While doing laundry a few days ago, I decided to throw my finger puppets in with everything else.  What puppets, you ask?  I’ll put pictures up soon.  When I find the time.  Those two concepts seem to contradict each other, but I’ll work something out.  Suffice it to say that for the past several years, I’ve amused myself by making finger puppets.  I’ve played with the pattern, and managed to make a dragon and a mermaid or two, but that’s another story.

When I’m at home, it’s the standard project: if I want to knit something, I’ll pull out a few colors, twirl my needles, and have a puppet, complete with arms, face, and skirt (or embroidered to resemble pants, depending on my mood and the colors I picked) in an hour or two.

Anyway, some of these puppets have been around for a few years and had yet to be washed – I decided it was past time to wash them all.  To ensure neither  washer nor dryer ate any puppets, I decided to count them.

I’ve known for a while that I’ve had A Lot of finger puppets (somehow reconciled with an unrelenting determination to make more), but I’ve not been able to keep track of just how many.  I counted them, made mental note of the number, and piled them all in the Klein Bottle Bag I made last year.  It was very amusing to note the state of the puppets when I cycled the laundry – none of the puppets had escaped, but many had been knocked through to the “other” bag (if you understand about Klein Bottles, this makes perfect sense.  A few were also in the “handle” portion).  At the end of the dryer’s cycle, I gathered all the puppets (two or three had managed to escape the bag altogether) and counted them.  I had the right number, happily.  Neither washer nor dryer had eaten them nor sent them to that Land Where Reside All Missing Socks.  (I closely guard my socks when doing laundry, too.  These are real fears.  I’ve had socks randomly disappear from me in the past.)

How many puppets, you ask?

I let my Puppet Hydra Glove (I’ll post pictures, and you’ll understand the name) count as one.  I also counted the Rapunzel dolls, since I was washing them, too.  Others might have counted these differently, and ended up with a different number.

Forty-two yarn entities survived the wash cycle.  That’s right, all you Douglas Adam fans.  My Klein Bottle Bag now holds the Answer to Life, The Universe, And Everything.