Kay just called from Purlescence: the long-awaited Casbah shipment finally came in!  So that means I can knit Mary’s skein up, they can put it on display, probably when I come to next Thursday’s knit night if not sooner, and that shawl will be a sample of skeins they actually have in stock.  Everybody wins.  Again.

I love knit night at Purlescence.  I was going through serious knitters deprivation while we were on vacation and then they were too for awhile there.

So here’s the scene: I asked if I could have the shawl back that they had in the window, the Julia pattern from “Wrapped in Comfort,” a little one made out of one skein of Handmaiden Casbah on big needles to stretch the yardage as far as it could go.  It’s softer than the blue Bare one I’d been working on, and softness was something the circumstances really needed.

Kay not only gave it back to me, it had been held on the model with a shawl pin made by a local artist, which she put in my hands and asked that I send it with the shawl to the woman whose husband Marc is so very ill.

Wow.

I regretted not having the Casbah to knit the shop another one; they have it on backorder, and it hadn’t come in.

At which point a woman across the room, Mary, who’d been quietly spinning away at her wheel, and who I hadn’t even known had heard any of that, reached into her knitting bag, stood up and walked over to me, and asked how many skeins it had taken to knit that shawl that was now in my hands.  One?  Good, then!  And she held out a skein, a beautiful blue, Casbah no less, and urged me to take it.

It took me a moment to sink in.  Wow.  I could knit it up and gift it in turn to the dear friends who own that shop.  And that’s what Mary was hoping I would do.  She was giving me her Casbah and blessing all of us in the face of the loss that this other woman that none of them had ever met was dealing with.  We were all in this life thing together.

I was fighting tears.  Wow.

Cast on.

Now is it easier to see? The Constance shawl, after I listened to the galloping horse whinnying “Neigh!” Reknitting from the double-wound tube was enough of a tangle when I first picked it up yesterday that I knew I had to get past that point before I put it away in the ziploc again for the night. So I did, with no problems after that initial moment.

Nancy’s penguin trying to claim credit for the blue ocean of Bare yarn.

Diana trying on my mother-of-the-bride Camelspin-yarn shawl at Purlescence’s knit night last night. The pattern has memories of strawberry picking with my family, growing up, and the wide, flowing Potomac River knitted into its stitches. I have a tradition of always dipping a toe into the water along the banks of that river every time I fly home. Now I can take it with me without having to crash through the canoe.

The pelicans we saw going to the post office yesterday.

“Is it fragile?” the clerk asked.

“Lemons from my Meyer tree for someone who misses California,” I answered her. She loved it.  We just hoped the box doesn’t start leaking juice before it arrives. We put it inside one of their all-weights-fits-one-price box (good thing!)

The last amaryllis of the extended season, a Picotee–the last bud just opened.

Mom and I went to Purlescence tonight, where I showed her off, got to hold Nathania’s baby (this is a picture from about a month ago that I finally got to work) and tried to make friends with my shawl project again, which kind of sputtered out in the wedding preparations. But when we got home, I ended up pulling out my drum carder. This box finally came yesterday, after the post office had lost it, and I wanted to play with my new toy.

Nancy and I had gone in together on an order of Seacell/merino 70/30 mill ends: wonderful, soft stuff, and cheap. But what you don’t pay in price, you pay in time and effort, this being not smooth roving but the stuff that didn’t quite make it that far and got put aside. Well, about time I put that drum carder to good use. (Are you still sure you wanted to sell it to me, Laura?…I can always mail it to your new house if you change your mind…)

I’ve never seen undyed Seacell before, much less spun nor dyed it. I am going to find out. (Tomorrow, as I glance at the clock. Or maybe next week, as I glance at the calendar.)

“Begin: the rest is easy.” Don’t remember where I read that in high school, but it’s stuck with me ever since. And now I have.

Planetary excursion: the hubby and I went to Green Planet in Campbell on Saturday to check out the newest yarn store around; I wish Beth, the new owner, great good fortune, and she’s off to a wonderful start. She has big enough chairs for my sweetie to sit in comfortably–this is rare, for my 6′8″er–with WiFi, to keep the non-knitting Significant Others happy. He approved. Houston, we have a positive on that trajectory.

Go to http://littledee.net/ , scroll down a bit, and see the author of my favorite comic strip and what he’s got in his hands. So tell us, Chris, is it merino? Is it superwash to survive what your characters will put it through? Vachel wings and Dee knee-highs next?

Dianne’s Creatively Dyed Yarn is at booth 930, and her daughter is just as nice as she is. Go tell them I said hi. I was wondering if she’d remember me–hah. I walked up, and she dropped everything and exclaimed, “ALISON!” when she saw me, and threw her arms around me. I got her back for it, though, when I opened my bag–and she was wearing a shirt that exactly matched that scarf. She got me back, though, when I tried to pay for some really really gorgeous merino she’d dyed. Fine, be that way–I’ll knit it up and put it in the next knitting book. So there.

People who don’t knit miss out on so much!

Oh, and–we’re four for four (or is it five for five) on the Stitches/wheelchairs saga. We got the silly thing charged okay, and then I couldn’t get it out of the minivan. But I didn’t drop it on my foot this year.

Kevin at Purlescence gave me his cell so I could plead for help if need be tomorrow.

People who don’t know people who are knitters miss out on so much!

Karen at Royale Hare, as she was stroking her new mohair scarf from her yarn, admitted she’d seen it on my blog and wished… Not that she would ever in a million years have told me that. But she was the perfect person for it. And I would never have thought of it if that Silkie hadn’t played hide-and-seek, so that the Fitch Mountain Frost could get a chance to leap out of my bag at me while I was searching for the Silkie.

Speaking of which, Kaci, where were you? Your Silkie’s coming home in a few days. You said at Stitches East that you liked that colorway too. (I figure by the time you might read this, you already know.)

Oh, and–I told a few people that everybody seemed to be sold out of my book. My bad–Lisa Souza has a whole ‘nother case. And Pacific Meadows Alpacas had a few copies left as well. Nina Price will have some too. Phew! I was afraid we were going to have booksignings with no books left!

It was out of the blue–and yet I could see it coming a long way off. My friend Karen calling today, with a stunner: she was closing her yarn store. Oh, Karen, I’m so sorry; when?…

After today.

WHAT?

She’s been doing two fulltime jobs for I think six years; I’ve wondered for a long time when something would have to give. And abruptly, yesterday, she looked at the lease and decided it had, and that was that. She was making lots of phone calls, asking people to spread the word. We did.

The end result was an impromptu get-together party of many an old friend: friends of Karen’s, friends of each other’s, friends of the shop’s, after 20 years. Karen is the friend who taught me to spin and dye, working out of her home for a few years after her first location was destroyed in the Loma Prieta quake. This is the friend who gave me one of just the best stories that didn’t make it past the editors into my first book, for lack of space, but I tell you, her cat that dyed itself green will be in the next one. This is the woman who, when I called her after my car accident, saying, my sister wanted a navy afghan for Christmas and no way no how was I able to drive right now, did she do mail order? Responded with, “Yes, but I can do better than that,” packed her minivan with navy yarns, DROVE TO MY HOUSE 25 minutes away, and then insisted on giving me a discount. Gave me a hug, as I stumbled dizzily, and told me to get better.
This is…was…the store of my friend.

And I will miss it. But now she’ll have time to actually knit for the first time in years, and I hope I’ll actually get to enjoy more time with her, not less, because of the change. It’s hard to let go. But it was clear she was ready.

I know, I know, you’ve heard the phrase before: “for those who’ve read my book…” you get to meet someone just a bit more.

I got an email last night from Nathania at Purlescence, saying someone had brought in a gift for me, would I like to come pick it up? So this afternoon John and I went over there, wondering what this was going to be about; walking in their door, I exclaimed to her, “Your amaryllis is gorgeous!” thinking, cool, they’re decorating the store with my favorite flowers! Or maybe someone had brought it in as a pre-baby present–Nathania’s only got a few weeks left before she and Kevin get to hold their Christmas baby.

“That’s your gift. Do you know a Sue B?”

I was boulevers’e. Well YEAH!!! That’s the Sue whose story starts my book off, the waitress we love so much who can tell you what our preschooler used to order for dinner twenty years ago!

There was a thank you for her baby alpaca lace scarf in handwriting that Steve Jobs ought to take note of and preserve as a font. What she didn’t know, was, her gift made it so John got to come into the shop and have all these people he knew there congratulate him on his mission and wish him well, a chance for them all to say goodbye to each other for two years. The timing was absolutely perfect, and they totally made his day there as well as the flowers themselves.

So now I get to take Sue’s gift and share it with everybody here. (Sorry I took them away from you, Nathania, I’ll make it up to you, I promise…) These are gorgeous, Sue, and I love that you did this–thank you!

Knitting group doesn’t get better nor more exciting than this.

At Purlescence. The Thursday night group. Knitting and laughing away… My cell phone rang. Note that this is an extremely rare occurrence: almost nobody has my number, because I can’t hear on the silly thing anyway, and my family uses the various text features on it to contact me for the most part. It took a moment for it to dawn on me that that actually was indeed my phone ringing (and that I heard it ringing!)

I didn’t quite get it out of my purse, out of its holder, flipped open (it’s a Hiptop) and answered in time; they hung up immediately as I was pushing go. I IM’d my husband to ask, was that you.

The phone rang again. (Meantime, it turned out, my husband was IM’ing back to say ANSWER YOUR SON.)

I stepped away from the others to try to answer, clicking to speakerphone because, well, I have to, while they all tried to respectfully ignore it while I tried to respectfully get out of the way, going outside…

Listened…

And asked the kid’s permission first. I walked back over to the group, held the phone out in front of me, and announced: “This is my son. He’s calling to say he’s engaged.”

The room totally exploded in cheers and whoops and clapping. I get to have Kim for a daughter-in-law!! She told Richard YES!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo by Renee, Saturday at Marin Fiber Arts; go to  http://www.revknits.blogspot.com/ for her blog.  This is what the Constance shawl looks like if you do it in a single-color yarn. It took me about 17-18 hours to knit it in this fingering-weight baby alpaca.

One note on the book: I did the smaller version of the Water Turtles shawl several times exactly as it is written in the book, a generously-sized example being Sandi’s shawl shown here: http://spindyeknit.com/2007/03/page/2/ While knitting the one that was photographed for the book, however, I skipped rows 30 and 32 in the yoke, making a slightly shorter yoke. Either way works fine.

I had a high school English teacher who never knew the impact he had on me and on my writing: if your name is Mr. Smith and you taught at Winston Churchill in Potomac, Maryland till you left to go get your doctorate, thank you, wherever you are now. One memorable moment was immediately on the first day of class, when he looked over the gathered students sitting quietly in their chairs after the bell had rung, and just kind of went, wow. Then he explained to us that when he’d started teaching, the kids didn’t come in and sit at their desks–that was too establishment. That was Not Done. It was the late 60’s, and they sat on the floor instead.

My friend Nancy and I were at Marin Fiber Arts today, up north of San Francisco, and at one point in the afternoon, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do just to plunk down on the floor and pull out my knitting along with everybody else. This photo was shot as I was brought another book to sign, a bit after I’d done the others.

Mr. Smith would have loved it. And a very good time was had by all. I can see why my friend Patricia goes out of her way to come to MFA: it’s a well-stocked, wonderful store, with a huge selection of yarns that appeal to one’s sense of touch as well as one’s sense of colors, and Warren, the owner of http://www.marinfiberarts.com/ , is a peach.

This is Chloe, aka C., one of the co-owners of Purlescence, where we had our knitting group meeting tonight (and where I was really, really, really hoping she’d show up. Funny, that.) One of the regulars was exclaiming, “She picked out the yarn last Friday?!” Well. Yeah. I didn’t offer her before that, so how was she going to do it sooner?

And this is tomorrow’s baby alpaca project in periwinkle.

I went back out there a few more times. My gopher was clearly slowing down as the day went on; I wondered why he never went back down into his mound. I startled him at one point, (sorry gopher), and to make it up to him, I found a quite long dried straw and stroked his back gently with it. He seemed to like that, and calmed down while I did that.

And then one of the kids and I headed down to Karen’s Rug and Yarn Hut shop in Campbell, where we set the date for my first official booksigning there on June 23 and chatted awhile. Ran one more errand. Then came home and decided to go check on our little guy in the back yard.

Who was gone. The zucchinis would be safe after all. But…but…! On his last day, his little gopheriness had been well loved, and for that I am grateful to a degree that might seem silly. I debated easing him back down nice and safe into his mound with a shovel, but practicality and basic common sense intervened. I just hope he doesn’t fall out of his paper bag for the trashmen next week.

I have a doctor (bless him!) who believes in being careful (it’s that white cell count thing) but very much in still going and living your life. So with his encouragement and the help of my friends, live today I most thoroughly did.

My friend Nancy and I drove up the gorgeous 280 freeway, with views of the unbroken and blooming springtime hillsides to the west, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and on up to Marin Fiber Arts in San Rafael. There, we met up with Warren, the owner, and Patricia (right) and Niki (left) with Nancy catching me just before I burst out laughing after she snapped the shot. Patricia had set up a cruise ship with how many knitters? Was it 60? And they disembarked in San Francisco, chartered a bus, drove to Warren’s shop, and generally created happily packed-in pandemonium. Niki and Patricia had wanted to meet me, I had wanted to meet them after being online friends with the two for I don’t know how long, so, hey!

Niki, by the way, is the one who knit me these socks awhile back.

You can tell I’m a newbie at this author thing: someone tried on one of my shawls, handed her camera to Nancy, and all I could hear with the background noise was that she’d asked for a picture. Nancy pointed the camera at me, which utterly confused me–she wanted a picture of her in the shawl, what are you doing? Nancy laughed, She wants a picture of you!

Me? Why? Oh, (duh), okay, (there’s still a part of me that will never truly get why, but okay.)

And when I got home, another Picotee amaryllis had opened up, just to top off the day. Thought I’d share.

Every piece of our handknitting carries a history of our days within it.

Sandi is one of the co-owners of Purlescence, and the person who gifted me with that lightweight, collapsible scooter recently. How do you thank someone who offers you your mobility back? I went into her shop last week and bought (among other things) four skeins of Kidsilk Haze and a matching Alpaca With A Twist’s Fino baby alpaca/silk laceweight. I loved how the two strands played off each other.

My son’s doctor blithely told him he would be home within two to three hours after his arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Three hours after, he still had a breathing tube down him, out cold. I knitted and knitted and knitted Sandi’s yarn, keeping the generosity of her spirit present in every stitch as I did. I knit his recovery into those stitches, and of course, he’s fine; it just took patience and time. Like (what else) knitting.

Three days ago, I showed my friend Nancy what I had so far. It was a guess exactly how much the lace would stretch downwards once I blocked it. I thought I had enough; Nancy said no, keep going. So I did a few more pattern repeats, mostly to keep Nancy happy. Then, as long as I was at it, what the heck, I kept working till I was about out of yarn. I blocked it, checked it over, and thought, Great. Now I just knew it was going to be way too long; Sandi is emphatically not a tall person. Twenty-seven inches–on her?

Nancy gave me a lift over to our first time at Purlescence’s knitting group last night. Before we headed off, I showed her the shawl. I was sure I’d blown it, and I told her I was going to start over with another yarn I’d bought from Sandi, so she’d have a shawl that wouldn’t just totally swamp her.

Nancy said, You made this for Sandi. The color will be perfect on her. She will love it. Give this one to her.

You know how sometimes someone with some sense says just what you need to hear?

Yeah. Sandi loved it. Like there was a question?