It had been too long since we’d gotten together. And the Malabrigo Superfine Merino was a one-time run from the mill, delivered only to Imagiknit, and when it’s gone it’s going to be gone.

It is really hard for me to go to that store alone: parking is non-existent and the walk in the sun can be very long if there isn’t someone willing to drop me at the curb if need be and then take a hike. The fact that it’s down the block from a popular park in the City doesn’t help.

And so my old friend Nina, bless her, who loves to knit, too, threw an unexpected afternoon free at me and we  drove to San Francisco today. We actually got a spot within the block.

At Stitches West back in February, Antonio, one of the Malabrigo owners visiting the show from Uruguay, told me about that mill run and that the micron count was 14.5 (wow!) He fervently wished there were more of it, but there just wasn’t, and so…

…I went straight to the Imagiknit booth and talked to Allison about it. Went home and ordered that Solis colorway.  Gave up petting the thing and actually knit it up this past week: because I needed to work with it and I needed to know what it was like running between the fingers for hours before letting myself be tempted to buy more.

And the answer is? It is glorious.

So. The woman running the shop today was surprised when I told her the shawl I was wearing was one skein of that SFM; the stitches looked too thick to her to be that.

Bingo! She noticed! It’s 100g and 336 yards, but off the ball and onto the needles it somehow relaxes and widens out as if it were a worsted. It is airy and light and soft as fur and perfect. It’s still wool, which still has scales, but still!

There was one skein on their high wooden table of the stuff in a color that wasn’t on their website. It was the most perfect thing I could have asked for, so, that and two skeins of Malabrigo Sock came home with me.

A few minutes after I got home, it suddenly dawned on me that the Abril Sock I’d bought… Wait, let me get it knitted and done before I tell the story, but, it matched with something that has waited three years for me to finally get with it. Now I know.  Perfect. To be continued.

There was a two-cone large silk shawl I got most of the way through before our travels, and it was bothering me that I hadn’t finished it–so most of the last seven hours have been spent on those 3.5 mm needles and now it just needs to be cast off. The pattern is an experiment and I really want to see how it turns out.

I did take a break to run to Trader Joe’s to buy more hazelnuts…

(Ed. to add: finished the cast off, and going wow, this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever knit. I am very pleased.)

The hawks haven’t (as far as I know) flown through any of the amaryllis stalks. Yet. The hummingbird did check them out but didn’t stay long.

The Malabrigo yarn in Solis: I finally finished it.

Oh wait, I realized, no I didn’t–those stretches of stockinette in the lace? The castoff curled there. Tink x 324, do k2tog, yo across and purl back and the only reason I didn’t do that in the first place is I didn’t think I had enough yarn. I did. Done! It is drying, and I can’t wait.

And that was going to be the whole post, till I went into the kitchen and saw the leftover toasted skinned hazelnuts in the fridge.

My usual peanut butter cookie recipe is one I discovered in an old hand-me-down cookbook given me in New Hampshire 25 years ago: one cup peanut butter, one cup sugar, one egg. (The Skippy type works best, the natural, not so much.) Great for celiacs. I do occasionally add a tbl of flour for a little bit of extra crispness at the edges, but it’s not necessary. 350, 8-10 min. That’s it.

What if…

So I buttered the cookie sheet. One cup hazelnuts into the Cuisinart. I let that run a long time, trying to get hazelnut butter, not meal, then added 2/3 c sugar, 1/4 c. cocoa, hmm… about 2 tbl butter, how ’bout a little more in there, possibly three, wasn’t measuring… 1 tbl flour just because, and 1 (extra large) egg. Trying to put teaspoonfuls of batter down, it was like sticky silly putty but soon settled down and behaved–ie, it held to itself rather than me after being on the cookie sheet a minute or so.

Which I figured out when I found some extra dark chocolate chips and pushed a half dozen into each cookie. Eight minutes at 350 again did the job, and there you go: the best cookie recipe I have ever come up with.

Toasting and skinning hazelnuts is a pain, but I totally just got over that.

(Ed. to add, if you prefer yours sweeter, go for the full cup of sugar.)

You know how to get me really knitting? Really burning through the stash?

Dangle a yarn in front of me that I really, really want, that I could tell you all the reasons why it would be just the most perfect yarn for so many potential recipients, and to seal it, make it something that’s a one-time thing only and at an unbeatable price…

…While knowing there’s just no justifying it till I make decent headway on what I’ve got. Lots of sand on that beach grabbing at my toes.

Well then. Dive in!

I woke up the other day to my Richard on the phone, talking to the nurse at 7-something o’clock. Where were those hearing aids? *fumble fumble drop* Wait-what? Ask her what the side effects are? What?

He did but didn’t get a real answer, because, as it turned out, she didn’t think there were any.

And so it was that today I got the latest and greatest to fight the bone damage from the useless steroids of my Crohn’s flare three years ago. I had to look it up: Prolia, ie denosumab, is indeed a monoclonal antibody as I thought it must be from the name. (Any drug name that ends in -mab.) And it’s less than two years past FDA approval–I lucked out.

On the last thing they tried, I was one of the unlucky hyper-reactives, sick for a week; six months later I went in for follow-up testing and got a note from the doctor: “I’ve never seen this, I’ve never even heard of this!” It had done diddlysquat. I asked him if it could be a new manifestation of autoimmunity? He said it was too soon to know.

This time, so far, so good, and he will absolutely not wait the standard time frame for follow-up testing.  Crossing my fingers. Having lost 29% bone mass in four years, and having had another year pass since then in which the loss continued at the same speed… (So yes, some of that pre-dated that particular flare.)

The Prolia works by blocking a protein that is a main instigator in shedding bone. Blessings on that doctor for fighting the insurance company while we were off having a good time for a few weeks. May the day come when providers can simply do the right thing because it’s the right thing and not have to go through all that.

Meantime, the bluejays went for the feeder twice in rapid succession while I was home (and got just as rapidly disabused of the idea) and were otherwise nowhere to be seen all day. Things are going back to normal.

And the yarn I grabbed on my way out the door to the clinic is, I’ve decided, not what I want to do next after all. Where are all my 7s…

(I’m putting in some old photos to show off some of my patterns.)

I was at the pharmacy today and admired–out loud–the beautiful handknit shawl in muted plums the woman next to me was wearing.  The yarn was clearly hand dyed, and I asked her, Madeline Tosh?

Another knitter! She was thrilled. We ended up sitting down together and talking lace shawls, parting reluctantly only because she had to leave for her doctor’s appointment.

And I now knew why I’d gone out the door wishing I were wearing some of my knitting, but the afternoon was a bit warm for it. But I tell you: she totally made my day.

And to add a total non sequitur that is close to my heart, remembering that opossum: please. Make sure you’re all the way awake before you try to chase marauding wildlife away from your birdfeeders.

Took it easy today. Didn’t go to a couple of places I’d planned on; I put my feet up and got some serious knitting done.

If I were making that silk shawl for me (um…)  it would just need casting off.

It keeps telling me it wants to be longer. I put it down and started on the next project while it argued, with me going, but then, who? I know that women who are larger than me need more length, but…

It needs to be longer. It’s been steadily louder as I’ve gotten towards this stopping point; clearly, I am not in charge here.

Well okay then. But for the pattern to look right I have 13 rows to go, then, and a full day’s worth of work.

And then it will be perfect!

A few more Parker pictures…

I finished the first cone of the dk Colourmart silk and got two stitches into the next row with the next and stopped. Tinked that little bit back and walked over to the kitchen scale, curious.

I had bought two 150 g cones. Now that I could measure one empty piece of cardboard, I could subtract that from the other to see how much yarn was actually on the second cone.

One hundred seventy grams. Thirty-six for the cone, 206g altogether. And I remember the other as having been 206 too before I started. That means I got 40g more than they charged me for. Someone else mentioned something about that on Ravelry, and the owner just smiled and said she liked happy customers.

They posted a lot of new colors today. Said the happy customer.

News flash: three peregrine falcon eyases hatched at San Jose City Hall’s 18th floor on Easter Sunday with the fourth trying as hard as it could to join them, a big hole visible at the top of its egg. By morning today it was being fed with its new siblings by mama Clara.

And a new season begins.

More Parker at the zoo photos.

First the knitting story, then the knitter story.

I have this silk shawl I’ve been working on. I’ve put a ton of time into it and it only needs a few more days. Note that the needles are 3.5mm, US4s–quite small.

And to accommodate that, I changed the neck a lot from some of my earlier work.

There was this nagging feeling that kept telling me, as it grew steadily, slowly longer, that, you know, you might want to doublecheck that beginning edge, because if the V-neck goes down to your belly button…

So any number of times, hampered by the length of the circ, I stretched and measured it every way I could think of–except one.

Today it finally got to me. I have often told people to rinse their lace still on the needles, let it dry overnight, and then it will show you how it will look when it grows up.

I didn’t want to wait that long, and for the length of the rows I was knitting it would have taken two circular needles to do it anyway.

So. I went hunting for another #4 and for needle stoppers. Found two; needed four; used rubber bands as a makeshift and hoped they would be wide enough. I knew there was a great risk of ruining days’ worth of work, especially given how loosely I knit–the stitches could slip right over those and off. Maybe. But I needed to know.

And so I knitted halfway across the next row and carefully to a point where there were no yarnovers, only smaller stitches, switched to the new circular, attached a needle stopper to the end of the first and continued on across while trying not to snag the silk with the stopper; then at the end of the row I added rubber bands and the other stopper, making both circs endless and hoping they would hold.

The moment of truth.

I carried it all carefully to the bathroom. Put the cone down. Wished for Richard to hold the two points at the center just to be sure–but he was napping.

Well, then. And I put that shawl carefully over my shoulders–great, I snagged it on my hair clip, I should have remembered to take that out first, but mercifully they came back apart without grief. The covered brown needle tip hung down on one side, the green the other.

And then I looked at the shawl itself shining back at me.

You know that feeling when it seems like you’re knitting the most glorious thing you ever knitted in your life?

And the shawl was perfect. Generously sized to fit others well, too.

Story of the day number two:

It was Easter Eve and everybody was doing last minute grocery shopping at the same time.

I was at Trader Joe’s, where the lines tend to be close together, and after I got checked out I said to the next clerk over, a tall young man, “Did you knit your hat?”

“YES!” he exclaimed in great delight that someone had noticed! It was plain stockinette in a heathered gray, the ends curling slightly, with three or four decrease lines at the top. (Being a lot shorter than he was, the number was a guess.)

The woman he was checking out said the yarn looked so soft. Notice: not hat. Yarn. And their conversation was off and running and I was out and away.

I was so glad I took the risk. The whole place got happy.

I wish a blessed Easter and Passover to all who observe them, and joy to all.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a plane! It’s a bird!

A pair of double-crested cormorants, as far as my friend Sibley and I could make out. I can only wonder why they were flying away from the Bay. Taking a vacation to the ocean?

Got 3200 stitches knitted in silk while avoiding working on the taxes. Finally put down the knitting, picked up the TurboTax, and made good progress.

Blog time! (Escape!)

So, to cut to the chase: Parker, letting Disney know they’re down to 100 Dalmations now: one went Up!

Our grandson Parker and his cousin.

Lace:  I had eight going into a large almost-prime number, intending to fan out at the larger repeat but not too much of an increase, and after much scribbling and mathing and wondering if it could even be done, figured out how to get the two lace patterns to come out lined up just so with each other.

If only.

So I showed Richard what I’d done and why and how I’d made a visual representation of what I was doing and why it clearly should come out right–shouldn’t it?

He puzzled over it. I explained it again. He puzzled some more and finally offered that it seemed right to him; maybe it needed tweaking at the boundaries?

I laughed. A seamstress would have said selvedges. A knitter would say edges. A photographer would say frames. A carpenter would say corners. Someone remodeling their house would say there’s a beginning to it but there’s never ever an end. And someone like me who (due to a brain injury, I’ve tried for years, it just is what it is) struggles with knitting charts, can say this.

Spaces: the final frontier.

As I knit some ice rose dk silk from Colourmart (if they have any colors left at all on that page tomorrow. US postage is included.) Oh, and if you want some really nice shawl patterns, Purlescence has my book in stock. Just sayin’.

I made a mistake on this new pattern and I knew what I’d done. It was easy to fudge; the instructions I wrote were correct, it was just me that wasn’t. Just lift a strand between stitches and call it a yarnover and no one could ever tell–but the moment I made that decision rather than rip back, it wasn’t book knitting. Book knitting has to be done perfectly, checking every stitch and counting across on every row; this one’s the learning-as-I-go version, then.

And a really really pretty learning-as-I-go shawl. But it’s only fair anyway; there’s no point in dangling a yarn that’s an industry remnant that may or may not be repeated (and I knew that from the start). Truth is, I was simply knitting this, for the moment, to make me happy, while wondering where it will end up.

Sea Silk next time. I have some waiting its turn.

Birds. Scene: suet cake in a green wire cage, hanging down in the middle of the patio where there’s nothing for a squirrel to jump from to get at it. A house finch pecking away at it–or trying to.

Except that finches have this profound need to be at the top and the top half of that cake was already gone. She’d landed at the bottom, where there was plenty, but climbed up to where there was none no matter how many times she jabbed her head hard in there as far as she could reach. She did it again and again, straining as if she could squeeze her shoulders inside the cage too.

Air headed.

Later, I had someone working in my yard today (that branch gouging the side of the house after the storms had to go) and I had to stop and go out and explain to him why I was looking out the window and laughing: not at him.

One of my fearless little chickadees had flown to that wire cage and then realized late that there was an intruder, it was big, and it was quite close. And coming closer. Bigfoot!

And so it froze. There was no escape without giving its position away. It froze so perfectly and for so very long that I wondered if it was okay–I’ve been watching my birds for three years and I’ve never seen that behavior before. I’ve assumed it, after they’ve scattered from a hawk and melted into the trees, but I’ve never seen it up close.

Having caught on too late to zoom towards safety, the little bird was playing possum; if it couldn’t get away, at least it could blend in and become one with half a suet cake, the top of its head bowed to it as if in reverence.

The man was delighted. Seldom does wildlife stick around to be admired when he’s at work. I loved that he loved that it did.

Found another Frazz comic that made me laugh. (Well, they all do, but hey. Birds.)

Saw something new today: a squirrel with its nose pressing hard against the wooden box, squeezing its pointy little face as far as it could go underneath, right next to one of the 2×2s the box is resting on (ie as far from me as it could get while trying this). Two inch space: the final frontier.

That’s where I occasionally toss food for my wrens when they’re being shut out by the bigger, more assertive birds: only the Bewick’s will dash into that tight, dark space, and even they have to duck their tails down. Not even the chickadees explore there. Perfect.

As I’ve mentioned before, northern California is the only area left where those wrens have a healthy population and I am determined to take good care of mine. They are the tiniest birds with the biggest burst of song, many songs.

That left black paw was just about to sweep and grab to try to finish the job. I’d seen dog fur already shaped into a circle vigorously disappearing under there before with a wren going at it; there might well be an active nest and I didn’t know how far back it was.

Ooh, tasty nestlings!

Boundaries clearly needed to be reestablished and my initial foot stomp and loud GIT! wasn’t going to cut it. Time to bring out the big guns.

I have a bright red shopping bag, about as tall as an inquisitive big Fox squirrel, with twine tied to its handle at one end, and I set it up coming in at the side of the glass door with the twine tied to a cardboard tube at my end for a nice handle. I put some beat up store-bought pie crust tins and random broken ceramic bits in it for a nice noisemaker effect and to keep it anchored in the breeze.

(I know. What would Scott say. I bought the pie crusts.)

The door was closed. I was inside, innocent as could be.  Waited.

Took awhile. A black one and a clearly pregnant gray (yeah, I saw what you two were doing the other day, so do we get to see speckled squirrels? Palominos? As close as I’ll get to my childhood wish for a pony.) They took turns on the patio for awhile, and finally both were there at once and it was getting a bit crowded under the feeder. So one sniffed, then took cautious, tentative steps where it knew that peanut-suet crumble was hiding….

BAM! That bag was outside right there close to them–it came flying and crashing and those two marauders nearly risked a sonic boom. Just missed crashing into each other, too.

If I had to spend all afternoon working out the math on a pattern I’d thought was already ready to go (well, it is now), a bit of squirrel fishing certainly brightened the day.

But I would love to be able to do what a member of the peregrine forum told me she does: she buys mealworms at Los Gatos Birdwatcher, then throws them in the air and the waiting phoebes see her and catch them! Wow.

And you know who the cleanup crew would be.  It’s only fair.

*Ping*

I heard the incoming email and put my knitting down to come to the computer, where there is a better view out the window, to see who’d written; breaks to rest the hands are always a good thing.

Which is the only reason I saw.

In mid-reply, typing away, something made me look to the left just in time. By size I’m guessing it was the male.

There is the translucent awning with the birdfeeder hanging from the wooden beams it rests on. We have seen a hawk from time to time doing a steep V-dive, appearing suddenly from above and then veering straight back up again for the chase as everybody panics. (And if it hears a window strike, I get treated to a super close-up.)

Today was a first: I saw the Cooper’s just as it came in from a low flight, trying to stay out of view, and pulling straight up at the last second to catch I think a dove on top of that awning. The doves like to walk all around up there and the smaller birds never seem to.

I went looking for a picture to describe it, and this one is the closest–only, picture the bird entirely upright mid-air and facing you. At fifteen feet away.

Last week I saw one way to the left, carefully half-hidden by a tree trunk and perched on the fence. I was curious to know if she was stalking an oblivious finch on the other side of the smaller feeder to my far right. Knowing how fast they move, I consciously blinked left then back to the right as fast as I could make my eyes go–and in that real time, she lifted her wings, spread her tail wide and was halfway across my backyard. They are that fast.

Now if I could only teach them to knit. You’d need rope to survive those claws… We could have a hammock fence to fence in a blink.

And guess who was there tonight.

That same couple–and their baby, whom I hadn’t seen since she was an infant, 11 months old now and almost walking; she and I played for quite awhile. Peek a boo! *giggle giggle giggle*

And Penny and her husband, too.

She had been diagnosed with lymphoma shortly after I knitted her that shawl, and it was a comfort through all those months of treatment and solitude as her chemo-battered immune system could tolerate no risks for months and months.

That yarn had known exactly whose it was from the get-go.

I showed her the project I was working on–and admitted that although it had absolutely demanded to be made, and I’d thought I’d known who it was for, the further along I got into it the less sure I was that that was where it was meant to be.

And so I have already decided what I really will make for the person I’d been aiming towards, while this? I don’t know. I just know I have to knit it. Monday, when I rescued its UFOness from oblivion, I actually only had the first four rows on the needles; now it’s halfway done.

She reached to touch the Findley yarn and exclaimed, Ooooh! As she did so, I suddenly knew: this was exactly the pattern I had knit for her.

Everything came together in good will from both of us in that moment towards whomever it holds in its future.

Monday, it was going to be a different pattern in the body but my counting was off, and so…

I told Penny in mock indignation, My knitting bosses me around! She guffawed–she knew. Hers does too.

I’m curious to see what will come next with this. I do know that yarn time is in its own variable universe.