning to send the Sekrit Projikt to a new home to see if the recipient thought it actually worked at all - and "oh, don't mind the chocolate stain" just wasn't what I planned the accompanying note to say.

While I understand my husband likes the gooier cookies, I will Never Again eat one anywhere near fiber. I usually don't eat near my projects at all, but I was tired, and moving the knitting off my knee would've taken all the energy I had. (Hey, I was sick.)

There shall not be a Third Chocolate Disaster.

Oh, "third"? Yeah, there was a First Chocolate Disaster, which was almost worse.

Back in 1991, before I was crushed by grad-school debt, I got to go on a SeaTrek cruise (this is the last one before Gene passed away, so I got to meet him, yes I'm a geek). I got a totebag as a souvenir, and most of my friends have seen it. Regularly. For years. At some convention-or-other in the intervening decade, I put a bunch Hershey's Kisses in said bag... and forgot about them. Fast forward to about 2005 or so. There's a lovely little kit of a Halloween Fairy, which I start stitching. She's about half done (and, of course, stored in the SeaTrek bag), when I remove her... and discover THE STAIN. And the chocolate. I tried about fifty different things to get the bloody stain out of the fabric and floss - ORVUS ended up working (yes, you wash horses with it). I carefully removed the offending (and now ancient, and melted) Hershey's Kisses from the bag, machine-washed it (unthinkingly), and the SeaTrek logo became barely visible - and then flaked off. (Just desserts.)

There was panic all over my cross-stitch list, and a collective sigh of relief when the Halloween Fairy was presented once-again good condition.

And, since I've told you about it, here she is. (Note: The original pattern had green wings, and didn't glow in the dark. I tend to change things, as you may have noticed.)





Charge up the wings with light...


... and they GLOW in the DARK!