I had a certain feeling of being watched and looked up.
And there, ten feet away, perched on the back of the nearest outside chair on the patio, as close as he could possibly come, was a hawk. An adult Cooper’s, smaller than the one I’ve seen before, the markings slightly bluer on the head and redder in the brown, beautiful earthy tones–my guess is, the male of the local pair. I think I’ve only ever seen him from a distance before.
Eye to eye we stayed and very still. I so wanted him not to fly away; let me take in every feather. I remember M. Leeb, my father’s artist friend, telling me when I was 16, Observe for ten minutes. Draw for one.
Would that I could.
After a few moments, he glanced to the side, keeping an eye on the business at hand but no, everyone was playing hide to his seek–and he was off between the trees and gone.
I sat there unable yet to move, not wanting it to be over.
On the knitting front: I have come to realize that I do not own a really warm hat (other than the by-now very ratty very bright red one my grandmother gave me on my 12th birthday) because I haven’t needed to. I’m not off meeting Parker because I caught a cold–very slight, but a cold–and one does not bring germs to a preemie. I can’t go to the climate of cold yet–but I can knit about it.
When I made the Coronet hat for Michelle, I found myself wanting to revamp the pattern. Plain stockinette above the brim? But that’s not as warm as cabled. Pick up 2/3 of the rows to make the new stitches? But, wait, cabling takes about 1/3 more stitches on average than plain, so, if I pick up every row and cable all over that should work, right?
Yes, I already see the problem: a cable of nine stitches across and the rows come in groups of eight. I’m working on it.
But what I wanted to show here was my answer to the Knitty instructions to kitchener the knit, purl, kniiiiiit, purl, knit stitches as you go across. It kept coming out reversed in the grafting for me. Bag that. I’m a lazy cuss.
So what I did was a three-needle bindoff: one row ready on one needle, the other on another, hold them together with the right sides together on the inside, and then I bound off. You take a third needle and go as if to knit into the first stitch in front and then keep pointing the tip on into the first stitch in the back; finish knitting the stitch. Repeat on the next, then slip the first stitch made over the second just like you would a normal bindoff. It will seem strange to have two stitches popping off each of the left needles as you go rather than one, and it may seem awkward as to which of the two needles to the left is doing the slipping over, but it’s all good and all quick. Not to mention easily undone if you change your mind about doing it that way.
What you see in my picture is how it looks before I’ve woven the ends in; I will use them to tighten up that line a bit. I used a spare length of yarn to bind off with, rather than my working yarn, for that reason (and the fact that my beginning strand was too short. Oops.)
It feels good to be creating. Something warm, soft, pretty, useful, and brand new coming into the world in my hands.
Now all it’ll need is a wild feather in my cap. I have a black and white one on the mantle that the woodpecker once let go.