Yes it is.

Good time, good LYS, good friends, good yarn, and now it is done. (No, no picture, I have to keep some surprises, you guys!)

Meantime, if you have a moment: Lene has written a powerful post that is being voted on for a best blog post award in Canada, and it would help her in her effort to raise the profile of disability and access issues if it were to win; one-time voting goes till Jan 20 here if you are so inclined.

A few rows into it and it looked like I was knitting a great big garish hospital bandage to plunk on their head. I ditched it.

Today: I had to return something to Lands End. Rather than pay return postage, I looked up where there was a Sears store accepting such. Turned out I could drive south to a mall that I knew required a too-long walk in the sunlight to park, or I could go to the one in San Bruno.

You know, the one just a few streets away from Cottage Yarns. The fact that I’d knitted six projects in seven days, five from skeins I’d just bought there, needed showing off anyway.

The Sears parking turned out to be two car lanes’ width from the door, much safer for my lupus. Bonus.

I’d offered Richard to come with me to keep me out of trouble. (He’s on semi-vacation.) But no; returns and yarn just weren’t his thing.

When I was at the Cottage last Saturday, I bought a single, cautious skein of cotton/modal/I think it had some silk in it too, where’s that ball band, and knit a chemo cap out of it. My hands did much better than I expected; cotton and I are not friends, but I got it done by the end of that day with only minimal soreness.

So, back to the Cottage–only this time, knowing a little more now about gauge and effect in that kind of yarn and what needle size I could use, I took a more serious look at the Sublime Bamboo and Pearls. Again, not knowing the particular yarn yet, I bought just one skein to test.

I’m late blogging tonight because I could not put it down. 70/30 “Viscose from bamboo and viscose from pearls.” So soft! Shiny, just slippery enough to tamp down the effect of inelasticity from the celluloid bamboo, it just poured through my hands like water over pearls. It’s made of many strands but, being rounded well and with my sharpish Holz and Steins, it hasn’t been splitty.

But what surprised me, apart from the fact that it was almost as easy as wool to work with, was the warmth from the strand that suddenly caught my attention in my cool house. Cotton feels cold. I did not expect warmth. I don’t quite understand it; I can only guess the oyster is designed to stay comfortable in its ocean. That 30%, I am guessing, would have been made from what they shaved off the pearls to make them round for market. Purls from pearls knitted on needles of leftover wood from making musical instruments. It danced in my hands.

Kathryn was unexpectedly away taking care of her mom; I did get to show off to her husband, who loved the knits, but not her yet. They had more Sublime colors, you know…

I think I’m in trouble now.

Hey, Kathryn: that Ella Rae Silkience that you said this afternoon was the softest thing in stock in its genre? The pattern, which I made up, guessing as I stitched, is now written down because it came out perfect and I very much want to be able to do that again without wondering what I did. It’s done.

This Christmas knitting thing might be achievable after all.

Richard, knowing that my blood pressure tends to be way low if I make myself get going way early in the morning, immediately offered to drive me there then if I should need it.

Now, he likes to sleep in as much as I do on a holiday, and he knows I don’t need any more yarn. Mostly. I was very surprised–and then in a flashdance of figures in my head, 40% off the first hour, then 30%, then 20%, I figured out roughly per skein of potential Epiphany vs how the prices would rise as the sun did what the difference would be. I assured him that a, I had no intention of going at six-crazy-a.m., and b, even if I wanted to, the difference in price would come to so few dollars, and I would gladly pay that to be able to sleep in.

But my goodness, I’ve got me a good one.

I did head over there in the afternoon (after the Purl Girls Facebooked that hey, Alison, we’ve got some Epiphany left…) But there was only the taupe-purpley color having the cubespace all to themselves now. Pass. But what I really wanted, what justified the trip, would have been a yarn I don’t have but neither did they: something that would work well for another chemo cap for my mother-in-law.

Struck out. But someone else’s project from an Eco Cloud skein as consolation prize is humming along nicely.

Speaking of which… It suddenly hit me as I pulled out of the post office: darn, I was going to snap pictures of that, I was going to count rows and make sure I had what I’d done written down right. I’ve made various iterations of that particular pattern, enjoying them all, trying to improve on it before I put it out for publication, but I’ve never made one quite exactly like that one and I liked it the best of all: the elusive perfection, or about as close as yarn and needles can come, and now it’s on its way to where it needs to be and the recipients will simply forever have a one of a kind.

I like that.

She was wearing a pretty handdyed hat knitted by Kelli. Kelli hasn’t been able to knit for I think a year due to severe inflammation in her hands. But. She wanted to do that for her anyway, and so there it was.

Richard explained a little more today about yesterday’s having been weird: there had been reverse-911 robocalls to the Cupertino/Sunnyvale area, so the daycares knew before the school officials had arrived to find out; thus there were a lot of them that simply shut down before the workday started. (Note: the man was found this morning, and he died in a shootout with the police without the loss of any more lives other than his own.)

And so, in the midst of the grief and scare and loss of the day, small children were at the office doing small-child type things: being cute, running around, playing, finding joy in each other’s company and charming everybody while keeping Important Things from getting done, no doubt. New things to explore! New faces to meet! Cool!

And then tonight at Purlescence, surrounded by my friends, I got to hold one of the newest of the new.

I had an obstetrician a goodly while ago who had a poster set prominently in his waiting room, so that it was the first thing you saw when you entered his office suite: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”

There were maybe three times today all day when a small random flock–finches, towhees, titmice, juncos–flew in and grabbed a snack, quick, and scrambled out of sight.

It was very odd to have it so still out there. Even the squirrels barely showed, and when they did their behavior was very subdued: Don’t squirt me bro!

I didn’t see the hawks, but I have no doubt they were seeing me.

I had things to get done. Two packages to get off, one with the four hats going off to Vermont for flood relief, a card tucked inside each with a quick note of what yarns it was made of, who dyed the one from Vermont, and that Judy Sumner had given me it; I wanted to convey a sense of we’re all in this thing together. (I tucked in a few soft sweaters, too.) And this time I insured it.  Because…

I went home after talking to the postal clerk and found an actual place on the USPS website where I could send a message saying, this is the tracking number, this is the date sent, and a Kid Seta and cashmere Rabbit Tracks scarf in red disappeared after Aug 30 on its way to Germany to a recently-retired Army vet who served in Afghanistan. (I wanted them to feel a sense of responsibility to honor one who has given and served much; I certainly do.)

I went to Purlescence tonight, got to see Jasmin and Gigi and a whole bunch of people and talk and listen and soak in the yarny essence of everything and just in case, looked and found a pretty close match on the Kid Seta. I’ve got more of the laceweight cashmere. But the hesitance was in the thought, if I don’t buy it the original will show up, right? Just a little more hope a little longer.

At one point, Kay walked around the room handing out copies of Piecework Magazine’s new Knitting Traditions issue. We were all thumbing through it, reading it, admiring things in it, when Kay, who had by then sat down and was doing likewise, exclaimed suddenly, “Ohmygosh! That’s Ruth!” (She may have said “Ruth’s” with me missing the s.)

Wait, what? I didn’t see any pictures of…

Sandi (sitting on floor, left and front) came over and apologized for having forgotten to tell her it was in there:  Ava Coleman had an article in there on christening gowns, and as an example showed the beautiful lace gown she had knit for her granddaughter.

Ava happens to be Sandi’s mom (correction and thank you Kathy: her former mother-in-law–I knew that… It’s just that she’s the only mom to Sandi I’ve ever known, and they’re such a natural fit of caring, talented, knitterly people.)

Now I got it: that wasn’t someone’s following the same pattern as… That WAS Ruth’s!

We drove through some of the state two years ago. It’s a lovely, lovely place of fog and pine and views and people who look out for each other and, according to Mr. Ben and Mr. Jerry, colorful cows.

I hope Jill’s shop came out of it okay, but more importantly Jill and everyone else out there.

Meanwhile, we have the much tamer whirlwind here of getting Michelle ready to go back out to grad school. Ordinary life. It’s a blessed thing to be able to have.

I was at Purlescence tonight when Nathania got that sneaky grin thing happening again: she was clearly very very pleased at what was just about to happen and at the fact that I had no idea. And then she got to watch my face go: But, but—!

Totally nonpsychodegradeable. Wow.

Now, I just looked back through my posts–when I talked about that shawlette start that needed to be frogged? The one that the color had been so perfect, but the texture, not so much? That got me to grab the Whales Road Malabrigo for the softness? (That project’s now at the stage where I could either cast off the very next thing or maybe continue for one more repeat.)

Somebody… Nathania said, “I know nothing. I don’t know who, I don’t know how, I don’t know when it was put in this basket to wait for you.” (I would not be surprised if the other owners of Purlescence conspired to keep it that way till after she’d given it to me.)

But my name was written on a skein of Madeleine Tosh fingering weight she was lifting out of that basket to hand to me.

The same weight as the sock yarn I’d deemed too strong a twist, designed to withstand sockitude, not quiet shawlitude.

So soft.

The very same color.

I never blogged the color that was so perfect but that the yarn just hadn’t worked for what I’d wanted. But someone nailed it.

I’ve never in my life bought a skein of Madeline Tosh; I’ve picked up many of them, petted them, then put them regretfully back, thinking, next time maybe.

And now I have some MadTosh softness at last.  I love that their website has a little image of a bird up by their URL. I love the Cousteau name for the color. I love the yarn. I love the thoughtfulness and the generosity and the challenge to try to live up to that. Thank you whoever you are, thank you all of you, thank you Universe and thank you Purlescence for enabling the culprit, and with so much happiness.

Wow.

Today was the grand reopening celebration, but they just didn’t need my nagging bit of sore throat.

So I decided to celebrate in spirit: I found some Kid Seta I’d bought from them and thought about starting something with it. But I have some knuckle inflammation going on, it was a bit hard for my hands to hold that fine a strand.

I pulled out a skein of very thin cashmere that had stumped me when it had arrived from an online purchase.  The color. Brilliant red on the orange side? Not so much here. That fine a laceweight would take a lot of time to use up a color that didn’t do it for me.

The Kid Seta was a muted red with the silk shimmering lighter, rather pinkish against the fuzzies.

Put those two balls side by side (the nighttime photo doesn’t capture it), and my first thought was, Nah, they fight…

But wait. Colors affect how the one next to them is perceived, they’re like humans that way, maybe they just need to be closer together. I cast on. I knitted. It lagged and got interrupted at first as I wasn’t sure, and then the further along it got the more I liked it till it was hard to put down and suddenly I was 26″ into the thing.

And it is gorgeous! Who knew?

Quick, tell Congress: the differences blending together are what make it come out so pretty.

(Pattern: Rabbit Tracks with an extra stitch each side as there should be.)