Nesting instinct
Saturday April 02nd 2011, 10:54 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knit,Wildlife

Thursday night, getting ready for Purlescence, I didn’t have a portable project for it.  I’d finished one and hadn’t decided  the next yet–but it was time to go. I grabbed needles and the first ball of merino I saw and off I went.

I got the brim finished by the time I went to bed that night but I kept wondering why I was knitting this. My daughter-in-law has one like it; was I subconsciously trying to knit her back to being here in person? (Oh, and maybe bring Parker too? This picture’s about six weeks old now, we need to take new ones.) She loved hers so much when I gave it to her that it certainly made me want to go do that again.

Well then.

I didn’t work on it much Friday, despite my nagging desire to finish a thing once started.

The phone rang about 9:00 this morning.

2:00? Okay, thank you, that sounds good, we’ll see you then!

I suddenly had two-thirds of a hat to knit, and fast.  And I mean fast! I knew there was no way I could knit one from the beginning in time for the very helpful fellow who would be dropping by, but for his wife at least, whom I’d never met, I had a head start in that lovely Malabrigo softness.

And I knew that the best way to make a good person happy is to do something to honor those closest to them.

So the doorbell rang this afternoon a little after I danced across the house waving the thing to Richard going, I finished! I finished! The fellow handed me the thing he was going out of his way to drop off for us and started to turn away with a wave and a cheerful hi.

I stopped him a moment. Explained what I’d done. I saw someone I took to be his wife (she was) waiting in the car and waved hi to her as he left, hat now in hand. I shut the door after him.

You know that doorbell rang again before I could get across the house.

And so I got to meet a delightful woman whom I felt matched me right down to the longish gray hair and the hearing aids.  We swapped a few hearing stories and laughed together. The whole time I’d been raceknitting, I’d been wishing I could actually meet her, and I got to!

When a ball of yarn leaps onto your needles like that, sometimes you’ve just got to obey it.

Oh, and one other thing? The female Cooper’s hawk swooped across the yard just about the time I finished, me on my perch just then and she coming to hers, the metal dolly ten feet away. My eyes followed her in as she came and I turned. She seemed to approve of that nest I’d built–awfully small, though, don’t you think–and a moment later, with a nod of her head, (birds do that to gauge distances but never mind) she swooped back to the right and away.


10 Comments so far
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What a beautiful hat! How could it not help you make a new friend?

Comment by LynnM 04.03.11 @ 1:09 am

Did the female hawk nab that obnoxious squirrel while she was at it?

Comment by Lynn 04.03.11 @ 2:13 am

You are a good “listener”.

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 04.03.11 @ 7:14 am

I like to meet the “angels” who speak to you, I think mine are sleeping.

Comment by kristy phipps 04.03.11 @ 7:19 am

Wow! Wishes come true! Who’da thunk it?
Yes, we need some new Parker pics. I don’t think the very next one should be him dropping a basketball into the hoop.

Comment by Don Meyer 04.03.11 @ 9:45 am

No coincidences. Beautiful!!

Comment by Channon 04.03.11 @ 9:55 am

how perfect :-}
Have you written out that hat pattern? it is charming!

Comment by Diana Troldahl 04.03.11 @ 11:50 am

Hat is gorgeous. Nice post.

Comment by Joansie 04.03.11 @ 12:03 pm

Oh, my, she must have been so delighted to overcome whatever had kept her in the car in the first place. What fun!

Comment by twinsetellen 04.03.11 @ 5:01 pm

Love the hat. I keep looking at over and over. I’m sure she’ll love wearing it.

Comment by robinm 04.03.11 @ 8:20 pm



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