I thought last month that I’d bought enough, even though something nagged at me that it wouldn’t be.

It wasn’t quite.

But I didn’t want to infect them, either.

Today was so much better. I washed my hands and put on a mask to be on the safe side for them and went back to Uncommon Threads. Thirteen rows of seed stitch for the upper edge: I’d run out at four.

They were in the middle of a well-attended class with the owner and I got someone else to help me find my yarn; the previous time, Rios in Solis had been tucked away in a storage bin behind where one of the attendees was sitting and I would never have felt I had permission to just go open it/oh ‘scuse me/shove/just, no.

The employee went right to where it was hanging on the wall this time. Oh okay.

While it was being wound up I waited for what seemed a good moment and then asked the owner if I could show off?

Everybody loves a good project.

One woman asked if it was to be a wall hanging or an afghan?

I said, That depends on my brother and his cat.

Ohhh. Cats, she nodded. Yes.

I came away thinking, you know, I’d been wondering for awhile if I should ask him if I should add a doubled-over loop across the upper edge for him to slip a narrow rod through.

I’d also wondered how much the weight of all that wool might stretch the piece out if it were left hanging like that.

But what actually had stopped me was, as the children of an art dealer who’d helped keep the 600-year-old Aubusson tapestry weaving guild alive, we grew up with hand-dyed hand-spun hand-woven tapestries on the walls and my sweet little bit of knitting, I mean, come on….

But somehow that moment clarified it for me: sure I expect he wants his afghan to be an afghan, but why don’t I just ask him what he actually thinks? (Duh….)

I think I have enough yarn…. Actually, probably not. I think I’d have to loop back there.