Remember the twins? They were triplets!  The last blossom opened yesterday.

I hadn’t bought Stephanie Pearl-McPhee‘s latest book yet because I wanted to get over to Kepler’s to support my local bookstore. Then she announced she was going to be in San Mateo at the Maker Faire tomorrow, and I pictured a mad scramble of knitters across the Bay Area looking for copies for her to sign.

Jasmin scored me one at Borders and brought it to Purlescence last night, after checking and finding out our Purl Girls were out. Thank you, Jasmin!  Nathania did her part: she waved some new Casbah at me in the most exquisite shade of deep teal, just to make sure I’d have a good portable project for knitting while waiting for Stephanie.

So. I went home, I sat down with Stephanie’s book, and I didn’t go to bed till I’d finished it. I went to bed laughing and knowing exactly what I was going to be blogging about today.

If you go to page 33 of my own book, “Wrapped in Comfort,” I describe running back to the (late, lamented) Rug and Yarn Hut after finding I was short for the project pictured here. Immediately after they opened for the day, there I was, throwing the door open and yelling across the long expanse to Kat, the only person in there just then, “Nobody touch that alpaca! It’s MINE!!!”

Kat will be telling that one on me for years.

So here I was, blissfully minding my own business, reading Stephanie’s book, and suddenly burst out laughing. On page 153, she warns her readers not to dither about that 50% off alpaca or Alison would “swoop it up with the precision of a strike missile.” Note that most of the projects in my book are in baby alpaca. Yes, I’m not the only Alison she knows, but I am totally claiming that page for my own with great glee. Why yes, I do have an ego.

Stephanie, you’re wonderful. Now, how long since you wrote that sentence have you been waiting for me to read it!

(I told you I had an ego!)

First, the technical stuff. After I dyed that Fino in amaryllises the other day, I threw in a 25 g ball of Elann’s Baby Silk, the last one from making the original Peace shawl. There was still some color left in the pot, and when I had a few more wilting red blossoms a few days later, I threw them in to boil too. I don’t know if it was the aging of part of the batch, but the pink was gone and what was left was a deep rust color. Not much of it, but enough to do something with. This time, using merino sock yarn, it took up very nearly every bit of color. Does this mean wool takes up amaryllis better than alpaca or silk do? Seems that way. Silk always takes up dye a bit slower anyway, which is one reason I love dyeing a silk/animal fiber blend: you often get a heathery effect with zero effort.

Meantime, I got permission to share this from Tunie, one of my readers, as my son’s wedding nears. This is the best piece of advice to a bridal couple I think I’ve ever heard; I really like it. She specified after sending this that no words need be spoken, the gesture is understood as is:

“We are celebrating our 40th anniversary in June and I think being good friends (we’ve been best friends since age 16) is one of the keys to a happy marriage.

Something a friend told me when we were engaged helped a lot when we were first married. If during an argument you want to say you are sorry, but are too stubborn, angry or are afraid it will continue the argument, give the other person a glass of water (we used a special silver goblet). It means I want this unhappiness to be over and we can resume discussion when we are calm at a later time. But let’s not continue holding the anger. If the other person drinks it, the anger is suspended. Believe it or not, it worked for us. It didn’t matter who was at “fault”, just that the feeling was not what we wanted to continue.”

Then she mentioned that they used the silver goblet just to make sure a crystal one wouldn’t get broken. We’re all human.