I edited last night’s post to say I thought I’d found the problem.
Partly, it turns out; the battery still just doesn’t hold a charge as long as it used to and I had to stop and plug it in awhile and wait three times, but hey. Thanks to Sam, I got to go!
Disneyland for knitters: we get to see friends we only get ever to see there and to catch up on each other’s lives while surrounded by all the best yarns any of us could ever hope for.
Four and a half years ago I was at Stitches East and met Karida Collins, the dyer who runs Neighborhood Fiber Company, her color inspiration being various neighborhoods around Washington, DC–back home for me–and Baltimore, where my daughter now lives. Karida decided to do the Stitches West show for the first time. And so there she was! Cool! And she recognized me!
She had exactly THE fiber with the perfect amount of yardage and twist, the exquisite softness, and the perfect color (Charles Village) all wrapped up in one sublime skein of silk yarn. She had come all this way to make it possible; there you go.
The owner of Wild Orchid Knits was there with her daughter: camel/silk, cashmere, mink; she uses only natural dyes. I had met the mom two years ago, been unable to find her work online since, didn’t see her there last year and wished for two years I’d bought a particular yarn from her to cheer her on in her good work. Well now.
A note from Jan helped me pay more attention than I might have to the softness and inherent baby-friendliness in some James C. Brett Marble Chunky acrylic from Yarn Barn for Parker’s little brother to drag around the backyard and playground someday, and so now I can get to work on his first afghan.
Years ago, when Signature was just starting to make needles and they came in straights only, they brought their new product to Stitches West and I wasn’t interested. Now they have circulars but they weren’t coming–but my friend Anne just happened to email me to say she would be working at Southern Yarns’ booth and there would be Signature needles there, just in case I wanted her to reserve me a pair.
I read that just dumbfounded. How did she know?! I have a particularly well-loved pair of rosewoods 3.75mm that had somehow gotten a divot clipped out of the tip. I needed a new pair, and I’d wanted to try out the Signatures. They are green.
And then. There was my dear friend Lisa Souza and her husband Rod, reason alone to come. I was wearing the Julia shawl in her Pacific colorway from the book and I had people stop me constantly, all day, wanting to touch it, telling me how gorgeous it was, to ask where I’d gotten that yarn. Lisa!
A friend kept me company while Sam and I waited for each other in different places at the end of the day till we finally texted–oh there you are! Just because she wanted to, and when I apologized over the cold outside there by the drive-around, she laughed it off, telling me about the snow she’d traveled in from and that this was warm. Ah. Okay. So you know Real Weather, that’s right. We watched a flock of geese fly overhead against the darkening sky.
And a fabulous day was had by all.
I can’t believe I had the energy to type all that out.
Oh and: a bar of good Valrhona chocolate, other than the length of it, feels just like an Iphone when you’re groping blindly through your purse. Reception is ec static.