I finished my Abstract Fibers scarf, though it’s bleached here by my flash. There is no pooling other than what I created by how I laid it out.

And while I was knitting–221 yards’ worth of fingering weight this evening, the math side of my brain needed to figure out repeats vs repeats done tonight vs weight etc–I was listening to whatever random CD came up on the player. If the music keeps playing the needles keep dancing.

The album cut by the old high school jazz band started up.

Okay, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but… When my son Richard was in middle school, his jazz band teacher also taught jazz in the high school and he aspired to join that group in a year or two.  They won a place in the high-school jazz competition at Monterey, so we drove down there that Saturday to cheer them on–and they were good enough to be invited back later to play as professionals in the main Monterey Jazz Festival, thus that album. *That’s* what a great teacher can get kids to accomplish.

We cheered on the kids on another team that had driven in a bus all the way from Maine for the competition. Now that’s heart!

We later went to the end-of-year school concert too, and again they played a piece that I’d liked so much: Bedtime for Bigfoot. I think it was the one that had been written by one of the kids as an AP Music assignment and it was hard not to get up and dance to it on the spot–you knew those kids were having a ball when they played it.

Richard-the-younger and I did a quick grocery store run afterwards, and as we got out of the car I asked him to sing the first note of that song.

He nailed it. Perfectly on pitch. The kid is good, and I about burst with pride.

When I was naming one of my shawl patterns, it seemed only fitting that making a giant version of my Rabbit Tracks lace should be called Bigfoot by comparison.  It wasn’t till later that I realized why I loved the word so much.

A teacher who believed in his kids.

Kids who learned what they could really do.

A rocking, happy song that celebrates that.

And I bet you my son could still sing it starting on exactly the right note. And his new son is trying to tell us he could too, just let him get the talking thing out of the way first.

Blockage: clearingnowohthankgoodness. Cold: from me to Richard and back. It surprises me as if it were all something new–which is a good sign, I like being used to being well.

But I needed not to feel sorry for myself so I finished another hat (my Congressional hats being done.)  Then I made good headway on some lace in the Grape Hyacinth colorway from Abstract Fibers and found that just looking at it puts me in that familiar, magical place where I feel like I’ve never knit anything so pretty in my life. They do nice work.

Thank you Kim and Richard-the-younger for the Parker pictures. Stop the germs, we want to go hold him!

Does anyone else find themselves wishing they could knit hats for everybody in Egypt? I wish and hope the best for them and thank them for their peaceful efforts; they are representing themselves well to the world. I’m holding my breath and fervently hoping they’ll get to do so in their government too.

We are so blessed.

Here at home, there is now a Ravelry group at http://www.ravelry.com/groups/warm-hats-not-hot-heads for the campaign to knit hats for our Congresspeople and there will be a Facebook group soon.  If anyone feels so inclined, please, feel free, spread the word on your blog or your knitting group or wherever. If you knit a hat for your congressperson, please shoot an email to Ellen, here if you would; we’re hoping for Feb. 28th as a deadline to get them all shipped by, en masse would be great but if you want to sooner, more power to you. Sending it to your representative’s local office works well, in person even better; the whole idea is to make it feel as personal as possible to them.

Those who tell Ellen so she can put it on her spreadsheet, by whatever moniker you want for yourself there, will be the ones I’ll be able to know about for sure: because when this is all done, I told her that as my thank you I’d like to draw a name and send out an autographed copy of “Wrapped in Comfort: Knitted Lace Shawls” to that knitter, wishing I could do it for everybody. I know, I don’t need to bribe anybody, so many people are already simply diving in and doing this without feeling the need to tell about it, but I’d like to be able to do something by way of thanks to those who do.

Ellen and I talked on the phone tonight, and someone she knew had gone from, I could never knit for…!, to, I need to knit for them. Don’t I. Yes.

And so I told her the story of a nursing assistant in the hospital during my first severe Crohn’s flare in ’03 who was just an angry person, consistently and bewilderingly mean to her patients–just angry. I wondered why on earth, at that time of all times, I had to be stuck dealing with her. Her accent was thick, my brain equally so in my illness on top of my hearing loss; we were not a good match.

And then a few days into this I found myself wondering what it must be like to be her. Or what got her that way.  What is it like at home for her? Where is her family, what are they like?

That stopped me, and I said a prayer for her: not completely willingly, and apologizing to God for that, but this much at least I could try to do. Please bless her? (So I don’t have to?)

The next time she walked in my hospital room, though, what happened was definitely not sweetness and light: I beat her to it and immediately snapped at her. The one time she had done nothing to deserve it, I just didn’t want her in my room just then, I’d had enough.

And she, instead of yelling back or defending herself, suddenly looked deeply sad. She spun on her heel and was gone.

I felt TERRIBLE. That was so not what I had prayed for, my stars!

The next time she walked in the room it was by coincidence a step behind when her boss did, a nurse who was one of my favorites, and I grabbed my chance: I said to the woman, in front of her boss, “Thank you.”

(Say what?! on her face.)

“You came in here and I snapped your head off and you were kind to me. I did not deserve that. Thank you.” Because I knew that for her, that was the best she could have done and she did it.

After she left I said to her boss, “I’m so glad I got to say that to her in front of you.”

And the boss, a dear woman, answered with a glance to the door to make sure we were alone, “Me too!”

That nursing assistant completely changed. The next time she came in I honestly didn’t recognize her, her face was so different. She looked radiant! She had finally seen herself through someone else’s eyes in a better light.

I later knitted a lace stole in the boss’s favorite color and several more things for quite a few more people there; and I knitted a hat in case I might see that nursing assistant, whose name I never did know–she’d tended to keep her badge turned over, I always guessed so that people wouldn’t be able to complain about her by name.

I didn’t see her but she saw me down the hall when I came back for that visit. She ran down the hall and she *threw* her arms around me with great emotion. She had no idea yet about the hat. No language barriers. Friends, in the deepest sense of the word; she wept, and I knew then that what I had done had meant everything to her.

I said to Ellen, Now, can you imagine if I had NOT made her anything while I was handing out my handknits? Thank heavens I did. Thank heavens I knit that hat.

Ellen said, “It made all the difference to you, too, then, didn’t it?”

Oh you bet. Oh, honey. It was one of the most important things I ever made.

If I type fast enough I might be able to get back to the needles in time to finish that third, last, pink sparkly cashmere hat tonight. The yarn is almost gone and the rows are almost done.

(Picture this line as the ticker tape streaming above the blog: the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads campaign has more knitters. Yay, and thank you!

And second, copies of Wrapped in Comfort are available at Purlescence at the cover price+shipping. Hey, I’m not good at this marketing thing but I have to try a little occasionally. )

Back to the blog.

To quote my sister quoting my mom on the phone today on the subject of reading: “I can abstain but I cannot be moderate.” We had a good laugh over that one because it’s so true; a good book is for getting totally immersed in. Good yarn, too, definitely.

Speaking of which–it was knit night tonight. Last week, Kaye exclaimed emphatically, “Oh *cool*!” at the pink sparkly hat that was going to someone else, turning it over and around in her hands to see how I’d made it.

Well hey, I know how to respond to that.  So I went home and knitted a second and you know whose head it stayed on the rest of this evening. That was way too fun, and there’s one more hat’s worth of that Classic Elite Intrigue;  I offered to give it back, since it was their yarn to begin with, and they just waved me away.

And even more: they handed me another bag with another murmur of You’ll know what to do with this, another explanation that this too just hadn’t worked for them personally.

And I instantly did know. I asked permission and got an Oh, perfect! in response.

Just let me catch up a little here first.  I am definitely not abstaining. But my limited number of arms and the brain cells it would take to keep track of all the multiple sets of projects they’d be holding forces me to moderate the pace at least somewhat.

And another hat got finished today.  I’m hoping our Senators and House Representatives have plenty to choose from by the time we all get done with Warm Hats Not Hot Heads. Shoot a note over to Ellen at the twinset.us blog when you get done with yours, if you would, or let me know if I can for you.

I want to knit at least an extra hat for the Afghans For Afghans basket at Stitches West, too, to feel like I’m taking care of the truly needy as well.  But I needed a break to work on something not-hat for a little while. A little variety.

There’s the qiviut waiting; I’m trying to use it as incentive and motivator–what I’d had in the queue ahead of it was being obstinate and  I wanted it done. It’s some Abstract Fibers Supersock that I’d started on, gorgeous stuff, but I’d put it down while my kids were here and had tucked a note in the bag saying I’d goofed on row x and would fix it in the morning.

Did I fix it? I have no idea.  Which absolutely will not do.  I knew it had to go: it is a new pattern, therefore it must be done perfectly, end of story. But it looked so much prettier knitted up, they always do, because then you can really see how those colors can show themselves off.

Ripped. Totally. Gone. I finally did it. And looking at it with the yarn laying there in kinks it suddenly hit me that, look at that, you know, I could… I did like this one hat and, you know, I could riff and do it like…

Bam. Totally new approach. Totally new take on what I was going to do. And that could only have had a chance to hit my brain by my having knit something for someone else that was so different from my usual–because I’d wanted to make them no more than just a quick little hat.

Five o’clock at Trader Joe’s. I usually avoid grocery stores at that hour, but there I was.

And there was an old friend; she saw me first. Hi! We talked a moment, I did the grandma stereotype and whipped out a couple of Parker pictures, we laughed. There’s nothing like an unexpected moment together to take the drudgery out of the shopping.

And then, as we chatted again at checkout a few minutes later, there was a young mom with a toddler and he was quickly going into escalation mode.

My friend smiled at them both, remembering when her teenagers were that size, saying that they get tired and hungry at this hour (as in, it’s okay); meantime, I reached over with a yellow-with-brown-stripes duck fingerpuppet.

The woman looked at me, gobsmacked, questioning…? No, I told her, I didn’t make it–though it is handknit. A women’s cooperative in Peru does these.

And now the man behind her in the line was smiling.

Another young mom with another toddler was next up behind A., and that little girl with the most adorable curls was as happy as could be. That mom helped us help the stressed mom by admiring the ducky to help the little boy be charmed by sheer peer pressure. (Totally worked, too.)

So out came another one. A striped green fish!

Oh you don’t have to do that! the second mom exclaimed in surprise.

May I?

And then I got to watch those two playing happily with it while A. finished up–and now everybody around us was happy.

The power of the fingerpuppet (not to mention A.!)

Maybe I should make a hat with a pocket and tuck one inside.

Parker’s being Kinneared.

I bought a single skein of Arctic Musk Ox Blend in the 2-ply a few months ago, undyed just to get a peek at what was underneath before I bought any more, and it’s been my carry-around project for awhile: small, mindless knitting, easy to stuff in a purse, and laceweight, taking extra stitches to work up in case I got stuck somewhere for awhile. (Always a possibility when your minivan is older in car-years than you are.)

But it was easy to feel it was never done, so today I simply stayed with it till it was finished, all but the blocking–18 out of the 22g. I actually had some left over.

What would you do with 4g of qiviut-blend laceweight?

Although, I have to give J. credit. She’s an old and much-missed friend who now lives back East and was in town yesterday, so a bunch of us got together and caught up for old times’ sake. J., I noticed, was careful to enjoy both the small crowd as a whole and individual time with each one of us.

I pulled out my needles and showed off. J. thought it was just so pretty that I came away feeling like how could I not have had this done and finished and ready to go?

A little water now for it to relax in the pool by, lay it out on a beach-sized white towel, let the amaryllis come play palm tree to complete the scene, and it will be.

This started with a stray comment between us but the idea has only grown more insistent.

In response to the shootings in Tucson, Arizona,  Ellen and I have been talking about what we could do to make manifest the idea that we want our Congresspeople to deal civilly with one another. To hear one another. To talk things out. To not do what will play on the news the loudest but to do what’s best for all of the American people the best they know how.

How could we personally help make that actually happen?

My uncle Bob Bennett of Utah, in his remarks to his colleagues on leaving the Senate last month, discussed the general philosophy of the Republican party vs the Democratic party re the role of government,  and then pronounced, “Both sides are right.”

This is a man who had been rated one of the most conservative members of the Senate (and with whom I often disagreed politically).  But he’d also had real-life experience: as a homeowner trying not to lose his house at one point. As a former business owner who knew that for businesses to succeed, their workers had to have the peace of mind of knowing that they could have adequate medical care should something happen to them or their families.

He said, and I’m paraphrasing to the best of my memory, It’s the meeting in the middle to negotiate our differences that is where we do our best work. None of us is supposed to get everything all our way in any other part of life, and certainly not in politics where we are working with people with completely different life experiences.

So here’s what Ellen and I are hoping for.

Never mind, I’ll let her tell it, she says it better than I do.

From Ellen:

——————————-

“Here is what I think I’d like to do.

Invite any and all knitters who would like to join in to knit a hat (sizing information here) for their own congressional representative, whether Senate or House.  Ask them to email me, perhaps send a photo or link to a Ravelry project, and let me know to whom a hat has been sent.  I can track who is being covered (literally!) and if anyone wants to knit more than one hat, they can send them to me and I’ll handle mailing them to a rep who hasn’t received one yet.

I’d like to write a standard note to go with it, to which any knitter could add her own personal message.  I’m also thinking how cool it would be to design a hat for it, but I am also telling myself to keep it manageable.  (Her husband) suggested that the hats be purple, a blending of red and blue, but I told him I want them to be worn!

This doesn’t rule out hats for the victims, which is also a good idea and could be a use for some of the extra hats, though I still don’t know how to go about getting the names or how to deliver them.  After thinking on it all week, though, what is really compelling me is to highlight the need for civil discourse even over things we disagree on.”

———————————-

From me: I would plead that the hats be of a material you’d want to wear yourself. I want each recipient to feel they are being treated with the great respect we all mutually deserve.  For whatever it’s worth, I can vouch for the fact that the Plymouth King George (how’s that for an ironic name!) baby alpaca/merino/cashmere blend on sale for four bucks a ball (for the moment, at least) will make an absolutely soft, warm cabled hat using two balls; I just knitted one. Three balls should I think get you two plain beanies.  All in a day’s work.

I’m not trying to shill for DBNY, I’m just trying to convey the idea that it doesn’t have to be a lot of money for it to be something nice if you don’t have something ready in your stash. Support your local yarn store, too. However it works for you.

We want each individual to be glad they got one–and wouldn’t it be cool to have Congresspeople swapping around with each other to get just what they want? Let the cheerful negotiating begin!

I just ordered two more balls in, yes, Ellen’s husband, purple.

Can you just picture the photo-op we could all make happen? Knitters can change the world. We can set the tone. In wild color combinations or subdued: as the song says, We’ll give them something to talk about.

You in too?

(ed. to add: What should we call this campaign? So far I’ve come up with Talking Heads.)

While we wait for the blueberry cake to cool…  (The springform pan was lined with parchment. )

Meantime, here’s Parker at three weeks, ie around his due date of 1/11/11. Clearly he needs more handknit socks and hats in every colorway you could imagine.

And I’m suddenly remembering Dr. M, our family’s ENT, looking at my then-baby younger son, who, as soon as he could manage it, always took his socks off and put them on his hands instead; the good doctor noted with bemusement, “He’s going to have a hard time walking on those when he gets older.”

It’s okay, John (not shown) got to meet and hold his new nephew last Sunday and I don’t think his feet have touched the ground since.

My needles are suddenly brimming with hats. Their crowning achievement.

Okay, so I ended this one by taking a small crochet hook, starting at the second-from-end stitch, and chain-stitching a length and then running the end in to make a loop. Makes a nice little colors-of-the-forest halo for the baby, don’t you think?

While it’s all carefully rounded out like that for the camera, anyway. In real life, I stepped back to admire the achievement and, as that loop danced the twist, was suddenly struck speechless by its extreme likeness of an unintended Teletubbie.

(It’s all good.)

First, the marshmallows: every holiday season, several grocery stores around here sell homemade marshmallows, great big squares in a clear box, vanilla or peppermint or chocolate, really good and with none of the feeling of inhaling stale cornstarch of the usual mass-made plastic-bagged type.

My two younger kids love the good ones and the perfection in how they melt into their morning mugs of hot cocoa. I don’t know what the skunk would have thought of them, but hey. So I sent them back to school after the break with some for however long they might last–they don’t stay fresh forever like the commercial ones do, you might as well enjoy a good thing till it’s gone on that one, hoarding and saving and cutting them into pieces to stretch them out will only disappoint.

And so Michelle’s housemate, who knows she can’t do dairy, asked her, “Tell me: *why* do you put TOFU in your hot chocolate?!”

Well now.

Okay, the knitting: I had two size 3.75mm circs tied up in a UFO, just the ribbing done on them. It was a baby hat-to-be but with no particular person in mind on that color, it sat stalled out.

And now oh, I definitely knew who, and hey, as long as I’m on a hat kick, I wanted those needles back for another one for Parker–and there you go.  Motivation.  Parker’s is halfway done now too.

Every good knitter needs a good UFO stash. They finish up so much faster.

(Okay, this is so crying out for a joke about the new yarns made from sugarcane, but it’s 11:30. Anyone? Maybe a sugar-rayon hat with a red-and-white-spiraling candy-cane motif?)

Thank you, everybody, for your thoughtful words.

To misquote Robert Frost wildly out of context, meantime, Ice (yesterday) was great and did suffice. I tested my hands today with a row, then another, then another, and after a day of it, hey, I had a hat!

It wasn’t till I was snapping its picture that it hit me. I’d been making the thing up as I went along, and the pattern is similar to the one I doodled with to create the first baby sweater I ever knitted for my first baby, 28 years ago. Great mind thinks alike.

Time to grab the needles to knit something for Parker next. I *so* can’t wait to see him and his proud parents.

I felt a tug at my back at Purlescence (remember, they have book copies) and turned and laughed as someone said, “You know you’re in a yarn store when…”

I was wearing a storebought hoodie sweater with an unusual stitch pattern to it and the two knitters behind me were looking at the hood.  I took the thing off and handed it over to let them try to deconstruct it.

Meantime, the sock photo is overexposed and doesn’t do Dianne’s yarn justice at all. What might better is that Pamela came over to look at it more closely and then just stood there loving how it looked; after a moment of staring at it, she started telling me happy memories from when her kids were growing up that those colors, all those colors together, brought back for her. So perfect. Baking cookies and having the kids decorate them and kids, being kids, pouring all the colors they could into them, all the cheerful joys of blue red yellow pink green you name it.

She has a new grandson, born two days after mine.

She has a son in the service who just arrived home due to injuries.

Hey.  I bought two skeins for the yardage for a shawl, but somehow it demanded to become socks. So I only need the one I had with me.

To be continued.

Parker at two weeks and my beautiful daughter-in-law. I can’t wait to get to hold him too and to thank her and my son for him!

My husband’s almost-more-a-sister-than-an-aunt, who lives about 45 minutes away, happened to be in the area and called and stopped by today. She quilts and has been knitting lately for her young grandchildren, and I showed her the fine, soft, white Malabrigo Sock baby blanket and asked if she thought it was big enough?

Oh definitely!

So after she left I knitted for nearly another hour. I mean, if after all that work and after the blocking, if it came out too small to my own eyes–well, just better to add a little bit more.

I finally made myself cast off.   I ran the ends in to make it feel final.  There! Done! Stop! And it is blocking.

I think I’ll go looking for the very biggest, stretchiest hair elastic I can find and crochet all around it with the Malabrigo to make a slide to hold the blanket ends together: that way, Kim can wear the blanket as a thick, poofy, warm scarf if she wants to. Supersoft and machine washable and practical for a new mom.

And now back to the color that I escaped to from time to time. Back to the Creatively Dyed (can you believe I’m making) socks!

I’ve been telling myself you can’t have Second Sock Syndrome until you finish the first one, so I’d better get to it.

Ed. to add–top-down style, just got past the heel.