I met Dianne, the owner of Creatively Dyed Yarn, at Stitches East in Baltimore last fall, and she was one of those people you just instantly adore–she could have been selling dried paint chips and I’d have bought some to cheer her on in her endeavors. So when I read on Ravelry that she was going to Stitches West for the first time, and taking her family on a road trip to see the country along the way, I was thrilled to know I’d get a chance to say hi to her again.

She was re-creating, though she had no idea, part of the trip my family had taken when I was ten when my mom taught me how to knit. We kept running into another family doing the same sightseeing on the same schedule, state after state, and their ten-year-old daughter Cathy became my pen pal for three or four years afterwards, from Weston, Massachusetts, and I wonder where she is now; we randomly ran into each other for the third time in the middle of the underground in the depths of Carlsbad Caverns, before they turned out the lights. (That’s your cue to go run buy my book for the rest of that story. …Moving right along…)

That day in Baltimore last fall, I bought what were I think the very last two skeins of the 70/30 wool/seacell Sea Wool in Dianne’s stock–it had sold fast. I looked at it on Tuesday, after I finished the Silkie, and went, well, YEAH!

Then the question was: do I knit the Carlsbad, then? Nah, just did. The flowers from the Kathy shawl?… Nah, a bit too variegated for the lace pattern (although, looking at this, I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t, but too late now). And then I decided: I did the stitch pattern from the Michelle shawl, my Sea Silk one, seaweed for seaweed. It fit. Don’t rat on me, and I’m not linking till I see her tonight. Heh.

Technical stuff: cast on 27, do four repeats across of rows 14-20 with one extra plain stitch added at each side to stabilize the edges. Start early in the day. Repeat till bedtime.