What to do.

Dithering: I hanked 1550 yards of white merino/cashmere/silk blend off a cone and scoured it. Wound 440 yards of suri alpaca into a ball.

I wanted to knit a hat.  A good, useful, guy-type thing, right?  I bought some Zara merino Friday at Purlescence because it was so soft yet tightly spun–but when it came right down to it, I realized later, it was thinner than I had any desire to knit in ribbing.

Yesterday at church, Brian’s oldest sister was thrilled when I gave her the scarf made from Liz’s Belisa cashmere and Robin’s Cashmere Superior; they’d danced beautifully together on the needles. Then the purple cowl for her little sister.  Their older brother stood there, delighted at how happy the one sister was and how much the other one was about to be.

I’d already planned for him to be next. Zara, don’t look at me like that.

And so I got those other useful-later tasks done while not-knitting.

Finally, I pulled a tub of yarn out of the closet, opened it up–and felt, oh, at last.

Now, you can never get ahead of nice people; I once surprised Tina Newton with a shawl, and she surprised me right back with not only more of the same Geisha yarn so I could go make me one too, which I did, but also a whole whack of other stuff too.

But the Silkie (link is to the colorway) in the lot had refused to budge. Its time hadn’t happened yet.  I wanted to thank Tina by putting it to good use, and all it would tell me was, Just you wait.

Today, as I looked at the Zara and that open tub, the Silkie went, Told you so.  So there.

It’s just a plain watchman’s cap in 1×1 rib, but the colors came out in a slight diagonal all over that delights me. Leigh Witchel’s basic 2×2 hat formula I riffed on, here.

Three younger siblings done, five to go.