Took ten rows to finish the house by today, but I said I would and I wanted to so I did.

I might try embroidering half a white stitch in that upper corner, but the two stitches at the top of the roof line right up with the window and it looks better than I expected.

Ending at a single stitch would have left a sharper angle, but we’re good here.

Oh and. I decided if my sister finds out it’s okay; what I’d really needed was for my mom to see and know about it first, and once I did that yesterday then I was fine with however it works out from there.

Hey–you know what? We could run some sparkly yarn through and make Christmas lights!

Carolyn, don’t look. (I’m only posting this because I don’t think she ever does.)

The lower windows needed to be wider than the door–but only by a stitch’s worth to look right unless I were to do it in a gauge of sock weight or lighter and let me tell you that ain’t happening in my lifetime. Besides, the point of an afghan is to keep you warm.

Except that what that did was leave me a stitch short for the three windows directly above of identical size exactly over the lower three, and I’d love to know if the builder centered the actual house exactly so. But he could work in infinitely incremental amounts and I can’t.

So the second level middle window is off by a stitch but knitting is not a stable solid surface and you’d never notice and who cares.

Oh.

Suddenly now I kinda do.

Do you see it?

How many times did I count the black stitches marching towards the center there from both sides and not catch this till it was right there being obvious: that nearly finished attic window is not going to be centered. Four black stitches left on this side, five on that on the needles, and it was always going to be like that, I just didn’t see it coming.

It is what it is.

I need to tighten up the back of the two-color K1P1 on the latticework below the right patio so it looks neater.

While my brain yells, Squirrel! Literally. Because there is a tree and I have some cobweb weight, bison/silk so it won’t shrink, in the exact shade of an Eastern Gray. Curling stockinette for the tail flipping you off for messing with its acorns, fine stitches to sew it on to make the toenails. Or something. (Would size 0 lace needles do it for the body. Let me think about it. We are talking dollhouse size so this is in no way a promise, just conjecture. But then this entire thing is by the seat of my pants.)

I’m actually (the mind boggles after two months of work) going to finish the house part tomorrow.

It will honor those cultures that feel that only the Divine can create perfection.

You know, I could stick a tree branch across the top of that window and attic…

Nah….

Maybe five years ago I had an agapanthus plant that had sprouted in an unlikely spot. Nobody could see it. It was very shaded all day. It put out a short, sparse flower stalk, waving, Look at me!

Elio asked if I might want it over…there? Pointing out a corner that was quite bare, and I said, Sure!

He knew what he was doing.

It’s straight out the window and across the yard from here, just past the mango, with sun in the morning and shade later in the day, just right for it. And for me, for sure.

I thought a dozen stalks last year was wonderful, but look at that!

Meantime, I have finally gotten to the point where I snipped most of these ends off with a deep sense of satisfaction. There were about thirty four- or five- yard long strands across each row to constantly pull out from each other plus three solid balls, even if it doesn’t look like much here.

Now to go add a whole bunch more. But at least this side is simpler now.

Scene: This evening.

Me: I did my four rows yesterday, and today, five!

Him, putting on a mock pouty face: But isn’t that breaking, the, the, the RULES! It’s supposed to be four!

You goof! I burst out laughing, which is exactly what he’d hoped for. I’m tempted to defy my hands and do a sixth just for that, but, nah.

Intarsia blues.

A white stitch in a green spot in the middle of the row, spotted after the end of the row: I debated the ways I could fudge that, knew that no, I really really couldn’t, tinked back all those ends-wound-around-ends and fixed it. Grimly at first, and then with satisfaction.

Because that is one of the great gifts of knitting: you can make it do what you wanted it to do even if it didn’t comply the first time. Or the second or the third, and you get better at it each time.

Says me.

I reknit the rest of that row and the next and put it down again to take a good look. Time to start the awning, right?

Somehow I had knit two white stitches together a day’s worth of work ago.

Now, THAT I can fix without ripping out. I just have to get to that one, have a length of white at the ready, drop the one from above on down till it becomes two and work one back up, then knit (crochet hook more likely) into the stitch left dangling with the waiting strand and vertical-kitchener it on up and weave its ends in.

Now. No more of these shenanigans, okay, self?

I woke up this morning with the thought, and those people were okay because people who didn’t know them pulled over on the freeway on that mountain pass next to that truck on fire and that steep drop-off in order to get them to safety, at great risk to their own. I just needed to emphasize that point to honor who they are and what they did, whoever they are.

Meantime, I finished a random Zoom-meeting-knitting hat. It started with an intended recipient but the overtwisted stash yarn was nah…not what I was looking for… But it’s done, and someone will like it.

I am determined to make some progress on that afghan even if I’m doing everything three times to get it right; I’m getting closer to where it’s more obvious and less of the stage of what will it actually look like if I do this no wait I meant this. Two rows in 90 minutes with about 300 rows to go.

But at least I won’t be doing seed stitch in alternating doubled-stranded colors with a third worked across the back of them for much longer.

When did they say Christmas was?

After much attempting to sketch and graph yesterday (again), today I dove in. I’m on the second color and it feels great. (Let’s see, two more rows of this, four of that, then double the number of…) I won’t be entirely sure of myself till I see the whole thing done, but I decided I’m willing to accept whatever imperfection I may find as I go along. Begin the pattern!

What I’m hoping is that what it is and who it’s for will be so instantly recognizable that I don’t dare show it till it’s done and received.

I still haven’t got that top part charted at precisely the angle I want because knit stitches just don’t stack up that way at that count. It shouldn’t matter in the end, though. A triangle is a triangle. And if it’s too tall, then…

…That’s the angle a small child would see it, looking way up from way down below.

All that stifled desire to finish the white afghan spurred my winding cone after cone on the niddy-noddy this morning (in between delivering the apricot seedling) in order to get it ready for scouring–the pre-shrinking, the blooming, the softening. I did this much by the afternoon, with a few more over the weekend and a few this evening, about six thousand yards.

I opened a zipped tote bag to pull out one I’d wound up Saturday to add to the picture but it never made it in because as I reached in I saw it and stopped.

Was it really.

How. could. it. be.

It was!

Then how did I not see it Saturday?

That Kone I’d been making the white afghan from, where the 900g had come in two cones? One of which was 160 grams more than the other?

Apparently when it arrived I’d put the smallest cone aside to make a cowl from and then forgotten about it: there had actually been three. The last 150 grams, right there, explaining the weight discrepancy on the other two. Mysteries solved.

FOROY: Fear Of Running Out of Yarn.

I checked the color, I checked the spinning, I really scrutinized every bit of it to make sure I had it right, but yes–it’s a match. If the stuff on the way is a match too well super duper, but I can manage with this.

Meantime the hardest part of the next project to get myself to do, the scut work of the job, is already and even enthusiastically mostly done because my frustration made winding endless yards of still-mill-treated yarn into a useful and comforting outlet.

Do you ever have one of those moments where it feels like G_d’s putting your faults to good use?

To recap: I started out with two sets of 900g of the 64/36 cashmere/cotton, one of which came divided into two cones–and I was working the yarn doubled from those two; the slightly larger of them, I now know, was 160 grams bigger.

I made it to the end of the eleventh motif with about a yard to go on the smaller and got out the waiting full cone. Four motifs to go, was the plan.

Head tilt.

It didn’t match. It clearly, obviously, didn’t match.

But Colourmart always matches! I’ve bought yarn from them 18 months apart that was still the same dyelot, but this was spun slightly looser, was whiter, and had less of a feel of machine oils to it. Bought two months apart with the same picture, but it was clearly from a different mill run.

If I had worked from the two separate sets in the first place, and I nearly did, there would have been no problem. I’m just glad I was able to get that eleventh motif finished!

So I have two options: break off the remaining strand, wind off 80 grams from it to have two, and make as much of an edging as I can and hope that it’s big enough and that the thing doesn’t come out too lopsided.

Or: remember when I did that math to get it to twin bed length? I ordered more to be sure I could, figuring I could always use that nice a yarn at that cheap a price, and it is on the way.

So either the new yarn will match what I’ve knitted–or the other mill run. Or even if not, I’ll have two large cones to work from for the next big plain white project. I could even do extensive cabling, which generally uses up about a third more yarn.

I won’t have enough information and can’t reasonably do anything till the new one gets here sometime hopefully next week.

Ah, well, momentum, it was good while I had you.

I was pushing all the more to finish the afghan because as I stepped out of the shower yesterday a mental picture of what my next big project should be and will look like kind of stopped me and took over my brain for a minute and I spent part of yesterday going through stash to find the colors I would need. I was just going to have to push myself to finish the white. And so today I had #11 done by 1:00 pm.

Oh.

So I wound and scoured new-project yarn and knitted a large swatch (we are NOT doing 72″ wide this time!) I actually swatched this time. Are we proud of me or what.

The tenth: done.

We have the first tomato flowers of the year. (Photo taken through netting, thus the blur.)

Re the peregrines: while the sub-adult was in courtship with the adult, a male adult flew in and took over mating duties for a single day while the teenager sat over yonder and cried audibly in camera range at being ousted. But there was no fight, because the adult male didn’t think he was old enough to be competition yet–and then was never seen again. Avian flu, we don’t know.

So the female went back to accepting the sub-adult because that’s all she had.

And so I wonder…

Of the three eggs she laid, only one hatched and it’s late enough by now that there is no expectation the other two will.

Maybe he wasn’t fertile yet after all. We’ll never know.

(Today’s video here.)

I did some math.

Now, the way that math is like life is that you have to start out with the right assumptions.

I’d bought two 900 gram cones (“Kone” in Colourmart speak, to differentiate from their 150g standard) of their 64/36 cashmere/cotton and they often give you a little more than you paid for so when I grabbed two to work doubled it didn’t surprise me that one was a little bigger than the other.

Today I wanted to see how much farther I could go, so I measured what was left on the cones. Subtract 36 g each for the weight of the plastic at the center, subtract from 900g each. Figure out the per inch you’ve gotten so far and how much you need to get to, oh, about 70″.

Staggered. Yes they have more I could order, but–TEN. POUNDS?? Weighted blankets R Us? My stars, the price tag!

Well, it’s pretty wide and I guess in that case I’m knitting it sideways so I can stop a lot sooner and yeah that’ll look weird–call it a design element, right? And I got back to work.

With the thought nagging at me, Wait. You know that can’t be right. Go look again.

There was still a Kone in the yarn armoire, and subtracting the plastic it’s got 980g–that extra, there it is.

Which means the two I’d been working from were of course 900g+ between the two of them.

Well then. I’ll get a good length out of my 1800+ grams. That’s still close to four pounds and there won’t be cowls or hats from any leftovers but I’m okay with that. And everything’s cool.

What was her friend’s favorite color?

(She knew what that question hinted at.) I dunno; blue, I guess??

They have been each other’s bestest through years and all kinds of life experiences, and now there’s going to be three thousand miles between them. The friend dropped something off at our house a few weeks ago and her face gave away how painful it was for her that the Silicon Valley downturn was taking her friend three thousand miles away.

I gave up on the blue I’d ordered (some of it still isn’t here yet) and started just going with the off-white afghan that already had the bottom edging done so I could get it to her faster. And yet, and yet… No matter what I told it, it kept telling me that that one was actually for… And I wanted to get it done before moving day and my hands just haven’t been letting me do that much of its heaviness at a stretch…

But. I had a blue afghan. I did, and it was all ready to go. I’d bought the fingering weight yarn years ago and had dyed it three gradient shades from royal to navy and then had eventually knit them together. It was even 2/3 cashmere like the white one, though 1/3 fine wool rather than cotton. I’d offered it to someone a few years ago and they’d chosen another option, I’d offered it to someone else last year and they chose another option, and I kept thinking, it just hasn’t found its person yet. Why is it so hard to find its person–I know they’re out there, someone for whom it has to be blue.

And then I’d forgotten about it.

A certain someone just walked in the door after a farewell dinner.

Where she told her friend, You have to open this before I leave so I can relay to my mom the look on your face when you do.

Coming along both slowly (when I’m not working on it) and (what it feels like when I am,) fast.

The question will be which wins out, the lace stretching out once it’s wet or the fabric shrinking at that washing? I’m guessing it will be roughly a tie.

I’ve never knit fern lace in a supersized 14 stitch repeat before, and I’m liking the effect.

Friends are moving away, and I missed them last time but today I got a cowl into her hands before they leave: cashmere, because nothing else would do (yay for mill-end outlets so I can).

She just happened to have put on a dress this morning that matched it.

I need to be more ready to do that more often in more circumstances, because, man, it felt good to know she’d be taking part of here to there when they arrive at their new life.

I will so miss them.

Huh. Where had I put that other pot? But I wasn’t really paying attention to that distraction, so, whatever.

Which is why it wasn’t till this morning that I discovered the Anya apricot pot knocked clear upside down, where it had to have been for two nights and a day by then. That was the newest, fastest growing, most promising seedling, too, I lamented at myself while scooping everything back together newly out of range of raccoons–or the garden hose as I’d reached towards the amaryllises under the awning; I probably did it myself. That’s what I get for having the thing up on something (to thwart rabbits) but not up enough.

It actually looked quite good: curved but not broken. Bright green and ready for some sun time again. I debated whether it needed to be kept shaded while it readjusted–but didn’t, and that may have been a mistake.

Tonight? It might make it but when the leaf edges shrivel like that, experience says that one’s a goner. If it were older, but it’s not.

I’ve got a few seeds left and it looks like I’m going to need them. I have friends hoping for their own Anya seedlings and I’m down to two clear successes out of sixteen by this point and two maybes.

Knit stuff: I did a fair bit of swatching, washing the swatches, hairdryering, measuring, deciding, and lots of wanting to just get on with it.

The combination of variegated blues in merino over here would be a ton of fun and I had it all planned out.

But then I swatched that 64/36 cashmere/cotton. There was just nothing like that softness. Exquisite. The bit of cotton meant the shrinkage was about 10%, all vertical. And given who it’s to be for? It totally wins. Yeah, more (and more and more) plain practical white again, but happy anticipation can make up for a lot.

That is seriously nice stuff.