Last week, I had this road trip coming up; fine yarn on small needles wasn’t going to do it for knitting in the car (bouncy bounce!), I needed something bigger than that.  I went looking for–I wasn’t quite sure what.

That 70/30 mink/cashmere that had been waiting for the perfect design leaped out at me. (Mine is in English Lavender, not listed at the moment.) Size 5mm needles in lace. Yes.

I wanted to at last just see what it felt like to work with; you don’t know a yarn till you’ve knit it, no matter what it feels like in the skein, and I wanted to know if it was something I’d want more of as the new company comes out with more colors. (Note: the mink are treated humanely and sheared, not slaughtered. The guy flew to China to see and verify that for himself.) I wanted to justify its purchase; I wanted to justify coveting more, because I certainly do.

I cast on. I got a few rows done.

I did a few more the next day–and wondered what on earth about it was defying me.

And so I by-then dragged it along with me to Ruth’s, where, with mistakes, grumbling, ripping and redoing while looking out the window, I got a grand total of one 198-stitch row done after an hour and put it down and didn’t pick it up again. I wanted to see the road. I wanted to see the scenery change.  I didn’t want to miss a thing. Knitting could wait.

I again pushed myself at it yesterday, finally got it far enough along to spread it out to see…  And saw.  The screamingly obvious goof my brain had been trying to tell me about all along.  Too many stitches done too plain at the edges=stockinette=curling. A total beginner’s mistake, even in a limp yarn.  How on earth could I have thought I could let that slide…?! With a yarn that expensive, you do it and you do it right.

I frogged it to zero.

It is now happily almost knitting itself, humming along, the yarn perfect and the design is too now and it was hard to put it down long enough to come over here and blog about it.  I now know that it adds just the slightest, just ever so slightest, most demure peachfuzz effect that totally heightens the joy of the project when you frog this yarn. It’s gorgeous.  You should knit a whole shawl, rip it out, and knit it up again. Really. You should. You’ll love it.  Honest.

(Seriously: this is nice stuff.)

Today, then, was the day.  Having gotten the master cylinder crisis already over with and the car okayed by my mechanic, my husband took the back seats out, mine being the car that was big enough, and we drove it to a place Far, Far Away.  (Shrek-and-see Deutsch?)

Where Ruth picked out a shawl and got a chocolate torte (frozen beforehand to be safe) and made us lunch and her son helped load the thing up for us. Hardly a fair trade.

“We have to take pictures for Chan.”

You’re right, we do.

She wanted me to model her shawl. Well, okay, blues with blue.

Never hand the husband the camera while teasing him.

Dear, wait–okay, could you take another one?  I think you got me at a bad moment. (As in, I *know* you did.)

“But the battery’s almost dead!”

I should have said, And we would need that battery for… what?…before we got home?

Oh. Right. Got to show those Central Valley tomato trucks, where you wonder about the ones at the bottom of that mound–now *there’s* a store-bought tomato for you! We tried to get closer, but there was a traffic jam and just no way to pass nor ketchup to it.

In Heinz-sight, it was probably for the jest, though.

(And yes, we did crank up that treadmill fast enough to flip me off the back, just to see if we could. But I’m ketchingup quickly.)

Thank you, Ruth!!!

Now, to get that much done that fast, I iced my hands at the first twinge, several times a day as needed. I wore the splints at night that I have for years, custom-fitted by a physical therapist to keep my hands from curling and tensing up in my sleep.  (Being allergic to aspirin, this is a necessity for me.)  I took frequent breaks, consciously putting the needles down at the end of every row or two whether I felt like I needed to or not.

Had I not, I would still be recovering just from Tuesday’s knitting for several weeks’ worth of inflammation. But I did just fine, and I can’t wait to dive into the next project with that intensity. (Why, yes, my nest did empty Monday. Funny you should mention. Overcompensating? Me?)

BlueIce ice packs are a great invention.

Last night at Purlescence, I did express some reservations about the yarn being very soft but a bit thicker than I’d have preferred. It’s Zegna Baruffa, which I think is the softest merino laceweight out there, multi-plied into a heavier yarn for Colourmart.

Yeah well. Just add water and there you go. I love it. It’s perfect.

Sure!

Which is why a more experienced driver was at the wheel and the other driver got to learn new things without having to make any decisions in the moment.

Heavy traffic, lots of braking ahead, I was slowing down–when suddenly the brakes felt dead. Boom just like that.  My car is old but well maintained but oh well.  I was sure I was going to slam into the guy up there ahead of me, but no, the brakes actually worked even if they didn’t feel like it while I was pushing as hard as I could. Thank heavens!

I was in the next-to-left lane and there was an exit just ahead. I managed to get over several lanes and the traffic just opened up for me when I turned on my signal, how in that mess, I don’t know, thank you everybody and somehow it worked without all the things that could have happened happening.

Off. I got far enough down the ramp to where there was, for whatever reason, a stretch of suddenly cleared-off pavement in the margin, not much longer than one car’s length. I took it.   Before and after that point, the breakdown lane was all covered in dry tinderbrush that believe me you do not want to touch with a hot car in a California summer.

And that’s when I saw the smoke.  Just a little, then pouring out from under the hood on the right.  Please don’t blow up on us.  Just please don’t blow up on us.  (I flashbacked: I once saw a car with its engine on fire shooting massive flames fifteen feet high and it was three blocks from my house: the driver had pulled over right under a very dried-out olive tree. In front of a gas station.  I thought, flashback, you are not helping me here.  Shut up. It shut up.)

Meantime, behind us, people were speeding and cutting over the line on the offramp, seeing us and veering back into their lane and I was glad for every inch away from them we had–and very glad to be off that freeway!

Where, while we waited for the tow, grateful for cellphones, we saw a fire truck and then an ambulance making their way forward as the traffic started to back up past that point.  Someone was having a way worse day than we were. Gratitude check there.

AAA towed us to the nearest AAA-approved garage.  While I gave the owner our contact information, the tow driver quietly said to Michelle, This is NOT a good end of town.  Would you like me to drop you two off at Denny’s to wait for your ride home?

I almost hugged the guy. I did hug Richard later.

A shout out to KatherineL, who offered to rescue us when we couldn’t reach Richard at first. Thank you *so* much.

Coming home, trying not to feel weird about leaving my car to an unknown fate in the hands of strangers, Richard had a doctor’s appointment he was only going to make to on time now if he could go in the carpool lane.  We swung by home, let Michelle mercifully out, and I went with him.  He told me I didn’t have to, he could risk it if I wanted to get out too; I told him, You rescued me; I rescue you. It’s only fair.

And I was so glad I had that little knitting project.  My coming grandson’s little hat finally got all but the decreasing done while I waited. I think I really needed that.

And yet–Michelle and I were talking afterwards and we were both saying, You know? For all that that could have been, that was as pleasant as it could possibly have been under the circumstances. The tow truck driver was a sweetheart, the garage owner seemed a decent type, KatherineL was ready to run right there, Richard enjoyed the pumpkin pie piece I bought him to go while waiting at Denny’s. It could all have been so much worse.  We got off easy, we really did.

At least someone’s going to be warmer because of that trip!

There’s been a goldfinch just outside my window putting on quite a display today:  it’s been holding its tail stretched open as wide as it can go, trying to cool off.  I’ve been watching it relax, go oh wait that’s right and stretch it back out–hold it right there–that’s better. Relax, flare out, hold. Repeat.

On the ground, the mourning doves are winging it in their own AC effort.

My hanging sugarpine cone was held to its string up there, I learned, by glue. It came unglued in the heat.  Smashing Sugarpines would make a great rock band name.

The suet cake is dripping slowly.

The squirrels are looking longingly through the window at my tomatoes that are grabbing at their chance to finally turn color–inside, out of reach of their greedy little thievery.

A house finch lands and spreads his tail in a wide V too as I type this.

I tell you. It’s feather-and-fan weather out there.

Knitting Police.  Ma’am, do you know why I asked you to purl over?

No, Officer, I don’t.

You’re impeding frog-ness and you have stitches piling up behind you that saw very well what you did. I got a 911 call from them.

I didn’t do anything wrong, Officer! Just speeding on past the swatching stage… And yeah, I did change it just a bit–well, a lot on this version over the first shawl–but I did the math and jotted down the numbers and I knew it would work right, so I thought I’d go ahead and get started on this second one…

I thought so. Look, lady, I don’t want to get in a row with you.  Just come off those needles peacefully now.

I will not! I’ve done nothing wrong!

That’s what they all say.

…Oh… An extra stitch at the end of… But how on earth…

(And then she proved to be a repeat offender…)

Which is how this knitter spent three hours in knitter jail today and had the book thrown at her.  This might also help explain why it is not yet on payroll: it has to be done exactly right.

One row. I got just.one. row finished for three hours’ work, not because I needed more swatching, not because it was hard–it wasn’t–but because I was distracted and wasn’t paying enough attention to reading the actual knitting at a point where the pattern didn’t show well yet. I kept making dumb mistakes in very small dark stitches on a dark needle.  Tink, tink, again and again till I finally frogged way back in disgust, thinking: I could have wound a second 500+ yard ball and started over on a different needle by now and been past that point.  But wherever the mistake was, *that* should get it because I know it was perfect up till there!

And then I put it down and walked away for hours.  I finally went back to it and simply made myself get past the point that had stymied me. (And thought, What was my problem here! That was so easy!)

Like I knew all along it should be.  Sometimes you just need to go do something else for awhile.

But I also firmly believe that if you have to frog part of a project you intend to finish, you should try to get past where you were on it before the day ends if you possibly can in order to help keep it from becoming a *TOAD.  Or else the row’dkill that project.

And it is on its merry way now. Looking good!

(p.s. And this is another reason why I knit each project multiple times before putting it out there. It has to be perfect and then proven perfect again in exactly that rendition. Better yet, at least three times.  And I do.)

——

*Trashed Object Abandoned in Disgust

…Which of course (adding a little water to it) it hadn’t. Lying down, anyway. But in the circular-shawl version of “swatches lie,” as soon as I pick it up the weight of the wool will add the inches back on that I was expecting.

Two strands of Tess Designer Yarns laceweight, for two reasons: I wanted the raspberry/peach combination to melt into itself, which it did, by combining two in the same dyelot, and frankly because I just didn’t feel like knitting that fine and fragile a yarn by itself on the tiny needles it would require.  I had two thousand yards of the stuff in my stash.  I liked that colorway. (I mean, I really like that colorway!)  I wanted semi-instant gratification.

Melinda, you do nice work!

(And now I’m test-knitting draft two in a pattern of…  On to the next…!)

Meantime. Tonight.

(Nah, couldn’t be.) I kept knitting.  Several people in the shop had already commented on my colorway, and the woman who’d just come out of a class in the back seemed to like my shawl project. Except she kept looking at me, not just–but nah, couldn’t be.

From across the room she was going: (Nah, couldn’t be.) She was talking to Kay about learning to knit shawls. They picked one up off the back of a chair and Kay was explaining how to do its simple dropped-stitch pattern.

Then Kay mentioned my name. I didn’t hear her, but I sure saw the effect.  Suddenly, this woman is bounding over towards me and I’m exclaiming, Are you KATHY?!

Now I don’t have to tell you the hugs that followed: our kids went through school together clear back to kindergarten. Back in the day, the elementary let the older grades out I think 40 minutes after the younger grades, and when you had kids on both sides of that, you learned fast that there needed to be extra adult presence on that playground in between. And so we parents who picked up our kids would sit and chat.

Kathy reminisced over the times I would bring my spinning wheel, and how I’d spun up Cole’s samoyed’s fur. I’d made it into a hair scrunchy for his mom.

(Take a standard covered-elastic hairband. Take yarn and crochet around it until there’s no visible sign of elastic left.  Work it as big and ornate or as tiny and simple as you want.)

And now she’s learning to knit and wants to make a shawl. I think I could help her along the way with any questions, why, yes.  So for Kathy’s sake, here are a few old pictures of projects from my book.

One last thing, just because it tickled me: Richard mentioned tonight what one of his co-workers had told him today–the lady was stopped at a light and heard ducks. A little late in the season for ducklings but you never know and you have to watch out for them, you can’t run over them! Where would the water be that they’d be toddling towards…and so she was looking and looking all over. Where are the ducks! Quackquackquack.

She finally looked up. And there, perched on the wires above the intersection, were several parrots.  Speaking in Duck. (Mari and Kathryn, that’s for you.)

Hey, lady, no Peking!

And you know? I just might. (Thank you, Karen!)

Then that evening Michelle talked about some plans with some friends for the next day, and the easiest way to make it happen was to drop her off in San Francisco and then pick her up from the local train station later.

Note that I mapquested where she wanted to go to Imagiknit and only then back to home again.  My ulterior motives were cheered on by the others.

But I dislike deep-city driving enough that after she got out I decided to bag it after all and just get on the freeway and go. However, while avoiding jaywalkers I missed my street sign and ended up on Market Street and Market Street is a long straight shot west with a whole lot of No Turns signs. You have to juggle constantly between the trolley only/not trolley lanes and I can see why Mapquest dodged it–but it was actually also the most direct route towards exactly where I wanted to go. Finally allowed to turn left? Right where I wanted to.

And wonder of wonders, despite a hugely popular park nearby on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there was an actual parking place a half block up the street from the store. I was so surprised and still so ready to bail for fear of a long walk in sun exposure that I missed it and had to circle the block.

It was still open.

Well, then. Clearly it was meant to be.

I really really wanted to do baby knitting in Malabrigo softness.  And so with the help of Kurt at Imagiknit, I got to see (in person!) their superwash Sock in the Solis colorway that was on the very top shelf without even having to hold the tip of my cane while waving its curve hopefully around way up there in the air trying to snag skeins and scaring the bejeebers out of everyone around me.

There–that skein. That one’s perfect. No yellow splotches, just the greens and blues playing perfectly, that’s the one.  Malabrigo’s super soft superwash worsted-weight Rios yarn (it has a name now!) isn’t officially out till next month–the baby blanket I want to make is waiting for the day…

I talked to Karen. She won’t mind if I do a little superwash knitting first. I’ve got a good excuse.

And so I’ve got a soft Malabrigo hat going on tiny needles for my grandson (and yes, Mari, you’re right, the Saartjes booties to match it are the only way to go.)

It and he are nearly halfway here so far.

Meantime, Nina came home from a trip to Europe and asked me over today, and when I got there, she described an open-air market where one of the vendors was selling yarn she’d dyed and I think she said raised the sheep, too.  Cool.  Finnsheep. Anyway, she’d bought a bunch of skeins (seeing as how she’s become a fanatical knitter too now) and she asked me to pick out my favorite.

Then when I did, she handed me the second skein of it to make sure I’d have enough for whatever.

I tell you. I was swooning over these colors. Here, let me turn them over for you.  Gorgeous.