Ball Of Yarn Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Ball Of Yarn. Here they are! All 76 of them:

A slow, wry smile teased Daemon’s lips. "Simmer down, Kitten, before I have to get you a ball of yarn to play with." Annoyance flared deep inside me. "Don’t start with me, jerk-face.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Opal (Lux, #3))
He leaned forward to inspect her closer. "Is that all hair?" ... Sudden, overwhelming panic clawed up Cress's throat. With a squeak, she ducked out of view of the camera and scrambled beneath the desk. Her back struck the wall with a thud that rattled her teeth. She crouched there, skin burning hot and pulse thundering as she took in the room before her— the room that he was now seeing too, with the rumpled bedcovers and the mustached man on all the screens telling her to grab her imaginary partner and swing them around. "Wha—where'd she go?" Thorne's voice came to her through the screen. "Honestly, Thorne." A girl. Linh Cinder? "Do you ever think before you speak?" "What? What did I say?" "'Is that all hair?'" "Did you see it? It was like a cross between a magpie nest and ball of yarn after it's been mauled by a cheetah." A beat. Then, "A cheetah?" "It was the first big cat that came to mind.
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
I'd always written how grief was hollow. How it was a vast cavern of nothing. But I was wrong. Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn't the absence of everything you lost - it was the combination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn. - Florence Day
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
Because I’m a cat. A big one, the Panther of Rough Storms, in fact. But still a cat. If there’s a saucer of milk to spill, I’d rather spill it than let it lie. If my mistress grows absent-minded and leaves a ball of yarn about, I’ll bat it between my paws, and unravel it. Because it’s fun. Because it’s what cats do best.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
You mostly.” Her hands went still again as her eyes stared off into the past with a look so wistful it made me ache for her. “The boys tended to take care of each other but you were too much for anyone else to handle.” I poked at the ball of yarn avoiding her eyes. “I wasn’t that bad.” She smiled. “You broke Ethan’s arm.” “It was self-defense. He wouldn’t let go of my foot.” “He was helping you tie your shoe.
Rachel Vincent (Stray (Shifters, #1))
it is pure potential. Every ball or skein of yarn holds something inside it, and the great mystery of what that might be can be almost spiritual
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing & Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter)
If she could rewind the timeline, untwist it and roll it back the other way like a ball of wool, she’d see the knots in the yarn, the warning signs. Looking at it backward it was obvious all along.
Lisa Jewell (Then She Was Gone)
The politics of wizardry were either very simple, and resolved by someone ceasing to breathe, or as complex as one ball of yarn in a room with three bright-eyed little kittens.
Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals (Discworld, #37; Rincewind, #8))
Besides, if you ever did eat some bad food, I could still find a use for you. I've always wanted a cat-drawn carriage." Cheshire opened one eye, his pupil slitted and unamused. "I would dangle balls of yarn and fish bones out in front to keep you moving." He stopped purring long enough to say, "You are not as cute as you think you are, Lady Pinkerton.
Marissa Meyer (Heartless)
Did you know the world ‘clue’ comes from Greek Mythology? A clew, C-L-E-W, was a ball of yarn. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew to help him out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. He unraveled it as he went so he could find his way back.
Rachel Lynn Solomon (Today Tonight Tomorrow (Rowan & Neil, #1))
All knitterly creation stems from one simple element: yarn. It is the baker’s flour, the jeweler’s gold, the gardener’s soil. Yarn is creation, consolation, and chaos all spun together into one perfect ball.
Clara Parkes
When I was old enough to take baths in the bathtub, and to know I had a penis and a scrotum and everything, I asked her not to sit in the room with me. "Why not?" "Privacy." "Privacy from what? From me?" I didn't want to hurt her feelings, because not hurting her feelings is another of my raisons d'etre. "Just privacy," I said...She agreed to wait outside, but only if I held a ball of yarn, which went under the bathroom door and was connected to the scarf she was knitting. Every few seconds she would give it a tug, and I had to tug back--undoing what she had just done--so that she could know I was OK.
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
The word 'clue' derives from 'clew', meaning a ball of thread or yarn. It had come to mean 'that which points the way' because of the Greek myth in which Theseus uses a ball of yarn, given to him by Ariadne, to find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth.
Kate Summerscale (The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective)
Maybe there’s a heaven, like they say, a place where everything we’ve ever done is noted and recorded, weighed on big karma scales. Maybe not. Maybe this whole thing is just a giant experiment run by aliens who find out human hijinks amusing. Or maybe we’re an abandoned project started by a deity who checked out a long time ago, but we’re still hard-wired to believe, to try to make meaning out of the seemingly random. Maybe we’re all part of the same unconscious stew, dreaming the same dreams, hoping the same hopes, needing the same connection, trying to find it, missing, trying again—each of us playing our parts in the other’s plotlines, just one big ball of human yarn tangled up together. Maybe this is it.
Libba Bray
Hang on. We're leaving grass for road," Breeze warned. "Remind me to drive next time," Jinx grumbled. "Slow down!" "Did you lose your yarn balls, kitten?" Breeze laughed. "This is fun!" (Jinx is part panther)
Laurann Dohner (True (New Species, #11))
Nothing is a stronger cultural lightning rod than two needles and a ball of yarn. But
Clara Parkes (Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World)
It was the custom in those days for passengers leaving for America to bring balls of yarn on deck. Relatives on the pier held the loose ends. As the "Giulia" blew its horn and moved away from the dock, a few hundred strings of yarn stretched across the water. People shouted farewells, waved furiously, held up babies for last looks they wouldn't remember. Propellers churned; handkerchiefs fluttered, and, up on deck, the balls of yarn began to spin. Red, yellow, blue, green, they untangled toward the pier, slowly at first, one revolution every ten seconds, then faster and faster as the boat picked up speed. Passengers held the yarn as long as possible, maintaining the connection to faces disappearing onshore. But finally, one by one, the balls ran out. The strings of yarn flew free, rising on the breeze.
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
I mean to say, whether a yarn is tall or small I like to hear it well told. I like to meet a man that can take in hand to tell a story and not make a balls of it while he's at it. I like to know where I am, do you know. Everything has a beginning and an end.
Flann O'Brien
The alternative, should you, or any writer of English, choose to employ it (and who is to stop you?) is, by use of subordinate clause upon subordinate clause, which itself may be subordinated to those clauses that have gone before or after, to construct a sentence of such labyrinthine grammatical complexity that, like Theseus before you when he searched the dark Minoan mazes for that monstrous monster, half bull and half man, or rather half woman for it had been conceived from, or in, Pasiphae, herself within a Daedalian contraption of perverted invention, you must unravel a ball of grammatical yarn lest you wander for ever, amazed in the maze, searching through dark eternity for a full stop.
Mark Forsyth (The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase)
Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn’t the absence of everything you lost—it was the culmination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
I once met a traveler who told me he would live to see the end of time. He laid out all his vitamins before me and told me he slept seven hours every night, no more or less. All the life you want, he said. It's all within the palm of your hand now. He said he would outlast all the wars and all the diseases, long enough to remember everything, and long enough to forget everything. He'd be the last man still standing when the sun decides to collapse upon itself and history ends. He said he had found the safest place on earth, where he could stay until the gateway to the beyond opened before him. A thousand generations from today. I pictured him there, atop a remote and snowy mountain. The heavens opening and God congratulating him for his perseverance. Asking him to join Him and watch as the sun burns down to a dull orange cinder and everything around it breaks is orbit and goes tumbling tumbling away, everything that once seemed permanent pulled apart so effortlessly, like a ball of yarn. A life into divinity. But I knew it was a lie. I've always known it was a lie. You can not hide from the world. It will find you. It always does. And now it has found me. My split second of immortality is over. All that's left now is the end, which is all any of us ever has.
Drew Magary (The Postmortal)
By 7:28, all the guests had arrived, and there were three empty seats: one for Eve, who had yet to show up, another for John, who would have a seat after he gave his daughter away, and a third that would remain empty, save for the ball of soft white yarn with two silver knitting needles in it.
Debra Anastasia (Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Brotherhood, #1))
I feel lost and confused, but happy and certain. I am like a ball of tangled yarn. The parts that are untangled are available, useable; the rest is a mess, useless until it is untied. That mess feels endless and at most times unyielding.
Astrid Lee Miles (Recovering is an Art (Recovering #1))
I'd always written how grief was hallow. How it was a vast cavern of nothing. But I was wrong. Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn't the absence of everything you lost-- it was the culmination of it all, your love , your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
Without an engine, Beebe's bathysphere dangled helplessly from the topside support ship like a ball of yarn suspended from knitting needles.
Wendy Williams (Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid)
Grief is like a knotted ball of yarn. It is not something that can be cut through with scissors but must rather be painstakingly unknotted.
Adam Stadtmiller (Praying for Your Elephant: Boldly Approaching Jesus with Radical and Audacious Prayer)
everything you lost—it was the culmination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
that all hair?’” “Did you see it? It was like a cross between a magpie nest and ball of yarn after it’s been mauled by a cheetah.” A beat. Then, “A cheetah?
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
I'd much rather be hold up with a ball of yarn, tucked inside the safety of the house with my mother. Out there, you must come to grips with the rot and bone, bloom and disintegration. It's part of the world, this ruthlessness, this severed leg, this sun-bleached skull. I can't really stand it. All the signs point toward change, and all that means is death. - 140-141
Robin Romm (The Mercy Papers)
Do you ever think before you speak?” “What? What did I say?” “‘Is that all hair?’” “Did you see it? It was like a cross between a magpie nest and ball of yarn after it’s been mauled by a cheetah.
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
Maybe, just maybe, those six balls are a scarf and hat that get tucked away for years and long after I’m gone someone pulls them out and says, “Remember how Grammy was with all the wool? Remember how she knit all the time?” fingering the soft wool and pondering who I was and what I did while I was here.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks)
Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn’t the absence of everything you lost—it was the culmination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
Nick laughed and pet the Wangdoodle on the head. “Esperto, you silly boy,” he said to the Wangdoodle. “Usually, Esperto only transforms when I’m in danger,” Nick said to Elphaba. “But whenever he’s around Dymons, he loves to play along. Their transformations are to Esperto what a ball of yarn is to a kitten.” Esperto gave out a strange squeaking growl, which Elphaba figured was the Wangdoodle version of a purr. “What the hell is a Wangdoodle?” Elphaba whispered. “I haven’t a clue,” Nick laughed.
Abramelin Keldor (The Goodwill Grimoire)
didn’t bother them that the corpses would arrive at their doors, to quote Ruth Richardson, “compressed into boxes, packed in sawdust,…trussed up in sacks, roped up like hams…” So similar in their treatment were the dead to ordinary items of commerce that every now and then boxes would be mixed up in transit. James Moores Ball, author of The Sack-’Em-Up Men, tells the tale of the flummoxed anatomist who opened a crate delivered to his lab expecting a cadaver but found instead “a very fine ham, a large cheese, a basket of eggs, and a huge ball of yarn.” One can only imagine the surprise and very special disappointment of the party expecting very fine ham, cheese, eggs, or a huge ball of yarn, who found instead a well-packed but quite dead Englishman.
Mary Roach (Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers)
If you aren’t paying attention, it’s easy to miss when love changes. Sometimes it’s gradual—unravelling slowly like a ball of yarn rolled across the floor. Other times it’s lightning fast, triggered by something so powerful it cannot be quieted or undone.
Kelly Duran (Can't Take it Back)
It was the custom in those days for passengers leaving for America to bring balls of yarn on deck. Relatives on the pier held the loose ends. As the Giulia blew its horn and moved away from the dock, a few hundred strings of yarn stretched across the water.
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
One hobby I did not pick up was crocheting, an obsession among prisoners throughout the system. Some of the handiwork was impressive. The inmate who ran the laundry was a surly rural white woman named Nancy whose dislike for anyone but “northerners” was hardly a secret. Her personality left a lot to be desired, but she was a remarkable crochet artist. One day in C Dorm I happened upon Nancy standing with my neighbor Allie B. and mopey Sally, all howling with laughter. “What?” I asked, innocently. “Show her, Nancy!” giggled Allie. Nancy opened her hand. Perched there in her palm was an astonishingly lifelike crochet penis. Average in size, it was erect, fashioned of pink cotton yarn, with balls and a smattering of brown cotton pubic hair, and a squirt of white yarn ejaculate at the tip.
Piper Kerman (Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison)
One way to think of this dignity is to equate when you are on the path with unraveling a ball of yarn. You have wound your sense of self so tightly that it's hard to be anything other than you, a big ball of yarn. That's just who you are, not string, or threads, but a ball of yarn.
Lodro Rinzler (The Buddha Walks into a Bar...: A Guide to Life for a New Generation)
To respect everything one is supposed to respect; to protest nothing; never to be inconvenienced by self-distrust; never to be enmeshed in obsession, tortured by incapacity, poisoned by resentment, driven by anger . . . life just unraveling for the Swede like a fluffy ball of yarn.
Philip Roth (American Pastoral (The American Trilogy, #1))
I'd always written how grief was hollow. How it was a vast cavern of nothing. But I was wrong. Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn't the absence of everything you lost - it was the culmination of it all, your love , your happiness, your bittersweet wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
I’d always written how grief was hollow. How it was a vast cavern of nothing. But I was wrong. Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn’t the absence of everything you lost—it was the culmination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn. The
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
To the majestic house cat—may they be batting about balls of yarn in some happy circle of hell.
R.S. Maxwell (Through a Darkening Glass)
she’s too quiet about it.” “Isn’t that the point of leading by example?” Kat frowned at her ball of yarn, more of a tangled mass of yarn than a ball. “Yes, mostly. But if you don’t ever say anything, then how can others follow your example? All the good works get lost in the background noise. I think there are two parts to leading by example: do what you say, and say what you do.
Penny Reid (Happily Ever Ninja (Knitting in the City, #5))
The real secret, though, is that nobody belongs, whether they are natives or not. After expulsion from paradise all humans are in exile. You can be a Colonel Sanders chicken, born, raised and fried in one quarter of a square foot and you'll still be an outsider. The thing we call reality is a holding tank for people who must worry about belonging -- it's a worrier prison. Don't worry people! You'll soon be fried and eaten. A few of us are writers, hence double-alienated, but happier (because we are busy) If it's true that many of us go through life feeling like we don’t belong, could digression (geographical and otherwise) be our way of trying to forget, or to escape, that feeling? Bad news: there are no digressions. Everything is connected in the whole darn ball of yarn: start pulling at any end and you'll get to the same place. On the other hand, most normal people dislike digression because they have to lose themselves to follow you. The surest way to drive your dear ones crazy is to digress. In private, it's an offense. In public it's "art," "performance.
Andrei Codrescu
Most of my yarn is for knitting, but some of it has a more complicated destiny as support staff: It is there to make me want to knit. It’s absolutely possible that I need the green Merino to inform how I’ll use the blue alpaca, and that ball of gorgeous variegated yarn? You bet
Clara Parkes (A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn)
Sometimes I think these scarves aren’t sent to the Angels at all, but unraveled and turned back into balls of yarn, to be knitted again in their turn. Maybe it’s just something to keep the Wives busy, to give them a sense of purpose. But I envy the Commander’s Wife her knitting. It’s good to have small goals that can be easily attained.
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale)
I need everyone to love me. My feelings of inadequacy and lack of parental attachment have made me one of those sick bitches who can't tolerate being ignored. My parents say all the right things when they are pretending to listen to me. But the truth is, they are more like cats. They accidentally had a litter of kittens, and then emotionally moved on to whatever ball of yarn rolled past their line of sight. When self-obsessed people breed, they make empty people like me who spend the rest of their time on earth trying to gain the love and approval they didn't get as children. This doesn't excuse my behavior. It's just to say, if my parents had actually noticed me, I probably wouldn't care so much about whether everyone else on the planet adored me. Unfortunately, I'm a bottomless pit of need.
Jenny Mollen (I Like You Just the Way I Am: Stories About Me and Some Other People)
She'd once read a description of new motherhood that had struck her, at the time that she was returning to work after maxing out her maternity leave allowance, as a beautiful metaphor for her own days back at the office. It was that mother and baby are like a ball of yarn, and when the mother leaves the baby's side, it's as if the baby grabs hold of the loose end, a tug that both mother and baby feel in their every fiber. As they both move through the hours spent apart, the string unravels more and more, and then just when each is starting to feel diminished, barely even a ball of yarn at all anymore, it's time for the mother to make her way back. Together again, they need only a bit of time to wind the string back up, and then it's as if they had never been apart, right up until they wake up and do it all over again.
Jessica Strawser (Almost Missed You)
Lambspun’s Whodunnit Shell   Very Easy Knit with Bulky Yarn GAUGE: 2 sts/in   MATERIALS: US size 15 needles (or size to obtain gauge), 14-inch straight Very bulky yarn with gauge of 2 sts per inch   INSTRUCTIONS:     BACK: With yarn required for gauge, CO 40, 44, 46, 50, 52 sts. Work in garter stitch, (knit every row) or if you like an edge that rolls, work in stockinette (knit one row, purl one row) throughout garment. Continue in garter or stockinette until piece measures 8, 8.5, 9, 9, 9 inches or desired length to armhole. At armhole edges BO 3 sts once, 2 sts once, 1 st once. Work on remaining 28, 32, 34, 38, 40 sts until piece measures 14.5, 15, 15.5, 16, 16.5 inches.   NECK SHAPING: Work 11, 12, 12, 14, 15 sts. Join second ball of yarn and bind off center 6, 8, 10, 10, 10 sts. Work remaining sts, turn. Working both sides at once, bind off 1 st from the neck edge 3 times. Continue working on reaming sts until piece measures 17, 18, 18.5, 19, 19.5 inches. Place remaining 8, 9, 9, 11, 12 sts on holders.   FRONT: CO 39, 43, 45, 49, 51 sts. Work in garter stitch, (knit every row) or if you like an edge that rolls, work in stockinette (knit one row, purl one row) throughout garment. Continue in garter or stockinette until piece measures 8, 8.5, 9, 9, 9 inches or desired length to armhole. At armhole edges BO 3 sts once, 2 sts once, 1 st once. Work on remaining 28, 32, 34, 38, 40 sts until piece measures 14.5, 15, 15.5, 16, 16.5 inches.   NECK SHAPING: Same as for back.   FINISHING: Join shoulders with three-needle bind off. Single crochet around every edge. Hand seam sides together. Pattern courtesy of Lambspun of Colorado, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Maggie Sefton (Double Knit Murders (A Knitting Mystery #1 & #2))
Wait." Walter went to the basket, taking what was a gray sleeve, drawing it out fro the middle of the heap. "Oh," He said. He held the shapeless wool sweater to his chest. Joyce had knit for months the year Daniel died, and here was the result, her handiwork, the garment that would fit a giant. It was nothing more than twelve skeins of yarn and thousands of loops, but it had the power to bring back in a flash the green-tiled walls of the hospital, the sound of an ambulance trying to cut through city traffic in the distance, the breathing of the dying boy, his father staring at the ceiling, the full greasy bucket of fried chicken on he bed table. "I'll take this one," Walter said, balling up the sweater as best he could, stuffing it into a shopping bag that was half full of the books he was taking home, that he was borrowing. "Oh, honey," Joyce said. "You don't want that old scrap." "You made it. I remember your making it." Keep it light, he said to himself, that's a boy. "There's a use for it. Don't you think so, Aunt Jeannie? No offense, Mom, but I could invade the Huns with it or strap the sleeves to my car tires in a blizzard, for traction, or protect our nation with it out in space, a shield against nuclear attack." Jeannie tittered in her usual way in spite of herself. "You always did have that sense of humor," she said as she went upstairs. When she was out of range, Joyce went to Walter's bag and retrieved the sweater. She laid it on the card table, the long arms hanging down, and she fingered the stitches. "Will you look at the mass of it," she exclaimed. "I don't even recall making it." ""'Memory -- that strange deceiver,'" Walter quoted.
Jane Hamilton (The Short History of a Prince)
I walk down the stairs to lean against her. “I’m sorry,” I say vaguely. I’m not entirely sure what for. Being a weirdo, being a skank. Being the happy-saddest person who ever lived. “Don’t be, darling,” she says. “Life is messy. I certainly don’t expect tidiness from yours or anybody else’s.” She kisses the side of my head. Then she wraps her arms around me because I’m crying. Honey’s got an arm draped over Belle’s shoulder, but he uses his other hand to tuck my hair behind my ear. Everything is unspooling inside me now. If I were a ball of yarn, I’d be just a stringy tangle on the floor. If I were a reservoir, I’d be overflowing my banks. Who I really need to talk to about all of this, of course, is Edi. “She’s going to miss everything now,” I sob. “And you’re going to miss her,” my mother says. “Such lucky girls, both of you.
Catherine Newman (We All Want Impossible Things)
He walked steadily, feeling them behind him. His stride did not falter; he pretended they weren’t there. He pretended that all was well—that those hideous things knew nothing about what he had done earlier in the night. But each pumpkin he passed nearly leapt off its porch or railing or wooden chair, expanded and morphed and throbbed as if in a funhouse mirror, and joined the procession behind him. The wind picked up, suddenly and fiercely, and construction paper decorations adorning the houses that surrounded him flapped helplessly against their doors and windows. The man ducked against the cold wind, and from the pursuing army of the jack-o’-lanterns behind him. Cardboard skeletons with fastener joints and witches with shredded yarn hair and ghosts with cotton ball sheets and black crayon eyes escaped their thumbtacks and scotch tape and newspaper twine and they flashed and danced in his face. He brushed at them desperately with his hands, attempting to tear a hole through them and escape.
J. Tonzelli (The End of Summer: Thirteen Tales of Halloween)
Theseus Within the Labyrinth pt.2 But nobody like Theseus likes a smart girl, always telling him to dress warmly and eat plenty of fiber. She was one of those people who are never in doubt. Had he sharpened his sword, tied his sandals? Without her, of course, he would have never escaped the labyrinth. Why hadn’t he thought of that trick with the ball of yarn? But as he looked down at her sleeping form, this woman who was already carrying his child, maybe he thought of their future together, how she would correctly foretell the mystery or banality behind each locked door. So probably he shook his head and said, Give me a dumb girl any day, and crept back to his ship and sailed away. Of course Ariadne was revenged. She would have told him to change the sails, to take down the black ones, put up the white. She would have reminded him that his father, the king of Athens, was waiting on a high cliff scanning the Aegean for Theseus’s returning ship, white for victory, black for defeat. She would have said how his father would see the black sails, how the grief for the supposed death of his one son would destroy him. But Theseus and his men had brought out the wine and were cruising a calm sea in a small boat filled to the brim with ex-virgins. Who could have blamed him? Until he heard the distant scream and his head shot up to see the black sails and he knew. The girls disappeared, the ship grew quiet except for the lap-lap of the water. Staring toward the spot where his father had tumbled headfirst into the Aegean, Theseus understood he would always be a stupid man with a thick stick, scratching his forehead long after the big event. But think, does he change his mind, turn back the ship, hunt up Ariadne and beg her pardon? Far better to be stupid by himself than smart because she’d been tugging on his arm; better to live in the eternal present with a boatload of ex-virgins than in that dark land of consequences promised by Ariadne, better to live like any one of us, thinking to outwit the darkness, but knowing it will catch us, that we will be surprised like the Minotaur on his couch when the door slams back and the hired gun of our personal destruction bursts upon us, upsetting the good times and scaring the girls. Better to be ignorant, to go into the future as into a long tunnel, without ball of yarn or clear direction, to tiptoe forward like any fool or saint or hero, jumpy, full of second thoughts, and bravely unprepared.
Stephen Dobyns (Velocities: New and Selected Poems, 1966-1992)
Returning to my yarn stash, I select a pair of ebony needles and a lustrous ball of handspun alpaca. Then I quickly cast on to create a light, resilient fabric. We don’t have much time before the students get back, which means the gauge has to be right the first time around. When you’re weaving or knitting enchanted fabrics, gauge is critical. Gauge—the relative density of the fabric—determines the degree to which a magical object can utilize or redirect fields of energy. But magic often requires a mix of skill and sacrifice. It’s not enough to knit a pattern without making a mistake: you also have to give up something of yourself. A heart shroud is a complex spell, filled with twisty cables mimicking the structure of the human heart.
Jonna Gjevre (Arcanos Unraveled)
I began the process of cutting up my random fabrics into strips. Of course, I chose easy things first, items that didn't' hurt me very much to cut up: torn sheets. A flannel nightgown so tattered it could never be worn again, one of Steve's worn-out t-shirts, couch upholstery. The resulting balls of fabric yarn that I wound together after cutting astounded me. They were gorgeous--each one prettier than the last, which made me braver. I took some photographs. And I heaved a sigh. Things in me were changing, I could feel it...so many months focusing on Stuff, Stuff, STUFF had made me bolder. What's the worst that could happen? I thought to myself. It reminded me of the day I finally, after ten years of kicking and screaming, took that first half pill [for OCD]. To someone else it might be no big deal, but to me? It felt like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Eve O. Schaub (Year of No Clutter)
You’re a fire witch, my dear.”  Moira looked up, tea preparations on automatic pilot.  “Not all fire witches are the same, of course, but you tend to share affinities.  Spicy things to tease your palate, warm colors to soothe your eyes, a ball of lovely yarn under your fingers, and of course a need for light and warmth…
Debora Geary (A Different Witch (A Modern Witch, #5))
Cats, based on their corporeal existence, have a different view on trees even if one dismisses the fruit eating aspect. A closer look at common domestic feline behaviour makes these views spring forth like a kitten pouncing on a ball of yarn. It can be hard to miss.
Leviak B. Kelly (Religion: The Ultimate STD: Living a Spiritual Life without Dogmatics or Cultural Destruction)
Did you hear about the cat that ate the ball of yarn?” Mason asked. “No.” She was already smiling. Mason Riley was telling her a joke. “It had mittens.
Erin Nicholas (Getting Out of Hand (Sapphire Falls, #1))
Table of Contents Things About House For Rent Barrie Excitement About House For Rent Barrie The 15 Second Trick For House For Rent Barrie If you're looking to move into a home that's not going to be taken over by an estate agent, then you should seriously consider taking a house for rent to stay. There are many reasons why you might want to rent a home rather than staying in your own. Perhaps you've just bought a house and you're trying to find somewhere to stay before you move in. Maybe you're simply on holiday and need somewhere to stay until you're back at home. Things About House For Rent Barrie There are many things to think about when you are considering renting a house instead of buying one. Before you decide whether or not you want to rent a house, you will need to consider what you'll be doing in the house for the majority of your stay. Will you be living alone, with a friend or partner or as a couple? How long do you want to stay in the house to avoid being tempted to move away once your new home is complete? The main reason why you might want to rent a house instead of buying it is because you can save money in the process. You won't have to spend months paying rent, or put down a deposit, or arrange for an insurance policy or rental repayments to take care of everything in the event that you move out. With the economy currently, people don't like to have to spend money, but they also like to save money. If you live in Barrie, then this will be an ideal place to rent a house to live for most of the year. Although you may have to pay some sort of rent during the summer months, and during the colder months you may have to find some other way to pay the costs involved in staying there. Most people who rent a house often decide to move back into their own homes once the lease on the property is up. However, they often find that moving back in isn't as easy or comfortable as when they first moved into the home. So, they choose to take a house to rent to stay for a few months, until they're back in their own home. Renting a house is also a great way to get a place to work in London. Because London is so popular, there are many people working in various different places all across the city, and they are not all living in one place. A house to rent to stay in is a convenient option for many people, and it allows them to work from home. This way they will be able to continue to work, pay their bills and other expenses at home, but still have access to other activities throughout London. Excitement About House For Rent Barrie When you are thinking about taking a house to rent to live in, there are also a number of benefits for you. First, you won't have to put up with the expense of all the costs that go along with having a property to rent and buying a property. Even if you do want to buy a property you may be able to buy it cheaper. The other benefit to owning a home is that you'll be able to easily get a tax return back on the money you have saved by taking on a house to let in Barrie. Although not all landlords give out tax returns on the money you owe them, it is worth asking. The truth is that more people are choosing to rent out their homes to tenants, and this gives them an opportunity to help themselves to some of that money.
Elton (The Ball of Yarn: or Queer, Quaint and Quizzical Stories Unraveled; With Nearly 200 Comic Engravings of Freaks, Follies and Foibles of Queer Folks)
It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and it made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stiched by hand precisely 216 times. It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home--and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away. The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes. It is played everywhere. In parks and playground and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn. Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom. At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time. It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to father and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective. It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home.
John Chancellor
Shared memories; triumphs and tragedies; the heroine doing right in the end despite temptation—all the plots of all the movies I’ve written tangled together into one gigantic ball of yarn I couldn’t begin to unravel.
Melanie Benjamin (The Girls in the Picture)
Sighing, she wished Pallas were here right now. Then she’d have someone friendly to talk to. Shoving the pink scroll aside, Athena pulled out a ball of yellow yarn. Knitting relaxed her, and it would help disguise the fact that she was a loser with no friends. The soft click, click of her needles was a comforting sound. When lunch period was nearly over, she remembered the cookie. Finding it under the pink scroll, she tore off the wrapper and bit into it. Instantly, a small, dramatic voice announced, “You’ll be famous.” “What?” Athena looked around, her eyes wide. No one was near. “Who said that?” she asked. But no one answered. She took another bite.
Joan Holub (Athena the Brain (Goddess Girls, #1))
knitted web in the Common is based on various pacifist yarn-bombings around the U.S. and the U.K., while the ice children in Nashville have their seeds in the surprise overnight installations of statues, such as the nude Donald Trump statues created by INDECLINE to protest his policies, and the haunting depictions of caged children that were planted by the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) to draw attention to migrant family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the nonviolent protests of the Serbian Otpor! movement, Syrian anti-Assad protestors, and other groups, especially as described so vividly in Blueprint for Revolution, by Srdja Popović, sparked the ideas for the cement block and crowbar in Austin, the ping-pong balls in Memphis, and Margaret’s bottle caps, as well as influencing the overall spirit of all the art protests. The struggles of prodemocracy Hong Kongers, particularly against the recent China-imposed “national security” legislation, were always on
Celeste Ng (Our Missing Hearts)
Sometimes I wonder what it is I could tell you about her for my job here to be done. I am looking for a shortcut - something I could say that would effortlessly untangle the ball of yarn I am trying to untangle here on these pages. But that would be asking too much from you. It wasn't you who loved her, or thought you loved her.
Chloe Caldwell (Women)
I’d always written how grief was hollow. How it was a vast cavern of nothing. But I was wrong. Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn’t the absence of everything you lost—it was the culmination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.
Ashley Poston (The Dead Romantics)
It was like trying to unravel a ball of yarn, but instead of grabbing one thread and pulling, it was like grabbing the entire ball of yarn and chucking it in a blender, then declaring “good enough!
Logan Jacobs (Welcome to Heathen Row 5)
The same day, I met with one of those narrow escapes, which are so often happening in a sailor’s life. I had been aloft nearly all the afternoon, at work, standing for as much as an hour on the fore top-gallant yard, which was hoisted up, and hung only by the tie; when, having got through my work, I balled up my yarns, took my serving-board in my hand, laid hold deliberately of the top-gallant rigging, took one foot from the yard, and was just lifting the other, when the tie parted, and down the yard fell. I was safe, by my hold upon the rigging, but it made my heart beat quick. Had the tie parted one instant sooner, or had I stood an instant longer on the yard, I should inevitably have been thrown violently from the height of ninety or a hundred feet, overboard; or, what is worse, upon the deck.
Charles William Eliot (The Complete Harvard Classics - ALL 71 Volumes: The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction: The Famous Anthology of the Greatest Works of World Literature)
What’s this contraption?” “It’s for winding yarn.” Three deep creases formed on his forehead as he examined the hank of yarn on the swift. “It doesn’t automatically come in balls already?” I resumed winding as I explained. “Some yarn does. But luxury fibers tend to come in a hank like this, and they need to be wound before they can be used in a project. We offer complimentary winding in the store, but a lot of avid fiber crafters end up purchasing their own swift and winder for use at home.” “Why add the extra step? Why don’t yarn companies just sell them all in balls for convenience?” “To prevent wear and tear prior to sale, mostly. Winding puts strain on the yarn—particularly the finer, more delicate fibers like merino wool, alpaca, or cashmere. If it’s left to sit around in tight skeins for a long time, it can leave kinks and creases in the yarn or create tension problems that cause inconsistent gauge. It’s also easier to ship and store hanks. They take up less space and don’t roll away like skeins do.
Susannah Nix (Mad About Ewe (Common Threads, #1))
The way he was looking at me unraveled me like a ball of yarn dropped down a flight of stairs.
Susannah Nix (Mad About Ewe (Common Threads, #1))
his face shield, I imagined him frowning. He probably wasn’t used to being talked back to, let alone questioned about Olympus’s reputation. Even Ivy went quiet as I stood with my hands on my hips. “Get out of my way, little girl,” the Defender said. “I’m not moving,” I said. “If you want to beat on me too, go ahead. Show these people what Olympus really stands for.” He took a step toward me, but something told me he wasn’t sure what he was doing. Maybe it was the way he hesitated, or maybe it was how fast his shoulders were bouncing up and down—rapid breathing no doubt caused by anxiety. Dax moved next to me. “You want to beat on me, too?” Next, Danika joined my side. “Or me?” Rose and Echo joined our human barrier and without a word, crossed their arms over their chests. All of a sudden, someone from the group of Prototypes shouted, “Baby beater!” Someone threw a ball of yarn at the Defender’s head, and more voices erupted throughout the Pillars. “Monster!” “Useless!” “Pick on someone your own size!” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Even the Prototypes—all teenagers born and raised in Olympus—were standing up for us. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged… like I was part of something bigger than myself. In Lutum, no one had ever dared stand up to a Defender, and now, hundreds of people had followed my example. My lips stretched into a smile as the Defender froze. Before anything else could happen, a loud alarm blared overhead. Red lights flashed as the sound filled the Pillars, and one by one, the Prototypes rushed out of the room. Chapter 24 ────────── “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Ivy said, out of breath. She hurried down the corridor, urging us to follow. “He’s going to have my head for this… Oh God. I can’t… I can’t believe you all did that.” As we ran with the crowd of Prototypes, the alarm continued to sound. People ran in all directions, trying to run back into their living quarters. Although I’d never heard this alarm before, I knew it wasn’t good. What were they going to do? Punish everyone? Were people running to hide? Or was the alarm meant
Shade Owens (Chosen (The Immortal Ones #1))
I imagined her helping me unravel each problem until they were simple, soft balls of yarn ready to be reknit with purpose. Instead, Stacy listened calmly until I was done. Then she said, “We’ll get to all that later, but first, why don’t we take a step back? Tell me about you.
Julie Zhuo (The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You)
I got human-made incendiary devices from the legendary South of the Border across the gates, three elf buttons ready to be keyed to your location of choice, a parakeet hybrid to insult your household when you’re not around to do so, some gems with unknown enchantments, and a ball of yarn.
Debra Dunbar (Kingdom of Lies (Imp, #7))
COCK-A-DOODLE . . . AAACK-KACK-KACK-KACK!” Way down in Hoot Holler, Hatchet the Rooster is ruling the roost. It’s tough to rule the roost when all of your cock-a-doodles sputter out like you’re gagging on a crossways caterpillar, but Hatchet’s ego is twice the size of his multicolored mop of a tail, and I guarantee you by the time that last kack! echoes off Skullduggery Ridge he’s already fluffing his feathers and strutting around like that’s exactly what he meant to say. “Cock-a-doodle . . . aaack-kack-kack-kack!” Hatchet belongs to our neighbors Toad and Arlinda Hopper. They live a half-hour hike away, down the western side of Skullduggery Ridge, but even though we can’t see their farm from here the crowing comes through loud and clear. That rooster has brass lungs. And once he gets started, he doesn’t stop. He’ll crow at noon, he’ll crow at the moon, he’ll crow any which way the wind blows. Most of all, he’ll crow whenever he feels the need to remind the world that he is a rooster, which is about every six minutes. That bird is as loopy as a ball of snarled yarn. “Cock-a-doodle . . . aaack-kack-kack-kack!” Guess
Michael Perry (The Scavengers)
So what am I, Freckles?” Torin asked, sounding awfully close. I glanced out the window and found him under my tree. “Annoying.” He chuckled. “You’re cute.” I winced. Puppies were cute. Kittens playing with a ball of yarn were cute. “You can do better than that,” he said. I sighed, hating myself for being curious enough to give in. “A witch?” He made a face. “Demon? Wizard? Warlock? Am I getting warmer?” “Colder than Hel’s Mist.
Ednah Walters (Runes (Runes, #1))
Next door was a vegetarian café and deli, and next to that was the Wooly Bear yarn shop. Its logo was a caterpillar in shades of yellow, green, and scarlet. Maggie went in. The shop was warm and bright, with one entire wall given over to cubbyholes filled with yarns of every hue in many weights and fibers. The opposite wall held small skeins and spools of thread on pegs for embroidery and quilting. There were racks of pattern books and magazines, and in the back a mini classroom was set up with a small maple table and folding chairs, now accommodating a group of eight-year-olds wielding fat knitting needles and balls of oversize wool. A girl of about sixteen wearing a Rye Manor sweatshirt was helping a little boy to cast on stitches.
Beth Gutcheon (The Affliction)
Everything on the inside spills out, intestines rolling from his body like an uncurling ball of yarn.
S.T. Abby (Paint It All Red (Mindf*ck, #5))