Stepping away for a moment from the intensity of a new knitting project…

So. I have this cane. It’s made from sassafras wood, it’s spotted and hand carved and very cool, and my childhood friend Karen found it at a shop in Williamsburg, Virginia. (Yes–that is her on the left in the original Water Turtles shawl; new book copies available at the cover price+shipping at Purlescence.) I’ve used it as my main cane for five years now; I have to admit, the upper curve in the handle is looking rather well used by now.

Shown in the picture above, I have another one from Karen, who finds just the coolest ones, this one from Africa with painted animals on it and an ankh symbol for a handle: zebras, the perfectly-colored and -spaced spots of a giraffe, it’s got it.

Some small child got entranced with it at church recently and a zebra lost an ear.  It’s not very noticeable, except to me, but, so that one got put away for special occasions for its own good. Hearing aids for wooden horses are in short supply.

I went looking today out of idle curiosity, my local shop seeming to have gone to ugly aluminum only last time I checked, and where’s the artistry in that? I say, if it’s a permanent part of your life it needs to earn it a little bit.

And so I found someone who took an old cane and had fun with it. He steampunked it!  There’s a gear here, another few there, leather added to the handle, and, of all things, a lace-up black leather corset going up the shaft. It’s really, really cool! (But I can’t buy it without seeing if it’s comfortable with my hand leaning on that metal there, and I need  35″ and have no idea how long his is.)

I tell you. With apologies to my fellow knitters, this way beats the candy-cane stocking cover that every year about this time I start to daydream about knitting it for the season. Or maybe it’s just that that idea has lost its novelty for me by now.

Hmmm… How would you decorate one?

“So,” Phyllis, our Sunday School teacher today, said to my husband re his response to her question about humility, “you’re saying we should say” (quoting the Lord’s prayer)  “‘Thy will be done’?”

“By us,” I added.

She stopped and appraised that thought a moment.  “Thy will be done by us?”

Oh, if only.  If only always.  Is there anything that requires greater humility and love than that?

We can’t know, only God knows from moment to moment, how we could use our time and talents for the best, right here right now and in working towards some moment in the future we cannot really know.  We try to do the right thing; we try to see ourselves honestly, our faults and our warps, pray that our intentions might be as pure as we want to see them as, and offer our hearts to Him and our fellow man:

Here I am. There’s only one of me, but I can do some things, at least.  Point me in the right direction–and please, loudly enough that I might stand a chance of hearing it above the noise.

Backstory here and then here.

I finally got it blocked and the ends run in.  (Not the project I’ve been working on all week, which has the cast-off left to do.) Maybe it should have been sent off sooner. Maybe it is the right time for her right now for reasons I cannot know; maybe it was simply easier for it to arrive after she finished moving (which is what I was aiming for) or maybe that’s all just rationalizing my lateness. I don’ t know.

But it’s finished and it’s finally into God’s hands from mine: a silk and merino shawl in her sister-in-law’s pattern, the yarn coming from my favorite shop, which is, of course, Purlescence.

Karen plotted with me and it will show up on Sally’s doorstep next week.

As I ice my hands…

If you remember this story. (Seriously–don’t miss it.)

The one thing to add to it is that Gigi herself had started that first shawl, test knitting for me early on in the process of Wrapped in Comfort, and I should have given her credit for it publicly in that post. She’d returned it to me with the yoke finished and enough of the body done to prove the pattern was written correctly, but, feeling she was just never going to get it done, she let it go. Wistfully.  So of course I finished it and gave it to her; she’d thoroughly earned it, by her friendship as well as her work–and it was such an easy way to make her so happy!  Then I finished the second one for the publisher.

It came in handy in the end, too, definitely.

Now, I’ve known Gigi’s son-in-law since he was dating her daughter Jasmin. He’s a peach; that expression on his face when he opened that door that night said it all (but I already knew that).

And so when Gigi commented that she was “Off to show my love and affection to the son-in-law by heckling him,” after reading my post on teasing, I found myself breaking into random giggles all day today–I know how much those two love each other!

I got a note from her this evening: “I think I almost killed him tonight, he was laughing so hard.”

Dying laughing is what it’s all about in the first place. Together, and happily so.

(Meantime, the knitter mumbles, 445 stitches per row on the laceweight, got 12 rows done today. Halfway finished.)

YES!!

Boy, that was quick. The folks at Cottage Craft had me wait a bit while they dyed more, not having enough in the same lot, and then threw in an extra 20g as a thank you for my patience. I was surprised and very very delighted. I’d bought enough for one of my shawls (a few more skeins than shown) and now I have a little extra breathing room just in case.

Is it as soft as the stuff Rachel spun up for me? No, but hers was 100% qiviut from the raw fiber, painstakingly dehaired by hand. This is half merino.  Still. This is well carded, well spun, a fragile, fine fiber made as sturdy as one could ask it to be, and I wish I could reach out a skein to everybody through the screen and go oooh, feel this!

I do still have to go finish that baby alpaca project first, and it’s in laceweight so it’ll take me a good week or so.

Meantime, my friend Krys did a grocery run for us tonight.  We are quite grateful; Richard seems to be coming down with my germs.

p.s. and Karen? If you think you recognize that background, you do: that’s the dogwood quilt you helped tie for me around the time of our high school graduation.  Dogwood trees are rare out here but prized because, though the trees grow slowly, their blossoms last a very long time. The pink ones are, as they have always been, my favorite.

I’ve been hesitating for the last several hours to write this because it’s not about me and I don’t want to make it sound like it is.

This morning as I was deciding what to wear to church today, the thought came, wear a scarf. Not a shawl today.

And a few minutes later I found myself thinking, I need to knit me a pink scarf, while  envisioning some baby alpaca in my stash I might use for it. It would go with so many things.

Wait–say what? But I *have* a pink scarf. In that shade.  I kind of shook my head at the silliness of the thought.  I had knit it, not only out of baby alpaca, but out of a splurge of royal baby alpaca, Blue Sky Alpacas’ brand, the finest micron-count grade one can buy as far as I know and that my hands have ever felt. I’d knitted it up for my next book project and it was safely tucked away in wait.

But on impulse I pulled it out anyway. Wait–I never ran the second end in? (I always do the first going all the way across as I purl the first row; then it is not only done, there is matching spare yarn in the thing itself should the project ever need mending later.)

Well then. And I ran that remaining end through the cast-off row and put the scarf on. The shade of pink didn’t actually quite match what I had on but I persuaded myself that it was okay and wondered…? as we headed out the door to church. Curious. I promised myself to stay open to whatever might arise.

It was Fast Sunday (details here.)

And one of the people who got up was a man we’d never seen before. He said he and his wife were there on their way to LA. He talked about finding out he was quite possibly going blind, and as a graphic artist, this was a really really hard place to find himself in. (I thought, and for your wife. Very much so.) But after much prayer and working through all the emotions that come with such a situation, he had come to a place (and I imagine from my own experiences he was probably constantly having to work to stay in that place) where he could say, Thy will be done.

He knew God loved him and that was all that mattered.  Between them all, the details would work out somehow some way.

And as he spoke, I remembered a story from a book I had read long ago, written by a woman who raised angora rabbits for the handspinning and knitting communities, the title long forgotten to memory. (ed. to add: I *think* it was “Angora” by Erica Lynne.) She told of a young man who had come to her, hoping that she would make him a soft angora scarf for his grandmother: she was mostly deaf now and mostly blind and very old, but, he told her, and I will never forget the words, “She can still feel.”

Moved, the woman spun and knitted and made him that scarf, taking his love, adding her own, and making it tangible for a lovely old lady she had never met.

I sought out the man after the meeting was over. I told him about my grandmother being a concert pianist and having taught music at the University of Utah 90 years ago, and how she’d picked out my piano teacher–but that I had started going noticeably deaf by my teens.

“Aspirin,” I added. “I was allergic to aspirin.  It took them 17 years to figure it out.” (Actually, thinking later, more than that, I was 31 when a very astute ENT put all the clues together.)

“Aspirin!” he exclaimed.

I told him how much I appreciated his willingness to learn to trust that God knew what He was doing.

And then (trying not to blather) I tried to describe, in as few words as possible, what royal baby alpaca was. The softest of the softest of my favorite fiber to knit.

And then I got to see the love and warmth for her that came across his face as I told him it was for his wife.

That said it all. The impulse was true.

———

p.s. A note to that couple: if the color’s not quite what you want, let me know and I will gladly overdye it for you.

So many memories. He changed our lives. He changed our children’s lives, and for the better for all of us.

Our oldest was going to be in kindergarten in the fall, and the school system there was terrible at the time. The snow was–well, when your husband is traveling a lot on business, what do you do with your babies? Leave them inside unattended? Take them outside where the only place to go in subfreezing temperatures was wherever you’d shoveled so far? If you’re lifting each laden shovelful of snow and having to toss it higher than the top of the garage, only to see it half the time slide right back down into the driveway because you hadn’t thrown it hard enough–and you had the whole depth and width and length of the driveway to do, and then you had to have the energy still to take care of your three little ones, alone, and one was often ill and often cried all night, and there would be no groceries if that driveway didn’t get done. And done again. And again. And again. And you had already learned the hard way that if you drove over just a few inches’ worth, just once, you were going to have impenetrable lines of ice maybe till spring that would spin your tires and flip your feet out from under you when you went back out later to try to scrape it out.

Seventy-five inches. Seventeen days.

So many things about ice and snow I learned during our four years in New Hampshire. New Englanders and Canadians are tough stuff. I am in awe.

Meantime, Smokey, the boss of the group in California that Richard’s was collaborating with, told him, Any time you want to change jobs, you have one with me. Absolutely.

But there’s no income tax and no sales tax in New Hampshire, we’d have to take a de facto 17% pay cut to move to your insane Bay Area housing market.

The boss at home, meantime, told Richard he wanted to send him across the country on a one-year assignment. By himself. No family.  No need for the expenses for the company nor the distractions for him.

It is safe to say we do not remember that idea fondly.

Smokey’s faith in Richard’s skills was our lifeline to a different life altogether. He fought the bureaucracy back East, he pulled the strings, he pointed out the obvious on the cost of living differences, he made it happen.

And his offer letter promised, in writing, “No home delivery of snow.”

Twenty-three years ago, almost twenty-four now, we moved 3333 miles to get a good boss, and Smokey proved to indeed be the best you could possibly ask for. The company didn’t last longterm; the many friendships that flourished under the long-haired man playing the 12-string guitar kept in his office for when things got too uptight, did.

Smokey himself sent out the heads-up recently to let us know. So it was not a surprise.  Still.

To quote his love’s note today:

 If you thought you heard bagpipges yesterday, stopped to admire a
late-blooming rose, or succumbed to an adolescent urge to do something
positively outrageous, you can blame it on Smokey. He would approve…

And if it snows anytime in this coming winter, we know who the practical joker up there throwing the confetti at us in celebration will be.

And now I’m glued (again) to watching the results come in.

We went over to Johnna and Glenn’s for an election party, Jon Stewart style: everyone kind and courteous and just plain enjoying hanging out with friends, regardless of any party affiliation. Pass the snacks.  Glenn supplied fine chocolate, I brought almond raspberry sponge cake.  (Mom: that would be your hot milk sponge cake recipe from Betty Crocker circa 1952, made with almond extract, 4 tbl butter instead of 2, and with two boxes of raspberries rinsed, very carefully patted dry, and arranged across to sink down to the bottom evenly.  Crunchy organic/Demerara type sugar sprinkled on top of the cake.)

And a good time was had by all.

(Ed. to add, and one political party=one baby hat, knittingwise.)

One of the things about being around old friends you haven’t seen in a long time is that you get to learn more about them–and you also tend to learn more about yourself.

When I drove down to Pacific Grove three weeks ago, it was right at the beginning of cooler weather and I knew  Monterey Bay is always a tad chilly anyway; I put my favorite silk jacket (picture if you scroll down here, under Karin‘s yarn) over my blouse on my way out the door.

I have short arms. Sleeves tend to ride down partway over my hands if a blouse otherwise fits.  Get the petite size, it’ll be too short elsewhere; I just plain have short arms.

And as a knitter, that bugs me: the cuff edges bump against my knitting, they catch on my stitches, they catch at my project when I go to turn it around at the end of a row–and there’s also the problem that, as a sun-sensitive lupus patient, I’m supposed to wear finely-woven long sleeves all the time. They’re part of my cage.

I’ve gotten in the habit of folding the cuffs back. Poof, end of problem. And a little bit of defiance of disease.

Visiting with the B’s, one layer of cuffs I could ignore. Two, and when not yet used to cold-weather clothes for the season–I kept absent-mindedly trying to fold both layers back off my wrists, the heavy jacket ones flopping back down repeatedly.

Looking back, it probably looked pretty silly. Unhand me, you silk you!

I thought of that today in a cold house with two layers of long sleeves on again, bugging me, and just too cold to roll them up. I finally realized it was keeping me from finishing that sweater. Well then. I went and did my treadmill time, got warmed up, got the cuffs properly out of my way, and voila. One baby sweater.

Except the button. I need me a good, round, safe for little fingers, dragon-looking button to top it off.

I know, I know, pictures. When it’s not so late.

Got back late from an evening out, so this will be quick. We picked up a friend and gave her a ride, and she directed us over a small bridge to get to the freeway from her home.  Houses on this side, apartment buildings over there, the freeway and a large retail complex, a swanky hotel, etc etc right over thataway. We are talking city.

She happened to mention that her neighbor had seen a full-grown mountain lion sandbathing in the dry creekbed there.

Well now there goes the neighborhood.

I don’t think Kathryn at Cottage Yarns was surprised when I called.  She recognized my voice.

She thought the edges and width were fine. She was quite happy to sell me more anyway. Her Rios had just come in, the Solis darker than mine but as usual, oh so pretty.  I’ve really wanted to make a baby sweater to go with the blanket and now I can.

After over three weeks, it’s hard to just stop and put the baby blanket down and call the thing done and not be working on it anymore. It’s also over a pound; enough already.

She mentioned that another woman had come in between when I called and when I got up there and was going through the Rios, leaving Kathryn going, uh, oh. But the woman had bought a whole bag of a different color and my Solis was safe after all.

And! She had one last skein from the same bag of undyed Malabrigo Sock I’d bought there awhile ago. I’d been thinking of making a formal christening blanket too and had been wishing I had more, and now I know I can go for it in that so-soft and washable wool.

You know, after 41 years of fighting the knitting grandmother stereotype…

It was after I got home that I finished the ribbing on the Rios, and I remembered wrong yesterday, having not done such a thing in years: if you pick up the stitches from the cast on and knit down, *then* it jogs sideways a half stitch’s worth. Which is what I got at first–but it was quickly clear it was going to feel like knots across that pick-up row. I could just picture the baby doing a faceplant into that and crying. Not our baby! Only one chance to do it right. Do it right.

So I ripped that and did what I’d tried to get out of: I carefully undid that first row, unthreading the yarn woven through each stitch going that direction. And then, hey look, the loops connected beautifully. A little loose-looped along some parts of the pattern, but. I decided loose loops don’t sink WIPs.

News flash: our nephew and his wife, he being the son of Richard’s late sister, had twin baby girls yesterday, everyone healthy and well. Yay! I can just picture Cheryl giving her granddaughters one last hug before their trip down here.

The baby afghan fabric the Malabrigo Rios is turning into for our grandson, meantime, is solid, substantial and warm, exactly what I wanted. But my wrists can only do so many M1 twists at a time, so it tends to go slow.

Every now and then I stop and look at how much is actually nevertheless getting done with my one pattern repeat minimum per day and it surprises me–cool, look at that!  Getting there!

The blog has been photophobic lately but I’m hoping this old shot goes through. (It’s not a great one, but it’s better than what I’ve been able to get since.)

I brought the blanket with me Thursday to Purlescence to show it off there for the first time, and they all made my day with exclamations of Oh, that’s *pretty*!

I told Sandi, the pattern should be intuitive–but it’s not, and I pulled out a simple scarf to work on.

“Some knitting isn’t social knitting.”

True.  But oh, but that yarn and that pattern so much want to be. Just wait till they’re done.  Stitch by ongoing stitch, it’s gradually, beautifully, in spite of my impatience, all coming together.

I’m sure my daughter-in-law knows that feeling right now way more than I do.

I got in my car in my driveway and closed the door. Purlescence night.

I opened that door right back up again and grabbed my keys, spurred on by the strong feeling that no, I needed to have one with me, and unlocked the house and ran back inside. Where I grabbed a copy of my book.

At the shop, though, I left it in the car–it’s not like the thing was a novelty to anyone I expected to see.

But there I ran into someone visiting from out of town whom I’d really, really wanted to give a copy to. I had no idea she was going to be there.  What I also didn’t know, as I in great delight  signed that thing, was that it wasn’t just me imposing on her (I was afraid it would be like, See? See this cool book I did? You like it, you really like it–right? Ummm…) Actually, she had really wanted one.

And for the second time Susan surprised me with a gift of some of her yarn to go play with, and I tell you, she does gorgeous colorwork.

Some nice people. You just can never catch up to them. It was *so* good to see her!

It’s amazing how much good a little wool on one’s head can do.

A year and a half ago a big and much appreciated get-well basket was left on our doorstep, full of scrumptious yarns and handknits like the cashmere fingerless gloves from Jasmin–who, when Purlescence was having a sale on that cashmere awhile earlier, had let me have the black that she’d already picked out for herself when I oohed and aahed over it. Just because she’s nice like that.

That black cashmere became my first surgeon’s shawl.

She kept the light aqua blue for herself, and then gave that to me too, in that basket, all knitted up. I was blown away.

But there was one thing in there that came with no name, no tag, no way of knowing who it was from for me to say thank you.

Stephanie was blogging today about it being cold and her daughter putting on a hat and Stephanie’s sudden need to start knitting one.

It’s cold here too this evening. I was reading that and thought, that’s what I need! A hat! And I reached over for that gray and purple one and felt warmed all over again by the thoughtfulness of someone out there. Thank you…

It has been a very useful hat. Last winter, did I steal all the blankets at night? No, I reached over my head into the headboard and fumbled that thing on in my half-sleep.

Although, you can tell I’m married to a computer nerd. He has been working on a long stubborn software problem, working on the laptop right up till bedtime the last few evenings.

Tuesday morning I was startled abruptly awake at a cold something and looked over–my snoozing husband was running his wireless mouse on my arm in his sleep, I guess because to his subconscious I can solve all his problems because I love him.

If you give a mouse a cookie…

The mouse (which, to be fair, he didn’t know was there) has been banished. Even though, theoretically, I could put Jasmin’s long gloves on to ward off its chill.

Uh no. Let’s keep it at hat.

(Hubs wants it mentioned that I still steal the blankets.)

It’s a cold, tool world.

——-

Ed. to add: okay, just picture it–he’s solved the problem, the patent attorneys have gotten involved, and now they’ve billed a better mouse traipse.

Here’s where I’ve been: about eight years ago, during the worst of the brainstem lupus stuff, I set myself a goal to walk all the way around my block once. Without shortness of breath, without chest pains, without weakness. That was my goal for the year. And the next.  I did not make it.

And for awhile there, it was also to feel well enough again to be able to drive a car without worrying about my blood pressure getting too low. I did not make it. I chose, and will always choose, to err on the side of caution on that one, this driver‘s choices being a good reason why.

Now, back when my kids were little, I used to racewalk four to five miles every morning before my husband left for work–my much-needed time to myself in the great outdoors, time to work out, time to just be out and SEE to recharge the batteries before starting in on the day with three children four and under.

Then the fourth child arrived, the lupus hit, the no-sun issue surfaced, and all together it added up to years of wishing keenly for all sorts of things.

And one of those was to just get in the car and go see the ocean again. Not our close-by Bay but the actual ocean. It wasn’t like it was very far. (Oh yeah, sun, right.)

My younger brother Bryan was here about eight or ten years ago and we did exactly that: we got in the car, him at the wheel, and the two of us drove down to Monterey, reveling in the rare time together.

Pebble Beach. The 17-Mile Drive. Got out from time to time (took the risk, how often do I get to with him) and looked at the seascapes below. The funky Monterey cypresses, the redwoods on Highway 17, the weirdness of the sign claiming copyright on all images anyone ever might make of that one lone tree on that outcropping as belonging to… You can’t copyright a picture you didn’t take! Silly people! Hanging out. Having a day to just go be siblings again.

I so wanted to go back there. I so wanted to cruise down Highway 1 and just be free of all health-related cares and just go. I tried to ignore how confining lupus can feel.

The B’s did not know that when they booked a cottage where they did for their vacation. It was simply a good spot for the things they wanted to do.

Bryan and I had driven right down that road. You go past the sign to 17-Mile Drive and there you are.

The best part of my trip yesterday, by far, was getting to see and spend time with the B’s. With serious chronic illness for two of us and a 3000 mile distance, this is a rare and wonderful thing. I think we two were both surprised at how well the other was looking. Acknowledging, yes, but acknowledging too how things are holding together in spite of all that as we created new memories to rejoice over with the old.

On a side note: going such a distance, and down a highway that occasionally turns into a country lane, a kick back and relax in the scenery type of road with slow produce trucks hauling artichokes from the coast and ambling at their own pace, one never knows what to expect. So I’d left early with the idea of Monarch Knitting as my time buffer: I’d wanted to meet LYSO Joan there anyway, very much so, for over three years now.

There was a big knitting retreat going on back then at Asilomar (wait–not SOAR, it was June–trying to remember its name) and my friend Nina was attending. She asked for, and got from me before she left, my author’s proof pages that I’d had spiral bound.

The first day of the retreat happened to be the day that Wrapped in Comfort was released, and the conference also happened to have a show-and-tell scheduled then.

Nina, bless her, held up that book, wearing the shawl in that book (she had wanted to own the very one, not a copy, even if it meant waiting for months to get it back from the publisher, so I did that for her), pointed to the page, and she announced, “I am Nina. This is the shawl in this book. You want this book. Go buy this book!”

And thus she led a posse of 50 knitters over to Monarch, where, she and Joan both told me later, Joan was just opening a box shipped from Martingale that had six copies in it.

And everybody wanted them.

Joan took a deep breath, made a decision, and pleaded with them: please, if I do this, promise me you’ll come back tomorrow?

They did. So she did: she called Martingale, on a Friday afternoon close to quitting time, and asked them to Federal Express Weekend Overnight her those 50 copies. And they did it! They got them out in time! The next day, they all sold except the copy Joan wanted to keep for herself.

She told me the shipping fees had eaten any profit from the sales but oh what a good time they’d all had!

I thanked her for giving me a book story to brag on for life. And I do.

So, yesterday I was making good time, on my way, passing several bicyclists who were off the road talking to each other, when suddenly a cop passed me, lights and sirens. A few minutes later, another. Oookay. There was a long curve there near Moss Landing, too far away to see why traffic had by then come to a stop.

And there we sat.

It was one of those times I was glad I was in a Prius: I turned off the fan to save electricity and thereby gas. We sat. Pretty scenery… But I really hoped things would get going; I did want to stop by Monarch.

After a half hour it all started to clear up again. No tow trucks, no fire engines, no sign of anything having been out of the ordinary. Curious.

To either side of the power towers at the Landing, there were swamps and birds that I wished I could see closer up.

I did get to go to Monarch. I walked in and the first person I saw, having cheated and looked at her website, I asked in delight, “Are you Joan?”

“I am!”

“I’m Alison Hyde.”

She knew exactly who I was! Totally, totally made my little ego’s day.

I looked around with the occasional exclaiming of delight as one room unfolded to another and ooh look there’s another back here! I bought a little baby alpaca. “Souvenir yarn.” I explained about the time buffer, thanking her for her offer to wind it but gotta run.

I had no idea when I got back in that car I was going to be retracing some of my brother’s steps from there. Hey! I recognize that restaurant!

And that’s where we all had lunch together.

The B’s happened to mention having gone birding at Elkhorn Slough over by Moss Landing a bit earlier, where a large group of bicyclists had gathered and traffic had backed up for two miles behind them.

Oh my goodness! You were there! *I* was there, at the far end of that! Too funny.  I asked Scott, Did you get to see your Bewick’s wren? Knowing he’d so wanted to and never had. I have one that hops across my view every day, moving like a cartoon figure the way it bounces almost faster than the eye can keep up with.

“I did!”

Cool! I told the three of them that I was now into birds and it was all their fault. They grinned.

Joan over at Monarch had offered to take the hanks and ball the two up for me and let me pick them up on my way back later, and that was really nice of her.  But…

I thought as I came back through Pacific Grove just after her quitting time, I was right. Don’t wait up. I was having too good a time just being friends in person again to get wound up.

And I did it. I know now I can do it. I knew, but I hadn’t tested, hadn’t pushed myself, and now I have. Along with their friendship, the B’s gave me back the most incredible, the most exquisite sense of freedom reclaimed.