Do you ever feel, after finishing a big project, that you suddenly have to Do All The Things, quick! Before the next one?

The plan had been to dive right back into the grandkid afghan that’s a picture of the Big Sur coastline that I put aside to make my brother’s. It’s beautiful, and I really like it, but part of me needs an in-between something before I tackle all those intarsia strands again.

I finished a hat and went looking through my stash.

And looked again yesterday. I can’t go around without even a carry-around project! I put needles and red Rios in my purse but it protested that it was not its turn.

So, again today, feeling like I just hadn’t found–I didn’t know what, but I knew I would know when I did and I hadn’t yet.

Which is exactly what happened: there, the moment I laid eyes on it, put away in the wrong place, was a quarter pound of merino super wash from Karida at Neighborhood Fiber Co. Color: Waverly.

Seeing her is one of the things I miss dearly about Stitches West no longer being a thing. I loved her and I loved the saturation of her colors; you’ll never find white fibers at the center that the dye didn’t reach to, she got it all.

Deep burgundy for a teenage boy’s hat. Because it told me so. Even if I can only guess why so far; the yarn knows, even if I don’t yet, and it says it wants to be cabled. Oh, okay.

Man, it feels so good to be knitting the thing that needed to come to be next.