So I wanted a hat to go with Hudson’s birthday sweater (not that he really needs one in San Diego).  And I wanted it to have a car on it, but cars take lots of stitches and there were only so many to go around a small head.

So I plunked one on the top of the thing instead, and unstretched, darn if the thing doesn’t look like I turned a heel on his head, poor kid–it’s pretty funny looking. Stretched, though, it’s okay (I guess).

Looking at the thing it’s immediately easy to see what I could do to make it a lot better next time, but not in the amount of time left at this point. Can’t wait to see them.

Stitches is coming, Stitches is coming!

Meantime, 58 rows x  110 stitches today and a cowl in Lisa Souza‘s handdyed Earth Birth colorway is almost ready to come off the needles.

Hawks like my Cooper’s fly through dense tree cover to go after their prey, and someone took slow-motion photography of his Northern Goshawk demonstrating in a two and a half minute video how such a big bird could fly through such small places. The Air Slalom team for the win!

(Just finished a cowl despite the return of the fever. I have no idea who it’s for, just a sense that it’s important that it be ready and waiting when I do find out. I’ll wash it when I feel better.)

This is as close as we got to trying the digger sweater on him. Kim really wanted me to get to see him in it in person, but it’s okay. Note the flashlight in his hands: Parker is big on flashlights, he’d found one of Grampa’s super-duper ones, and no piece of clothing no matter how perfect was going to get in the way of holding on tight to it for every moment he was allowed to have it. Let there be light! And heavy!

All in good time. The sweater may well be better off washed and dried first anyway, with hopes that it might felt together a bit against inquisitive fingers; being superwash, it won’t shrink.

Hudson was back to happily snuggling into my shoulder today. (Grandma pro tip: wear a cashmere sweater for sensory bribery, handwashed a few times to increase the softness. A seven-dollar hand-me-down worked just fine.) He and Parker giggled at the antics of a finger puppet in their daddy’s hands at church–and then they all flew off for home.

And a good and far too brief time was had by all.

Christmas eve breakfast arrived with a knock at the door: Krys had gone all out.

Christmas eve dinner was spent with more friends. They are taking good care of us.

I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and we knew there would be more news–or not, really–later, we don’t know which yet. Starting this past Monday (yup, that week) it’s been that waiting time so familiar to many and they wanted more info. The machinery, it goes slowly.

Meantime, the back of Parker’s sweater, it is done, and on the front, his very most favorite type of truck.

With thanks to Robin, who snailmailed me her intarsia pattern after I couldn’t get the one I thought I wanted to print. I thought this one was too big–but my husband says the fact that it’s big and bold makes it all the more appealing to a boy.  That made me think a minute: I’ve never been one, so that was good to know, and you know what? Clearly, especially given the reaction of that kid yesterday, he’s right.

Wishing a happy and merry Christmas day for all and the peace of the season with your loved ones near and far.

Folks, we have a winner.

I’ve been knitting most of the past ten hours trying to make the sweater I’ve both envisioned and avoided this past month finally come to be.  It would help if there were a set pattern for the whole thing, rather than me flipping between pages trying to kluge one together, but I do at least have a chart for the design. Which was big, which had to be worked around.

As I told Sandi, I just have to start and then it will all be easy.

Which was true.

When I admitted to Richard that I just didn’t feel that acrylic holds up well to extensive intarsia knitting, that I didn’t like the floppiness of it in that context and how it didn’t hold together but that I just didn’t have the good machine washable wool in that many colors in that weight on hand–he told me to go to Purlescence and just go buy them: Parker had to have a sweater like that. It would be just too perfect.

And hopefully Hudson, too, but, I’m out of practice on sweaters and I’ve never done much baby knitting, much less toddler sizes, and so the amount of yarn needed was a pure guess.

And I guessed wrong and the shop is closed till after Christmas and Richard-the-younger’s family is coming the day after. Which is why the background of the front is in cream but the back is starting at the teal trim at the bottom continuing on up in that color on that side. You work with what you’ve got.

At one point I saw out the window a young dad playing with his three kids where the street dead-ends and I thought about it and then grabbed my project and ran out the door.

Are you Judy’s son? (Instantly thinking, no, make that grandson.)

No, I’m the son-in-law at…

Oh cool! And then I explained my quest: I had no idea whether this would fit my three-year-old grandson, would he mind if I held it up to his little ones to guesstimate? (I did not say that I’d seen pattern sizing that varied crazily, and I do mean crazily, 12″ width’s difference for a size 4 and it did not leave me confident.)

Sure! Let’s see, she’s (pointing at his shy, petite daughter) two and a half.

She however saw this stranger coming near her with this strange thing with weird dangly strands and understandably wanted nothing to do with me. I chuckled, understanding, and stepped back and tried to make her feel better about it while not imposing on her again. She watched me shyly while I did what I should have done first, which was to sound the all-clear by going to her five year old brother. Let him decide whether I was okay.

He was eyeing that sweater front from the get-go with great appreciation: now that, that is something that could get a little boy excited about a piece of clothing. He liked it. Most definitely. Hey Mikey.

And it was a tad small for him, as it needed to be, but whatever, the proportions are right so it’ll fit Parker later if not now. But that little kid did me the huge favor of letting me know this thing would pass muster at an older age if it doesn’t fit till later. I like to think Parker will never want to take it off no matter what size it is.

I know the grandmother to those little ones. She’s a knitter.  I’ll ask her quietly if she’d like to use the intarsia pattern when I’m done.

I finally took an hour out to drive down to go buy birdseed: I was one scoop away from out.

But that was just part of it. I got there and didn’t see Freddie but I did see John, her husband–they own the shop. The place was of course quite full. I interrupted him a moment anyway and handed him a small ziploc, asking if he would give it to her?

Sure! And he went straight to the back room with it, a great big grin on his face.

Freddie came dancing out of there with that green cowl badly clashing with her blueish-red shirt, patting it, exclaiming over it, showing it off to everybody, thrilled. Laughing off my silliness of worrying over the ensemble. She took it off a moment to put on the counter to get a closer look and I showed how I’d made it to look like smaller feathers here and more like wing ones here. (It was a riff on the Constance pattern from my book.)

I told her if the green was too yellow I could overdye it with more blue.

Oh, did you dye it too?!

No, I had to admit, while making it clear that color was a malleable thing here–the point was for her to like it. She loved it.

I’d wanted to do that for a long time. Good folks. She couldn’t wait to show it to another customer whom she knew was an avid knitter too.

Hudson practicing for Talk Like A Pirate Day.

I called my mom and wished her a happy birthday.

A little later, my doorbell rang. It was such a joy to see those happy, expectant faces: I was expecting two, I got four. Nicholas and his dad, who had worked together and made persimmon puree and persimmon chutney from their tree; Nicholas was selling them to make Christmas money (and to earn that Lego robotics toy he really really wanted) and I had asked if I could buy some.

And his little sisters: the twins whom I’d given yarn to to learn how to knit with. They asked if I’d gotten the fingerknitted-chained necklaces they’d made me? (I’d thanked them a week ago but being right there in person, the excitement needed to be shared all over again and the delivery of the gift made real.)  Yes!

And so I reached a few steps backwards and grabbed the things and wrapped them around my neck to their delight and I thanked them all over again.

Turns out they had a burning question about it, and one pointed at the brick red piece: “What is that?”

I got it– “Silk.”

Their eyes got big.

So were mine when I saw what they’d all brought me. I doublechecked to make sure I wasn’t depriving anybody else by buying the eight jars of puree–I love the stuff. Not only was it wonderful food from their tree and their hands and their stove but it was wrapped up beautifully, one even covered in a square of–wait for it–silk. A drapery sample (as labeled on the back) that added that perfect decorator’s touch that people like me can only wonder in awe at. How did they think of that?! Not in my skill set, that’s for sure.

And then later we got to Skype with Parker and wish him a happy third birthday. He proudly showed us a new toy, while Hudson found watching his big brother far more interesting than grownups waving on a screen.

Next week we get to see the boys and their parents in person and run and play and sing and hug. I cannot wait.

Oh, she’s so going to love this colorway.

Oh, she’s so going to love having been knit for.

Oh, she’s so going to love how soft this is.

I am having so hard a time putting this down to give my hands a break.

It’s been a good problem to have. It feels great to be back at it.

(Edited to add, 45 minutes later)

Me: That little snapping sound at the very very end. (Miming breaking a yarn.) It’s very satisfying.

Him with a grin: I’m sure Parker could help you make many many snapping sounds.

He’s right, I’m going to have to move some of that yarn before they come….

I did not expect that.

Okay, that was obvious, given what happened, or I’d have been more careful: I got a few hours into a project last night in silk (allergies, recipient-wise, exactly why I buy the stuff) and on our way out the door this morning I stuffed it in a plastic bag and stuffed that in my purse.

Without zipping the ziploc. Opening went straight up.

When we got to church, I realized that I had somehow caught the length of yarn between the project and the cone outward and I’d run the purse zipper right over it. In two places.

That stopped me right there a moment while I took in the enormity of what I had just done.

I carefully tried every trick I knew to disengage them, but the silk was not tightly plied and as the threads bunched into a tangly lot on themselves that I was all too familiar with and the zipper utterly jammed I knew the thing was doomed. Or at least that part of it. The purse itself was old and not in such great shape itself and the last one had died a zippery death. Great.

It was a big group today with two wards mashed together because our building had been taken over by the annual creche exhibit, a museum for a week. Which is why the timing of the drive to church was a tad uncertain and why I’d brought the knitting.

At Sunday School, an hour and a half later, I found myself sitting next to two friends to one side and showed them… It didn’t really need an explanation, just one look at the thing and we all know when Christmas is, and I put it back down, grateful for a moment’s camaraderie over the thing, at least. I would have to take it home, cut it, carefully work back so many stitches, and then make an unwanted knot with dozens of tiny little silky ends sprouting out of the thing over time–it’s hardly the grippiest fiber. Hardly the end of the world, either, but utterly self-inflicted.

At the end of Sunday School I found myself picking up my purse again, thinking I could just try one more time–and that zipper sailed smoothly right out of the way, freeing the yarn completely out of its prison. Wait what?! Purse in lap, I picked up  either end of where the yarn had been caught, disbelieving, and gave it the most gentle tug just to be sure–

–and it was perfect. The tangle had stretched out and right back into perfect order like a model’s hairstyle coming out of a dressing room on the set. It could not be, and yet, and I wanted to jump up and down and yell LOOK AT THAT!!! to the whole room. But what I did do was turn to my friends, the farther of whom had no idea in the noise and distraction of the room just then, and I exclaimed to the nearer one, “Someone just said a prayer because that wasn’t going to happen!”

She burst out laughing. Busted. Yes, yes she had, she allowed, as delighted as I was for me, for the outcome, for a tiny but major-to-me-and-she-knew-it Christmas miracle. One I had been too frustrated to think to ask for myself so she’d done it for me.

And there you go. And it stayed perfect as  I later knitted it up.

Wow.

Project #5 may be a reject. Let me think about it awhile.

Project #7 I think the end is going to get frogged and redone. It reminds me just a bit too much of back when I used to sew rather than knit for a few years out of my life and I wore out a seam ripper. (Didn’t know you could do that.)  I want this one just right after all that work.

Project #9 is blocking.

Project #10 is 2/3 finished.

Project #11 is being avoided at all costs and I’m thinking of skipping straight to 12. Stop me if you catch me doing that.

Noticed at the right time of day at the right time of year for the sun to be angled like that, caught at just the moment: our own personal flying saucer.  Beam me up!

Meantime, the next scarf photo went out amongst us at three squares long today.

I spent a wonderful time this afternoon in San Mateo with Beth, a semi-local knitter I hadn’t met before. We started at Nine Rubies and went on to coffee and hot chocolate at Starbucks, talking like old friends catching up.

Her square makes my unruly one behave–Afton’s is on the other side and mine is surrounded now, it had no choice but to settle down. What amazes me is that three people apart from each other can each make a small piece of knitting come out exactly the same size as the others’. Heck, I can’t even make my own knitting do that, but we did.

Tomorrow I see Diana and we’ll get her square sewn on and hopefully Sharon’s and Sally’s will have arrived at her place by then and go on, too. Diana and I have wanted to get together for some time now, and now we will. I can’t wait.

And I will go see Don. He said not to come today but do come Thursday. I will be there and be squared.

Eight projects done, four (minimum) to go, two birthdays before Christmas and we’re not talking about mine.

Yes that did say seven done when I first typed it.

Back to work.

It’s not my fault. Afton started it.

An online longtime mutual knitting friend of ours has been fighting all kinds of things, starting with cancer, and so Afton thought up the idea that we could knit her a scarf: she was knitting the first square and mailing it to me, I could send it on to the next person, and suddenly we had seventeen people signed up from all over the country and I think beyond. And then I think a few more chimed in. Cheering on commenced.

Having been the recipient of so much such knitting when I was the one in the hospital five years ago, it is deeply gratifying to see the responses–and to get to be a part of it.

Afghans take a lot of time to come together and we wanted as immediate a gratification as we could pull off and something that wouldn’t seem overwhelming against anybody’s holiday knitting queue.

I was waiting for the package to arrive so I could make my piece match Afton’s, but the mail didn’t get delivered when it was promised her it would and I had the weekend to wish not to add to the delay. So I simply sat down and made mine and waited.  The headlights on the postal truck finally showed just before six this evening.

My first thought, opening up the envelope was, well, you can tell which one of us lives in a warm climate: mine is merino and silk in a yarn that was a surprise gift from another member of the same group so it seemed perfect when I picked it out, but I have to admit I’d simply forgotten about actually cold weather; a little thinner, a little lace, a little Californian. Hers is good and solid and warm. And soft.

It’ll be fascinating to see how the whole thing looks in the end. Everybody please take a picture as it goes out your door to show once this is all done and in the recipient’s hands.

I’ll blog when I get to the end of this row…

No, this one…

Well, maybe this one…

Whizzed right on by that one, too…

When you’re knitting in the round, marked or no, there’s never really quite an end to the row.

(And: The Batkid story from the Penguin’s point of view. Wholly secret-good-guy, Batman!)