It had been two years since Nina and I had done a yarn crawl.  Last year’s medicalnoise simply, neverendingly got in the way.  We were long overdue for some time together, so today we threw our things in her car and headed north.

I introduced her to Cottage Yarns in South San Francisco and snagged the last hank of Malabrigo Sock Botticelli Red in that dyelot, just to make absolute sure I had enough for my project–you know, the one I ripped out four times in my perfectionism before I got it right.  Having a lot of yarn left over, just in case, so much beats the alternative, and  I want to be able to be more generous on that shawl’s length that I would be for me, personally, if that’s what feels right when I get to that point. (I will add, the yarn held up just fine to all that ripping. Makes me more willing to buy more.)

The owner grinned to see me right back and right back in that Malabrigo basket, and she welcomed us warmly.

And then we went to Imagiknit in San Francisco, a marvelous shop full of light, both in the people and in the shop itself.  As we drove closer to it, looking around and at our map, (hey, I know that park!) I mentioned to Nina that my cousin Dan lived in this general neighborhood.

She dropped me off and went hunting for that most endangered species, a parking spot in The City.

I had only seen Imagiknit in the wild, at Stitches.  The store itself has two big rooms: the animal fibers in here as you walk in, the plant fibers over there in that one.  I imagine that would make it easy for the vegans or for the allergic. (I appreciated that the angora rabbit yarn was on a table by itself in the center, thereby far less likely to accidentally intermingle fibers with the wools.)

I bought a little Malabrigo here, too, some laceweight in exactly THE shades of rosy reds, and the gorgeous many-shaded skein less than perfectly pictured here, a colorway not quite like anything else around; it had a tag that said “test” on it.

Test? I asked. Am I allowed to buy this?  Did you dye this? Did Malabrigo?

The lady laughed and said yes, Malabrigo dyed it, and then explained it was a line that wasn’t out on the general market yet.

It’s a two-ply superwash merino worsted, super-soft.  They’d put in just the right amount of twist–not too tight, that would add too much friction to the hand, not too loose, that would let the fiber ends pop out. They’d done this exactly perfectly right.  Bravo! (Okay, Malabrigo, so let me buy more, okay?  Could you like, maybe, shear your sheep a little faster or something down there in Uruguay?  While those little lambs are just, you know, milling around like that, waiting impatiently for my needles. Whatever it takes.)

I told them I hadn’t been much of a hat knitter, but there was a family that had lost a child whom I’d knitted hats for and their little boy still doesn’t want to take his off ever.  His attachment to that hat had sold me on knitting them, so this worsted skein would be the next one I make, for…whomever.

I now know what I want to make the next piano hat out of, too, once there is more than the one skein in my world.  Can you Imagiknit?

The kicker? As I waited for Nina to swing back afterwards to pick me up, the guy who stopped at the stop sign across the street from the shop as I opened the door:  I could not believe it.  “DAN!” I mean, c’mon, what are the chances?! But it was him.  He looked slightly around but not all the way to where I was standing, shrugged ever so slightly, must be just city background noise, and drove off and away.

Leading me to thinking, you know?  There are others I love that I also need to go spend more time with, now that I can.  I’m so glad Nina got me to stretch my boundaries and go farther than my usual path and to see that I could. I’d needed that.