I started an afghan months ago that was three shades of earthy pink/claret/burgundy, from some 95/5 silk/lycra I’d bought at Colourmart seven years ago. My thought was, I’m finally going to use this up; I wanted something simple after finishing the incredibly finicky fish afghan; and it could go to anyone who might be allergic to animal fibers and they would be so thrilled. Because silk.

I knew from experience that the stuff shrinks by about a third so I’d started it on size 10.5s: big needles to use up my stash and create that yardage fast.

Silk likes to jump off needles, and three strands at once? It was not fun. Twelve plies per strand spun tightly together and yet each individual one just waiting to snag on your hands if you had any rough spots that day?

I wanted it done, I just didn’t want to do it.

So it sat there at about eight inches long and not useful for anything. For months. It didn’t help that I thought I only had one more threesome of those cones, which meant I would not be able to make it as long as I wanted.

In the middle of the summer I stumbled across more cones. I DID have more! That shawl I’d made hadn’t stopped me from having enough! I could actually do this. I got about five more inches done on it.

Malabrigo in the hands it is not. It sat forlornly in a second timeout.

The redwood blanket. Done. But what if Kat, if I were to ask directly, were to confess she loves the idea of it but not how it looks? What if she’s allergic to wool? Shouldn’t I be prepared to offer her options? This is about making her happy, not me. I started wondering towards that silk, was it really so bad? (Do they have a pet whose claws will shred the snot out of the stuff?)

And then the phone rang yesterday. It was an employee of the contractor who had originally planned to come in September along with the roofers to repair the termite damage, till life had thrown the boss a curveball; could he come by in an hour and go over the parts where the work needed to be done? It’s the fascia all around, right?

Blink.

And so he did that. Appraised the situation–yup, the woodpeckers went after the termites there, set up stuff for the morrow and left, telling me they’d be here between 8 and 9 a.m.

I dug out that silk afghan project. I’d stored those rediscovered extra cones with it. Phew!

I got up this morning and another employee was sitting in a truck out front waiting for it to be 8:00 so he could start.

And while that wooden fascia started coming off from all around the house, I knitted silk. I took breaks of course, but basically I tried to feel productive to live up to their example. I decided I was going to finish off that first set of 656-yard cones and at about ten p.m. I finally did.

Twenty-nine inches. Not bad. Not bad at all. And all this time it was just waiting for me to get a move-on, fer cryin’ out loud.