Being watched like a hawk

Written before Knit Night at Purlescence:

I wasn’t expecting any packages… Channon?

Anti-windowsmacking bird panels. A magnetic bookmarker.  A bluebird enameled pin. A–get this–tiny bobbleheaded bluejay that went straight to the top of my monitor.  I love it.  Thank you, Channon!

And today, as I knit madly away on the cotton candy, there was a loud smack against the window. Oh, ouch–I turned around to see if the bird that had hit it was hurt.  No sign of a little bird, but I found what it had been madly racing away from: there, five feet from my face, was a huge hawk staring in the window.  (If that thing had hit that window there wouldn’t *be* a window.)  I, doofus that I am, yelled to Michelle, “Come SEE!” forgetting that even if I can’t hear, other things can; it took off for a nearby tree.  Michelle came over just in time to see the redtailed hawk with about a four foot wingspan whoosh out of the tree and away.

Wow.  Michelle pronounced, “So that’s the real reason you have a bird feeder!” Thinking, I’m sure, of the golden eagle I’d once seen perched on the neighbor’s roof.

No, but, my stars, what a gorgeous bird. What an experience!  Think it’ll come back if I parade around with a decoy of an enamel bluebird? Because I’m going to.

(p.s. The shawl? That pink rinsed blob thing I tried to get all the water out of? Uh, yeah, I finished knitting at quarter past three, later walked past the room where it was blocking, did a doubletake, thinking, wait, where is it?, walked back, and of course it was right there.  It was so gossamer fine that it had simply blended in.)

Written after Knit Night:

Jade surprised me with some exquisitely soft Malabrigo merino from Sock Summit.   She knew how much I’d wanted to go so she brought some of the Summit back to share.  Again, my thanks; I am so going to have fun playing with it!

Oh, right.  The shawl. Yes, it was dry in time for showing off tonight–if I’d had to stand over it with a hairdryer it was going to be dry in time! But I didn’t have to. Not at that thickness.

Cast on 24, keeping stitches 1/2″ apart on size 6 (4mm) needles.  Two skeins Cascade baby alpaca laceweight at 400m/437 yards each.  It has the plain stitches near the neck of the Nina shawl, the yoke of the Kathy’s Clover Flowers (slightly tweaked at its last row), the body done in a variation of Carlsbad, with a bottom edging of the Water Turtles pattern.  All of those are 10+1 lace stitch patterns.  If it weren’t for the reinforced neck edge, it could qualify as a wedding ring shawl, ie, one you can pull through a (preferably large in this case) ring.  Done!

(Dear Dr. S’s wife, if he was wrong and that’s not your color, I have more yarn. Promise.)