I knitted a scarf for the woman who bought my folks’ old house, one that had the name of the street incorporated into the lace pattern. Now, I’ve used this particular baby alpaca yarn and that pair of needles together dozens of times, but somehow those two stitch patterns came out looser-looking than many. No, I didn’t swatch. I know. I was pretty sure of myself, and yes, when I knit it again, I will tighten up the gauge a bit.
But the perfectionism of the knitter isn’t what matters; what does is that I designed it just for her, I finished it just in time before we left Maryland, and I got it over to her new house, where her contractor in great delight promised to get it to her, along with the copy of “Wrapped in Comfort” I handed him with an inscription thanking her for loving the old house and the woods behind it. I told him that in the spring, before the neighbors’ ivy had overwhelmed the ground cover (which, thankfully, he’d pulled completely out), there had been a field of mayapples under the trees to the right in the spring, with box turtles living among them. Box turtles love mayapples. I told him that one time we kids had brought a snapping turtle inside by mistake, and Mom had told us to take it right back outside, now! My brother Bryan, part of the conversation, said in surprise, “I didn’t know we had snapping turtles back there!” Box turtles, sure. I only remember the one snapper ever.
Read the book, I was thinking at the contractor as well as the new owner. See some of why those turtles mean so much to me.
Amanda’s green yarn is going to be the next rendition of that pattern. Right now it and the newly gifted Superior and my sister’s Christmas present and that lovely rose laceweight from Stitches East and and and are all vying for attention like toddlers jumping up and down, going, Me, Mommy, no me! Knit ME next.
All right kids. One at a time. Don’t everyone try to speak to me at once.
