I left the pocket open. I wish I’d thought of this to add a few to Parker’s blankie when I was fixing it so that he would have a safe way to stick his hands through it like he likes to do, but at least I have the idea now.

We dropped the square off at knit night on our way to Home Despot to look at floorings. Afterwards, we were sitting talking when I looked at John and went, “Waaait… Is it just the lighting in here? Seriously? Am I seeing a few gray hairs?”

“Yup,” he grinned. “They’re there!”

If ever I needed proof that he’s the one kid who takes after my side of the family… My dad started going gray at 14, my mom had noticeable gray hairs by 30. (Right, Mom?)

One funny thing about marrying a kid whose parents were friends with mine all the way to when they were newlyweds is that my in-laws once showed me a picture from way back then of my dad when he actually had dark in his mustache and some color still in his hair. Which I had never seen.

I know, I know, John’s still brown on top with red in his beard–quick, before he goes! Take pictures!

Before John gets here, thought I’d mention. While waiting for Richard at his doctor’s appointment this morning, I worked on an 8″ square(ish) to go in a baby afghan for someone at Purlescence–and I gave it a little pocket.

But it occurred to me: if I don’t sew the bottom shut, then I have reversible pockets, one on each side, but not really pockets because it goes through to the other side at the bottom. Remembering Parker and his blankie, it would be a safe way for a little one to stick their hand through their blankie without tearing anything.

I have not sewn that bottom shut. Should I?

(Added hours later, he’s home, he’s home!)

John’s coming home, John’s coming home! Tomorrow, for a friend’s wedding. I can’t wait to see him!

And so today I knit pretty much all day, with breaks as my hands needed, to get Paige’s project as far along beforehand as I could.

Soft grays, turquoise, I was told when I asked what Paige’s favorite colors were.

I found one single taupe-ish gray ball in my whole stash and it just didn’t seem the thing. But I happened to get an email from Cottage Yarns in South San Francisco: the store was bursting with yarn orders and everything was 20% off to try to help her clear out some space. I talked to Richard about it and then headed on up Saturday.

Kathryn has a lot of Malabrigo yarns and Malabrigo never goes on sale and, much though I don’t think of myself as the brand-conscious type, I adore anything they produce and the people who produce it: if it’s Malabrigo, it’s very soft, and I love that I’ve gotten to know the owners a bit at Stitches every year.

And Kathryn was right–when I pulled out bags of Silkpaca to try to see the colors of the ones stacked up behind them, they were packed in so tight it was hard to get them back in the cubby (and one doesn’t want to make a mess). Bags and bags and bags of woolly goodness everywhere–I tell you, if I ever have to be in a building in a major earthquake again I want it to be that one.

But there you go: I did, I found a soft gray in there, baby alpaca/silk laceweight, Polar Morn colorway, perfect. I didn’t find what I was looking for turquoise-wise, but one thing at a time. I have about 500 yards of a cobweb-fine bright turquoise cashmere/silk that needs to be double-stranded with something similar in color and softness that I was trying to match up; I’ll find it. (Or dye something from stash.) But let me get this soft gray done first.

I got to tell her how much Hayes’s mom had loved the blankie she’d helped come to be. (The green, that’s from her.) That alone was reason enough to make the drive up there; she was thrilled. And I love that she was cheering Hayes on after his rocky start to life.

And so with the silk/lycra project blocked and out of the way, and with me healthy now, I got started for my cousin-in-law.

Three hours nonstop of laceknitting creates so much fabric.

Three hours of nonstop laceknitting makes such a tiny thing.

Three hours nonstop of knitting lace by the second time around actually does begin to make a goodly bit of fabric. (Break out the icepacks.) I just had to remind myself it was one single stitch when I started yesterday.

Tomorrow I again get the privilege of doing something for Paige to cheer her on in her fight: knitting is a gift that gives both ways. I look forward to all the individual moments I will never know of when she will wrap warmth and love and comfort and color around her and know that she is not alone.

There was a convocation at Stanford tonight, the speaker being a former conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and now dean of the college of the arts at Utah State University, and Richard, his sister, her husband, my father-in-law, his sister and her husband and Michelle all went.

I didn’t risk it. Nobody needs my germs.

The speaker told of the time he ended up performing on a USO tour and how the experience had changed his life, and how he only got invited to do so because someone else who was to be on it had been drafted at the last second.

He didn’t say the drafted soldier was a dear friend. He did say that the group he thus got to be in sang for a soldier who had lost all his limbs in his service in Vietnam and the man had never spoken a word since his injuries. He did not seem to have any response to their presence.

Their last song was “God Be With You Till We Meet Again,” and at that there were tears running down the man’s face and he whispered, “Thank you. Thank you.”

They’d shared their voices and he had at last found his own.

The power of presence, the power of music: the experience changed what Craig Jessop did with his life.

The friend who’d been drafted, he did not know, was sitting in that audience listening to him tell the tale–and that was Richard’s Uncle Nate.

The family all stopped by here afterwards for a brief visit and hugs, braving my germs and I finally got to see them (Richard did yesterday); it had been a long day, though, and Dad was tired, so they didn’t stay long before heading back up the mountains. We sent them off with a chocolate torte out of our freezer for their last full day in California tomorrow.

It was very kind of them. I’m so glad I got to have a little time with them at last.

And so glad that Nate got to see his old friend.

My friend Gracie Larsen, the founder of the Lacy Knitters Guild and to whom at least one of the Interweave lace books is dedicated, and a member of our local knitting group, talking to me about eight years ago: “Alison! How’s your book coming along?!”

“It isn’t.”

“Well, that’s no good!” and she asked me what the holdup was. Then she handed me the names, emails, and phone numbers of some of her dear friends to get the ball rolling again for me.

Including, among others: Meg Swansen.

Barbara Walker.

One of the things that had been stumping me was that I wanted to use some of Ms. Walker’s lace patterns within my shawls but I had not a clue how to reach her to ask, nor whether she was even still alive; my mother had bought her stitch treasuries around 1970, and I had no idea how old she’d been then. My father had spent ten years researching and writing a book when I was a kid that someone else later pirated a great deal of, so copyright issues have always been near and dear to my heart–I wasn’t going to just appropriate those stitches.

I had finished my shawls. They had sat there.

Meg was as gracious as anyone who’s ever interacted with her in any way would know she would be. Barbara was deeply gratified at having been asked; she told me she sees knits with patterns she knows she created pop up in various places with no credit given.

My son was living not far from Barbara at the time, as it turned out, and we swapped hurricane stories a bit. I tried not to take too much of her time but was and am very grateful for her generosity and her goodwill towards me personally and the whole of the knitting community.

My husband came home from work that day and I was still just too stunned, trying to take it all in, who I’d been talking to that morning–wow! Grace’s gesture had been the knitter’s equivalent of, here, go talk to my friend the President, here’s his private line! Like it was the most natural thing in the world. And once online or on the phone with them, they made it feel like it was indeed. (Terry Martin then at Martingale, too.) Good people.

Why I’m mentioning all this. Barbara Walker is having an auction, via Schoolhouse Press, Meg Swansen’s company, of things she has knitted. Things she photographed to go into those stitch treasuries. You just have to go have a look: if you’re a knitter, this is part of our history. Pretty cool stuff.

I had to make the first move. He wasn’t going to do it.

I offered to open the hoarded coveted box of Triple Ginger Snaps from Trader Joe’s.

Now, I’m not big on store-bought cookies. But these are good. The natural-ingredient list is short and to the point: just sweet enough. Crunch to the nth degree. Just enough zing to the ginger. Small and potato-chip addictive.

But what caught me by surprise and had me grabbing the box to read it, was, after nearly a year and a half of having lived with someone who’s allergic to dairy–

“Butterrrrr,” I swooned. “Taste that butterrr.” I had really, really missed it.

Because, after all, you don’t bake the really good stuff and then have your kid come home and only be able to smell the heaven from the oven wafting around the house, mocking her. It wasn’t till her teens that she started reacting to it; she knows what she’s missing, and it’s hard enough.

But she’s got her own place now. I have butter in my freezer and I know how to use it. For the moment, though, while I figure out which recipe in my mental stash comes first (there’s no particular hurry), please pass the box.

Six hours. The magical number was 203, and it took me six hours of ripping and redoing to stumble my way there, but when I got there and it looked good it was such a long-waited-for moment of I DID IT!

The silk/lycra and the baby alpaca held up perfectly through all that.

Meantime, I got out of the house: a package arrived for Michelle and she invited us to bring it on over and see her new place. I was quite looking forward to it. We got to meet her roommate Michelle, who came home while we were there, and it’s clearly a happy place to be; we’re very pleased.

But it was amazing to me how exhausting it still was simply sitting in a car and then climbing the stairs over there. Eh. Day by day.

Our Michelle had some homemade cookie dough in the fridge and offered us ginger cookies if we didn’t mind waiting for them to bake, and my sweet husband’s instant reaction was, Your mom didn’t bring her knitting.

I laughed. We waited. We talked. We savored.

Then this evening: the neighbors are doing some repair work on an old part of the fence and they have part of it open at the moment. I went to water the fruit trees and found myself trying not to breathe near them but still, they were out in their back yard working, there we were, and too rarely do we get a chance to talk to those good folks. And so we did. I told them about the long wait and the apples at last.

I don’t know that Adele had ever seen my back yard before. We talked peach trees (there, and there…) I will try to get the Tropic Snow to grow towards their yard, and they might well plant one themselves; I promised it would be well pollinated. Lorings don’t need pruning? Cool!

And then I went inside for the scissors, came back out, and quietly snipped the shipping tape on a box and picked them a large, ripe, juicy Fuji. I know how good it is; we ate the other one of that pair yesterday.

Thus there are now two boxes left and then we’re done for the season.

I called near the opening, wondering; were they still out there? She stepped into sight and about squealed with delight–she too has childhood memories of picking apples in the Fall in Virginia. It was a treasure to her, too, my box-misshaped offering, a memory made on the spot.

Next year, hopefully, now that I know what to do, there will be a lot more to share around.

Thank you, everybody. Thought I’d  mention a little about Bruce and Paige. When our oldest was going off to college 800 miles away, we decided to drive her to school: we could see her dorm room, hopefully get to meet her roommate (I think she hadn’t arrived yet, we never did) and, hey, see our old stomping grounds at BYU. Any parent who’s been there knows how hard it is to send your first off into the world.

Not that it gets easier with the others.

Bruce and Paige found out we were nearby and invited us over, and we spent a wonderful evening catching up, swapping stories, feeling that sense of belonging beyond words.

Sam was off at some freshman thing, the only one not there.

They made a point of saying that she was to call them at any time for any reason, a ride, a hug, whatever they could do they were there for her.

I can’t begin to say how grateful we were for that. We returned home knowing she was in good hands and she, too, was relieved to know she had family backing her up should she need it. Just knowing that made the adjustment to college life easier.

(I got a call: Mom. It’s SNOWING. I have my electric blanket set to Deep Fat Fry and I am NOT coming out! She laughed soon after that yes, snow was fine now.)

We didn’t know that due to local school district date changes and autoimmune flares, she would be the only child we would get to do that with.

I talked to Bruce yesterday: soft gray, turquoise, he says. I actually have, I think in that bin… But I’m not breathing on nor touching it till I’m over my flu. I’ll just have to wait to see.

Speaking of Sam, she took the job: she really is moving to Alaska.

Which is really, really, well yes really cool.

The knitting needles, they are going to be busy.

I did redo the cast-off on yesterday’s. I blocked it. Now it is what it was meant to be: ready.

Susan at Abstract Fibers once gave me some Burnside Bridge colorway wool to play with, and I did; I liked it so much I bought some in Picasso, their baby alpaca, via Purlescence.

And that’s what I plowed halfway through today.

And in the middle of it I got the emails–I need to finish it and get it out of the way fast.

It happens to so many people. It’s so personal. My cousin Bruce’s wife Paige found the lump the mammogram reading had missed and had a double mastectomy yesterday. Three tumors, at least two lymph nodes look involved–and yet, I know someone else who came out of surgery with that kind of news where the pathology report a week later said one tumor only was malignant. And that friend is past the five-year mark now.

Eight to twelve months of treatment ahead.

And I am blinking, trying to figure out what the very softest yarn I own might be and what color it should be. And no, the above projects, nice as they are, aren’t it. Hmm.

Thank you, everybody. Today let me up for air a bit; still sick but no chest pains. Much less nausea. I was actually able to get up in the morning rather than doing half hour intervals upright at 11 and 2 and then crumbling like the last four days.  And: I knitted! I wanted to all week but holding my arms up and me up long enough to even think about it was just out of the question. But today I got to! Wanting something that would pay off quickly, I grabbed the closest yarn that didn’t need to be wound and got about 2/3 of the way through a cowl. I actually got something done.

Richard’s stronger too. Thank you all for the good wishes and prayers sent our way: much appreciated. It helped.

And yesterday evening we got sent a video of Hudson in a baby jumper, laughing and giggling and bouncing and responding to encouragement and just being an overwhelmingly cute little bundle of six-month-old happiness.

How could one not feel better after that?

The lupus and Crohn’s duo have been trying to get in on this, since immune=autoimmune too, and I again spent most of the day trying to get fluids down and staying down, knowing that if I barfed once I wouldn’t stop and we would be straight out the door to Urgent Care for IV fluids. But things held, and by late afternoon I was able to get a little food in there too.

Richard still hasn’t shaken his cold/flu/comes with a fever, whichever you want to call it/ entirely either, although his started a week earlier.

His aunt and Dad called: they were down in the valley, could they be here in a half hour?

Oh honey you so don’t want this bug. We so want to see you, but.

It felt terrible not to get to say sure, come!, but you do what you have to to take care of your loved ones.

Didn’t get the flu shot. I was dragging yesterday and thought, well, a good night’s sleep will take care of that and then I’ll feel up to driving.

Not so much. Woke up with the bug Richard’s had the past week: sore throat, bit of a fever, cold-ish.

The phone rang a few minutes ago. Richard’s widowed dad is coming to stay at his sister’s/the aunt’s up in the nearby Santa Cruz mountains for a goodly visit with the northern California contingent of the family. We knew there was a plan in the works; tomorrow?

It will be so good to see him. I just want badly for Dad to stay healthy, is all.

Let’s get that good night’s sleep.

I found this photo in my phone after writing this post and had to laugh–alright, Hudson, you’re right, I owe you a sweater.

The season is turning, the shadows are more slanted in the afternoon, and the leaves are beginning to change back East. And, remembering hikes taken together along the C&O Canal, I have been missing old friends and places and sights.

I was knitting some nice yarn on some old favorite needles this evening, rosewood Holz and Steins made from the leftover wood from making musical instruments. You don’t see those anymore except in a fortunate knitter’s hands.

I found myself wondering. If there are a thousand yards of yarn in a shawl and I have knit how many, how many afghans, how many sweaters, how many hats, scarves, cowls, socks….

Would the length of that yarn be enough to connect me all the way across the continent to back home?

And back again to my friends and family and life here.

It’s all good.

New photos from the kids today. Nobody can get as big a grin from Hudson as Kim can.

Wound off a 150 gram cone of merino fine laceweight oh, ages ago, and dyed it purple.

It felted. Thousands and thousands of little tiny woolen velcro-y snag points and I should have expected that but but. I was hoping it wouldn’t be that bad; it was.

It went into the stash, where I pulled it out every now and then and admired the heathery color and always ended up putting it back.

Today it somehow finally jumped out at me and of all the things I could be doing, demanded to be wound up. Now. *Carefully. For two long what-was-I-thinking, wow-this-is-pretty-stuff hours. There was a little silk in it too, and the winding was bringing out the sheen.

Y’know though, thought I, for this amount of time I could drive up to Cottage Yarns, buy their Malabrigo baby alpaca/silk laceweight for ten-something a skein in that colour, bring it home, wind it up easily, and get a good start on the actual knitting.

And yet this was here. I mentally chucked it at Purlescence’s yarn swap tomorrow but it refused to go. I kept at it.

I finished the thing. (Almost. It snagged and broke in two places with maybe ten yards to go and I looked at that last little bit defying my good will and threw.it.in.the.trash. Yes I did.)

I spent the evening swatching ideas with something else altogether, determined to get a pattern past the almost-perfect and feeling a little stuck in Edison’s 99% perspiration mode. But I’m definitely closer.

We ate the second Fuji apple. It confirmed for me that the first one really was that good. Apples were not my most favorite fruit, but I’m rethinking that for the moment.

*When you wind wool by hand, always run it over one or more fingers holding the ball as you go so that it isn’t pulled taut. This keeps it from stretching out.