The jays and I have it down to an occasional dance: they land, I tell them Git, and they show off their beautiful wings and flight patterns.

Only, today I told one “No!” instead and it hesitated: You didn’t say Simon says!

Oh okay, and I gave it the obligatory proper Git while trying not to wreck the effect laughing. There you go, and it was off and away.

Knitting: I picked up a project that someone’s mom has been waiting for me to make for her daughter, and it’s a perfectly fine lace scarf–in sheared mink, fer cryin’ out loud–but I had put it down to pack for our trips and somehow just hadn’t been getting back to it again.

Sunday seemed a particularly good day for knitting for someone else.

Well then.

And so. I haven’t cast off yet, I haven’t blocked it yet to see if it needs more length to it or not (I don’t think so), but for now, I’m calling it essentially done.

And it is so soft. Featherweight. Remember that story in my book? Don’t let the jays near it.

And guess who was there tonight.

That same couple–and their baby, whom I hadn’t seen since she was an infant, 11 months old now and almost walking; she and I played for quite awhile. Peek a boo! *giggle giggle giggle*

And Penny and her husband, too.

She had been diagnosed with lymphoma shortly after I knitted her that shawl, and it was a comfort through all those months of treatment and solitude as her chemo-battered immune system could tolerate no risks for months and months.

That yarn had known exactly whose it was from the get-go.

I showed her the project I was working on–and admitted that although it had absolutely demanded to be made, and I’d thought I’d known who it was for, the further along I got into it the less sure I was that that was where it was meant to be.

And so I have already decided what I really will make for the person I’d been aiming towards, while this? I don’t know. I just know I have to knit it. Monday, when I rescued its UFOness from oblivion, I actually only had the first four rows on the needles; now it’s halfway done.

She reached to touch the Findley yarn and exclaimed, Ooooh! As she did so, I suddenly knew: this was exactly the pattern I had knit for her.

Everything came together in good will from both of us in that moment towards whomever it holds in its future.

Monday, it was going to be a different pattern in the body but my counting was off, and so…

I told Penny in mock indignation, My knitting bosses me around! She guffawed–she knew. Hers does too.

I’m curious to see what will come next with this. I do know that yarn time is in its own variable universe.

If I’d counted right when I started my project, I wouldn’t have learned how to make the first lace pattern flow so beautifully into the unexpected new one nor would I be planning what comes after these two.

I should stumble more often. I am really really really pleased with how this is coming out–it was hard to put down.

As the afternoon wore on, to give my hands a break I was reading and then grumping over some news: Arizona’s House approved a bill that went below and beyond to actually allowing employers to demote or fire any employee who uses birth control even if it was paid for out of their own pocket. This sentence was removed from the old law: “A religious employer shall not discriminate against an employee who independently chooses to obtain insurance coverage or prescriptions for contraceptives from another source.”

Their Senate looks ready to pass it.

Wow.  Anyone who’s ever had a bad boss (I certainly have), raise your hand… I wonder how fast the Supreme Court would take that one on.

And so I turned on the stereo, looking for relief from all that.

Alison Kraus began singing a cappella.

A young dove flew in and settled in on the patio. Watching me. Learning a new song. Tilting her head up to pay particular attention when I sang too. She relaxed into her spot on the concrete and stayed there as long as the album played, the very model of being still within the world.

Acknowledging the gift, I turned back to that beautiful, radiant yarn and knit in increasingly happy anticipation of its arrival home.

You can’t divide 16 into 58 and 26 doesn’t play well with it either.

I did goofball math three months ago when I started this shawl, in trying to transcribe my scattered notes at the time.  I only caught it after working all day on it, all the while admiring the way the light catches and dances off the silk in the yarn.  It was seriously pretty and seriously soft.

It still is. No way was I going to rip it out.

It took some grumbling and a “what’s wrong?” from my sweetie and finally realizing there simply was no way and giving up. Redesign time!

And now the rest of it is going to be beautiful, too. Totally different from what I’d envisioned, but hey.

I promise not to say to the recipient, Oh, but it was really supposed to look like…

Hey, Don, you got your new computer working yet?

And over here…  Once upon a time there was some yarn at Colourmart.  Really nice yarn, in a very thin laceweight, finer than I wanted to work with but very nice yarn of very nice content and very cheap. (Their prices include shipping, too.)

They had a free twisting service to hold multiple strands together. I did not look around their site to notice that if you want the strands actually plied the way a mill would do, you have to pay an extra $5–which is super reasonable, actually.

So I bought 450 g of the stuff and asked them to twist it by threes for me.

Being me, when it came, I immediately hanked it off that cone into a big loop  and scoured it in hot water to get the mill oils out that their stuff tends to come with; I don’t like to spend hours upon hours knitting with something that’s only going to feel supersoft for someone else later–I’m paying for me to be able to enjoy it, too. The mill oils feel like dried hair mousse, so, out!

Hitchcock music time: over a thousand yards of strands only barely held together, all felting randomly with other parts of the skein in that sink. I hung it to dry and saw it and it hit me. All. That. Yarn. The only thing that saved it was the fact that there were cashmere and silk in there as well as that felting merino.

Help Cecil Help!

I’m a-comin’, Beanie Boy! I spent a long time gently pulling it back apart. I didn’t dare risk dyeing it then for fear of having to do that again.

At each stage of this I threw it in the back of the closet till what the stuff was made of refused to be ignored.

So on the next time looking it over, I was afraid that that bit of twisting they did would put torque into whatever I knit. There were a few places where it had left one strand loopy and uneven with the other two, with me trying to ease the ease back in.

There was only one way out I could see.

I ran it through my spinning wheel. Clockwise. Two bobbins’ worth, let’s try this much out first before I do more. I plied those two on each other counterclockwise, treadle, treadle, treadle.

Now I had a good, balanced yarn–and it was a worsted-weight-ish 6-ply. Um, who wants a white hat? (I know, I know, all the good guys do.)

And so that’s exactly what I knit, finishing it today without even using all the one doubled bobbin’s worth. The 6-ply was splitty as all get-out and a nuisance to knit, but after I pulled that hat out of my dyepot in the afternoon, the felting action helping me out this time, it was a deep deep indigo, the silk just slightly lighter and dancing in the background to its own happy tune.  When it is dry it will do so even more.

Wow.  Gorgeous.  And so, so soft! It was worth every minute and every angst and every stitch and every stir of that pot. This is what it aspired to be all along. I almost put it on for a moment in celebration, still wet–and had a sudden vision of being an old blue-haired grandma before my time. (No, it’s not crocking dye. Even so.) Let’s not.

Only 136 more grams to spin (maybe) , 196 to knit. Be still my heart.

Here’s what I was working on. Got it down to the last five yards. Close!

Meantime…

Fragile Handle with Care, said the box.

A loud hard THUMP as it hit the ground in front of my door this afternoon.

Wait, box? Addressed to me? I wasn’t expecting any box.

Inside were this yarn bowl and tea mug, hand thrown pottery that I had admired in Angela Ingram’s Etsy shop but certainly hadn’t ordered; I sent her a note to make sure that hadn’t been a mistake. I sure didn’t want to stiff anybody.

She got right back to me: these were a gift from (name deleted in case she doesn’t want me to tell on her, a friend both online and in person), but that person hadn’t stipulated putting a card in. Don’t worry, everything was cool.

It definitely is. Very. Ndicsdwmttoh–you are so busted. Thank you! And a thank you to Angela for packaging these so well so that they weren’t.

The Malabrigo Rios made itself quite at home immediately in the bowl, trying to proclaim itself as next project in line, and I have a daughter who loves her herbal teas; now I can wave a cheerful mug at her as incentive to fly home to visit.

Thank you!

Hard to stop to go blog when it’s turning out so pretty.

Back to the knitting!

She liked it! Hey Mikey! Thank you, Deb, whoever you are, and so I felt inspired to launch into another blue and green hat. Funny how that works.

Malabrigo Rios in Teal Feather and Azul Profundo for this one.

Purple or pink. The purple was in my stash of finished projects (that seemed too lazy), the pink a ball of yarn that caught my eye today: it had been tucked away forgotten because there was just one ball left.

Thin, yes, not a lot of yardage, true, but still, especially in this mild climate, I thought I could make do with that–and it’s hard to go wrong with baby alpaca and silk.

I cast on as Michelle went off to her friend’s wedding and then made it up as I went along, hoping it would work.  Then I wrote what I did so I can do it again.

That doctor Tuesday was a peach and I want to make sure she knows that. You never know who could use a lift.

I went to knit night determined to finally finish that baby hat. Which I did. But when I pulled it out of my bag, I got asked point-blank if it was for Jasmin‘s baby.

Yes it is.

Good time, good LYS, good friends, good yarn, and now it is done. (No, no picture, I have to keep some surprises, you guys!)

Meantime, if you have a moment: Lene has written a powerful post that is being voted on for a best blog post award in Canada, and it would help her in her effort to raise the profile of disability and access issues if it were to win; one-time voting goes till Jan 20 here if you are so inclined.

I was at the OB/GYN office today for a test and while waiting for the appointment started in on a small pink baby hat.  One nurse, then a patient, then someone else happened to walk past, and as they did I caught each one noticing my gray hair, my baby knitting, and then discreetly (they thought) checking out my belly to make sure I wasn’t the one expecting.  Uh, that would be a no.

I was at a meeting at church tonight with it in my hands again.

One young mom said something that made it safe to ask her the obvious–yes, she was due in May–and she clearly wanted to…but stopped, embarrassed, just happening to mention it was going to be a girl.

Right, then, I should have a little left over when this is done. It’s always more fun to knit for someone you know is going to appreciate it.  No, I didn’t hear a hint, did you? No worries there.

Then she wondered if I could teach her how to knit?

Absolutely! (And I am most definitely going to knit a little something for her baby!)

Meantime, just for fun, there’s no place like home.

Looked at the clock, thought no on the reading, knit, you want to be able to brag that you finished that hat. (My timestamp’s an hour fast.)

Right. Back to it, then.

And other than blocking (nope, just did that) and running the ends in… The leaf hat is done!

Overdid it yesterday; 63/43 bp this morning made it hard to move. Richard rescued me with a glass of water. Slow all day.

I got a package in the mail in the afternoon, a long out of print book I’d bought via Amazon. The seller charged me something like a buck plus the standard 3.99 shipping.

Only, they’d written “first class” on the envelope that with that heavy book in it clearly weighed way more than they could ship that way; at the post office, rather than sending it via media mail and slow, then, they’d opted for Priority and tracking–for $13.20! I’d paid all of $5.

They didn’t have to work so hard to make me happy but they did. I loved that the return address was within shouting distance of Richard’s late grandparents’ house they’d built in the 1930’s in Washington, DC. Back home.

And also in that package was the woman’s business card, decorated in shades of green.

I’ve been needing something to push me back into feeling productive again, just one specific project to grab me to get me going.  It took some stash diving to find just those shades. You know someone wouldn’t put a colorway on their card to represent themselves to the world by unless they liked it.

I had a fingering weight strand of pure  merino sock yarn from Fleece Artist and a matching strand of the same from Creatively Dyed, and together they would make the perfect quick but pretty hat.

I confess it took a brief moment of letting go of what I thought I was going to use that Fleece Artist for–and yet. It totally makes it. I’ve had it nearly a year, and every time I’ve tried to sit down to start what it was supposed to be, it refused to continue. It’s New Year’s Eve, and starting with a fresh idea to put some good directly into the world starting right now–it feels like that’s what it was waiting for.

Of course I don’t have to do it. And neither did she. That’s why it’s so fun.

(Oh, and the book? My much-laughed-over copy of The Mother’s Almanac got destroyed by a leaking roof during our remodel when my youngest was in first grade. I wanted to have a copy around; it’s a great book for anyone who loves children, and I now have both that again and, as of today, Almanac II.)

The yarn is wound, the brim is done. Things are speeding up.

I went to deliver a Christmas present. Drove over. Rang the doorbell.

Her car was in the driveway but there was no answer–till suddenly I saw the window sliding across at the bedroom next to the front door: she was sick, one of her kids was sick, she was glad to see me but she sure didn’t want to come close.

So she screened my calling on her. What a pane.

Well then. After a few moments’ chatting, I told her I was going to doorbell ditch her present, then. She laughed. (It seemed time to let her go lie back down.)

I stepped back to the right, put down the gift box with the handknit inside, rang the doorbell and took off in my car. Take two-strandeds and don’t mall us in the morning.

The tree was decorated by the shortest person in the house. There are no balls above where I can reach and everybody’s quite fine with that.

A blue Malabrigo hat went where it was supposed to go, the giftee thrilled at the handknit; a good wool couldn’t ask for better.

Another gift got finished today and is blocked and drying. Just in the time of Nick!