It was one of those times when a yarn leaped onto the needles of itself. Probably because I’d made Nanci a cowl out of that peach cashmere and she’d so exclaimed over it that I made a second one. That’s probably why I bought more of it, for that matter. I have some memory of thinking I was going to overdye some, till I decided it seemed too fragile to risk having the strands felt together.

(This is as close to Piuma as they have now. That price makes me feel like I really got a bargain. Anyway.)

The second cowl sat there quietly waiting to find its person, and as the pandemic came on and our  interactions with friends died off and felt far away it became utterly forgotten.

Last year someone mentioned on Ravelry–and I rarely read the threads on Ravelry, it’s like trying to catch up on every conversation with every knitter everywhere–that she’d made her daughter a sweater out of this glorious braided Piuma cashmere from Colourmart and had wanted ever since to make herself one to match. She had some of the peach, which she loved, but that mill end was long since sold out.

How much did she need? I went looking. I did! I had a cone and now I knew why, and dye lot would never be an issue from them. I mailed it to her. She insisted on paying me. I’d gotten it on sale. I told her, how about paying it forward instead by buying something from someone in Ukraine? With Etsy waiving fees there, it all goes to them. She really liked that idea, and did, and made a point of telling me what she’d ordered so as to share that happy anticipation and sense of reaching out to good people far away who were going through so much.

And I thought, I haven’t met you, but I feel like we would be instant old friends if we ever did.

Awhile later I found two more cones, offered them in case it would help–very much so, thanks!–and I let her pay me back that time.

Months later, I found out she still hadn’t started her sweater. (I totally get that there’s this fear of losing at yarn chicken that can get a project shoved to the end of the queue.) I only know because I went looking for that conversation again to see if she had her sweater yet, because, put away in the wrong spot, I’d found one more cone of that lusciously soft Piuma. I’d had no idea I’d bought that much of it, because it was never my color. It had always been planned to be for other people, so, hey, it was for her.

So that was around Thanksgiving.

Late February, I was rearranging yarns and finished projects, going through seeing what hats and cowls were in the stash ready to go, which ones needed ends woven in–when I discovered, smushed between other things inside a ziplock, that long-forgotten twin to Nanci’s.

It could be backup to the backup to the backup, but what it would be would be the matching-yarn cowl to get that sweater off the ground because I knew how much she wanted to have it. Sometimes you just need a nudge to get started.

Not that it’s any of my business whether she ever does or not. I just enable.

I wrote her a note telling her happy birthday–I was sure she was having one some time this year–and that no, she could not pay me back this time. This was from me, it had been waiting all this time to go where it had been meant to go and now I finally knew. If by chance she lost at yarn chicken on her sweater, I was entirely fine with her unraveling this for it.

I mailed it off.

I didn’t hear back, which was unusual, because in our earlier emails back and forth she’d always been quick to respond.

Then I did, I got a note saying she was out of town helping her mom move into her (likely final) address (my heart instantly went out to them both), and her husband had told her a package had come for her from me and that it felt like yarn and she was pretty excited about that and he was going to fly shortly to come help with her mom and bring it for her to open then. She couldn’t wait to find out what it was.

And then I didn’t hear back.

And I didn’t hear back.

And I thought, well that’s fine. I got the satisfaction of sending it off and knowing she would love it and that it went to the right place and that she’s happy, that’s certainly all I needed.

You know all this weather we’ve been having? You’ve seen the pictures of the 600+ inches of snow covering everything up in the mountains near Tahoe–burying the ski lifts!–and how impassable everything’s been?

Turns out her husband had not made that flight. Nor the next nor the next nor (repeat repeat repeat.) He was snowed in, without power or water or heat for some of that and no way out but with neighbors who needed help so he did. For three weeks. How he managed through all that I do not know, and I am in awe.

Finally, finally, he got out and to where she was and handed her her long-anticipated package.

I’m picturing that moment of all those weeks of anticipation, of hard physical and emotional work for the both of them, unable to be there for each other in person through it all, all the worry, all the goodwill towards those around them that kept them going: finally getting to be back together.

And opening my silly little package as something they’d both been looking forward to.

And finding it wasn’t just yarn. It was the time of a stranger, just a little, but offered freely as they had offered their own.

And that is why I hadn’t found that cowl earlier: this was when they needed the experience of it.

While I marvel at the project that would have looked good on several people along the way but refused to be so much as thought of until the right one at the right time. At the Love that answered his and her love.

As far as I know (with a nod towards Stitches West) I’ve never met her nor she me, but oh we have. We have. As best as we know how.

With all the microclimates around here, no matter what the weather sites say, after a really cold night you wait for the frost on the awning roof to start dripping down before you uncover the mango tree in the morning. That, and, somehow I just didn’t want to go out there this morning. But it had to be done. Be careful.

The top frost layer still had a bit of crispy crunchy glittery to it and I could feel the last ice crystals breaking as I pulled it off the lower layer.

Which was dry and felt cool rather than cold. Those old incandescent Christmas lights underneath are still doing their job.

But the top layer was heavy with liquid in whatever form, and I was putting my whole body into dragging it away from the mango to where it could dry out.

Which is why (and I know better, I’ve done this before) I was at the wrong angle with arms and legs opposite the direction I was leaning in when my foot caught a dip in the ground.

As I told Richard, my instant thought was Don’tfalldon’tfalldon’tfall as I tried to right myself in time.

And then you fell, he said, reasonably.

My back bounced off that vertical piece of the raised bed. But it wasn’t my head!

Ice. Immediately.

He was right, and I did, and I was a lot better off for it.

Mostly.

After dinner I said, I don’t see how I could have broken it.

Is the pain more localized now? he asked.

I wiggled my foot a bit. Actually, no, more diffuse, which makes more sense anyway because it was a twist not a smack.

Broken bones localize.

Yeah. Um, yay.

I found my old ankle brace but it’s still tough getting around. Elevate. Which means the UFO 1×1-stitch-switching intarsia hat that is a joy to give but a pain to make is now almost done. Yay!

Looks like four more nights of frost warnings coming up and then hopefully we’ll be done with that till, I dunno, maybe Thanksgiving?

(The top straightened out after blocking. I was running low on yarn and stopped there and never did take a finished picture of the beach, the shorebird tracks across it at the sides, the steps going up the hillside, the opening in the base of the redwood trunk to the right big enough to read a book to the child in, the raptor above. This was for a California baby with multinational grandparents. I was trying to make the design with as few yarnover holes as possible for the baby to tug hard at and I only had this 50/50 cashmere/cotton yarn in the one color.)

So. The second box.

The held mail had been delivered in one of those big white Post Office bins, like they do–and it was full of leaves and clearly had been outdoors for some time. Not sure how that happened given that I had opened the front door to the mailman seconds after he’d put it down, and there are no tree leaves left around here anyway.

I was exclaiming over the quilt and the incredible and unexpected generosity of my old high school friend Susan (thank you so so much!!) and almost forgot it in my excitement–but at last, oh, right! it was time to open the second surprise box.

The printed gift note said thank you for the blanket for Alice.

I took it to Richard going, Do we know someone with a baby named Alice? An adult? Did I get someone else’s package? We compared notes. No, her baby’s Emma. No, that’s…

Finally I happened to turn the note over to the back and wait, there was more.

They’d announced their baby girl’s arrival when she hadn’t had a name yet, and then since we weren’t in the range of close friends we never did hear and that was okay. It was from Michelle’s close friend from high school, the one I’d made the California afghan for.

Inside their thank-you gift was the once-a-year special that Dandelion Chocolate does in February, with three boxes inside for parts 1, 2, and 3 of celebrating a particular origin cacao, which this year happens to be a particular favorite of mine. Sent from the factory in San Francisco.

Now for some back story: when Michelle was working in San Diego, L. was single and living in San Francisco and every time our daughter flew into town, they met up at this nearby new shop that had just the best chocolate ever.

That is how we heard of Dandelion. So when I found a book by them, I bought it for her for Christmas. Amazon then went, People who bought this also looked at… And that is how we ended up giving a melanger to ourselves for Christmas and started making our own.

Which will never live up to Dandelion’s but we did learn a lot about cacao varieties. We’ve gone up there for fun and special occasions ever since. Favorite place, wonderful people, happy memories, the best pastries, and it was a total delight when the NY Times put them in their top 10 chocolate makers in the country.

I didn’t see the big hole in the side while opening it. I did quickly see the ones in two of the three inner boxes; I started to lift them out and open them and hastily put them back in and that’s when I saw the side of the shipping box.

Rodents had not only gone after that sweet food at the post office, but the proliferation of shredded wrapper paper after they’d gotten inside meant THEY WERE STARTING A NEST IN MY CHOCOLATE. This expensive, exquisite chocolate that the givers had spent a small fortune on.

What do I DO with this?

Tie it up in a plastic bag, he offered helpfully.

Okay. Did that. (Like they couldn’t chew through that? Who are we kidding?)

It seemed inadequate and even that word is itself inadequate, and a few minutes later I came up with the brilliant idea that baby mice (in case there were any) couldn’t jump high enough to get out of the bathtub, so I put the bag in that. (If baby rats can, don’t tell me.) I did not want more critters chewing through the plastic trash and recycle bins outside–and they can if they want to enough. But most of all, I did want to be able to take more pictures if the post office required proof. And there clearly weren’t any adult critters running around this thing now.

So now I knew why the mailman was in such a hurry not to talk to me–there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway.

With a late-to-the-party thought a little later, Richard casually opined, It could have fleas in there.

AAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!! I ran to wash my hands just because it was something I could do.

I sent Dandelion a note explaining the situation and that I did not want to tell the people who had done this very very nice thing for me–but they needed to talk to the post office. And could I possibly get a replacement?

Because much though I love their work I, I, I just can’t…!

I got a very nice note back today about trying to make it right.

And then I sent them this picture and they went oh my that is exactly how you described it.

I had already checked–the Esmerelda’s Special is sold out.

They are scheming with the team to figure out how to make a whole new set just for us.

They are amazing. Absolutely amazing.

So now we get to be surprised all over again and find out what they come up with. But whatever it is, it’ll be good.

And now they know why I offered to drive up there to have it not go through that post office again.

I couldn’t just sneak a new one for it because it had been worn too much for me to get away with that.

At eleven, he was bicycling over to my house during Christmas break to cover and uncover the baby mango tree night and morning while we were out of town. He protested that I was paying him too much (I wasn’t) and got one of the first mangoes ever to come off that tree.

Two years ago? I think? I knit him a hat, to his great delight, in the oft-repeated Malabrigo Mecha in Teal Feather, as soft a wool as you could ask for and washable.

Two weeks ago at church his mother asked me if I could repair it.

I’m guessing he didn’t want me to think he didn’t take good care of it. But it’s okay. Things happen.

Last week I showed them a bag I’d found of all the little balls of leftover Mecha in that color: I had saved them for future hat stripes but really just in case of an emergency like this. I asked them to help me find the best match because my cataracts mess with my perception of blues.

They decided the mom could do this and took the bag home, while I was left thinking, but I wasn’t trying to put that on you!

This morning the young man himself came over, pointed to the darkest mini ball in the center of the bag, and said decisively, We think that one.

The hat was back in the bag.

I was delighted–I’d really wanted to do that for them and had been a little sorry at the misunderstanding. I knew it would be a much easier task for me than her.

Got home from church, and thought, Do not get distracted. You know they’re waiting. You know he had to wait this extra week during a cold snap to get his clearly loved hat back–do it now.

So I sat down with it.

Oh. This wasn’t just the cast-on end working loose, now that I looked closely, that yarn was torn. (Their cat maybe?) This was going to be more than I thought. Okay, that and that are the torn ends and there, in between, it no longer has its cast-on-row stitch. Hmm.

The dad is the grandson of Ukrainian refugees. I told them later, The irony is that what I did is called the Russian join: I took the new yarn (leaving a dangly end) and ran it through the interior of the broken yarn to catch it and hold it in place.

(I didn’t bother them with the detail that the full term is the Russian spit-splice–they didn’t need that visual in his clothing.)

I reworked a few more stitches on the wrong side to try to really tack down those random fibers, and then I ran the two ends up the edges of the purls in the ribbing. I could do it pulled tight so that it looked good–tried it, went nope–or looser so it felt good. Definitely looser. As you can see, but won’t when he wears it with the brim down.

The kicker is that where the yarn had broken was in one of the lightest spots because the dye hadn’t fully penetrated the yarn. But I think, yes I do think, it came out quite okay.

I emailed the parents to ask when I should bring the hat by and my doorbell rang so fast before I even got around to looking up their phone numbers. Mom, dad, son: they all wanted to be there to see it come back to life.

I said to Eli as they leaving, Thank you: that hat is clearly well loved and worn and I never know if people actually use them. You made me so happy. Thank you!

It made his day and he walked down my walkway after his parents with the biggest smile on his face.

That, I tell you, is a young college-bound man who is knit-worthy. His parents raised him well.

More green than this, but, yet another Malabrigo Mecha Teal Feather hat to have at the ready once I get those ends run in.

I think I have a single skein of Mecha left–there needs to be a yarn store run this week because what else would I use for the fidget-spinner projects where you don’t even have to look at your hands to keep going and going and going while actually producing something someone will love.

Questions to throw out there: does anyone else tighten up their stitches more and more the further into the decreasing it gets? It’s so easy to accidentally leave a gaping stitch as you switch back and forth between the needles after changing from the one circular to the Venn-diagram effect from using two.

Does anybody use the long-tail cast-on end as you go up to mark the beginnings of the rows? Moving it only a few times as it gets ridiculously far back there, in my case. I kind of had a hanging umbilical cord and belly button there before I pulled it out to take the picture.

Should I take the unwieldy afghan that would get on the floor of the garage?

That’s a question I can’t answer, he responded, reasonably.

So, I finally decided, I guess the boring usual, then. Lucky me, there was one skein of Mecha that was already wound up. A dark teal green.

Which got me thinking.

I don’t spend a lot of time in waiting rooms these days, but sometimes, and so somehow I did, I had three plain Malabrigo beanies sitting waiting to find out whose they were supposed to be.

I checked their website. The three of them had been running the garage since the original guy who’d opened it in 1952.

It’s not in walking distance and I had no ride so I was just going to sit and wait while they worked on the car. I could call Enterprise Car Rental if it came to that; they pick you up.

Oh–are you waiting? she asked me. (For so long they didn’t let you; now they’ll let one person under the relaxed covid protocols.)

They got right to it, then.

I pulled out my needles and cast on.

I did the nine rows of ribbing on the usual 70 stitches of Mecha.

Someone else popped in to give his key and say his car was here.

I kept knitting.

I did some of the solid area above the brim, and at about 90 minutes in the mechanic stepped into the office area, glanced over at my knitting a moment, and said my car was done.

And then he shook his head with her a moment talking about the 24 year old Buffalo Bills football player who’d dropped on the field in cardiac arrest–so young, so young. In the ICU. But it was like that basketball player, he said.

Len Bias, I piped up to his surprise.

Either there were two basketball players or he didn’t remember that name; it’s been a long time.

He went back to work on the next car.

Len Bias was in Maryland, I told her, and I’m from Maryland.

Ah, she said, and rang up my bill.

While wearing a shirt and jacket in the very colors of the feminine one of those hats. The other two were in Vaa and Solis, darker green on the gray side and the other a bit brighter. I was knitting teal green. I was wearing two layers of green sweaters. Tuesday’s for the color green, today.

Two guys back there? I asked, just to confirm.

Two guys back there, she confirmed.

Having waited for my bill to be finished so it couldn’t affect it in any way, I pulled out the three hats and thanked her very much.

She’d just seen me making one of those. She instantly knew I’d made those. Her jaw dropped, and then she hurried to go share as I waved goodbye and headed out the door without even asking if they liked green.

The guy who’d worked on my car hurried out the big garage door to catch a glimpse in time but I was on my way.

I drove off feeling like, where have I been? Man, that felt good. Do it some more. You’ve got some catching up to do, hon.

This was one and a half repeats last Friday.

I just broke out the icepacks again.

If I do a full repeat every day, I’ve been telling myself, I’ll have it done before the wedding.

Fully aware that if they do come to their cousin’s wedding, too, their luggage will be weighed down with baby gear while they’ll be wrangling a one-year-old and the last thing they’ll need is to have to stuff a whole blanket in. I should ship it.

But one takes the motivation and the deadline one has. So far, they know nothing about it.

I was pretty proud of myself for how much I’ve gotten done the last four days–it just had to get past that point where the bottom curls up against your hands like a toddler grabbing your legs and whining when you know all they need is a meal and a nap.

Today I did the most of all. Momentum and all that. I finally decided, okay, give the hands a break, put it down, you want to be able to do this tomorrow. Pace it.

That was when I looked to my left and saw what had been quietly waiting all day for me to notice. I don’t know how many times I’d walked right past it.

I had moved the bag just yesterday and there were a bunch of I thought roots: y’know, I really need to plant those…

That’s no root. All that (matching lavender!) color happened today. I almost missed it. I almost missed discovering how divine saffron crocus flowers smell.

I will need to remove those bulbs very carefully from that bag.

Tomorrow. It’s way too cold out there right now.

Well huh. Colourmart’s cardboard cones are supposed to weigh 36 grams. I think I have enough yarn left over that I could have done one row more if I’d been willing to risk it, but I wasn’t. I did have another cone but I couldn’t absolutely guarantee the match on the color.

Then I weighed the cone out of curiosity to see how close I’d come.

The scale said 32.

The next step is to scour it in hot water to get the mill oils out. It will bloom and fill out and look prettier and brighten up and lay flatter and once that silicon coating is gone, it will be so very very soft.

It’s not perfect but you know what? I like it.

57×45″. It is amazing how much progress you can make when you’re sitting for two-hour stints watching LDS General Conference, and Sunday, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Pacific, I get to again–and will clearly finish it, assuming my hands hold up.

The middle tree’s a bit distorted here. There’s a raptor needing one more row to the left above it.

I really, really want a decent daytime photo.

50/50 cashmere/cotton. I have roughly 40 grams left of the original 900 on the cone and I think I’ll make it without having to use any of the next one.

Just walked in the door, haven’t checked my messages yet, just a quick note before we collapse.

It’s the weekend before Spencer’s fourth birthday and we flew to go celebrate with the grands there.

Taking a cowl project out of my purse to get a few stitches in, I found myself with my seven year old granddaughter asking if she could work on it. More on that later. She first asked me who it was for, and I told her, I don’t know, as I thought of the times I’d worked on it during knitting zoom meetings and a doctor’s waiting room with that same question in mind.

Still not done, and it was still that grayish blue from stash that just didn’t do it for me so it had been in no hurry. I’d started it to try to make that yarn find its rightful home at long last. Someone out there would love it if I used it.

I had, as it turned out, enough time on the plane and enough yarn on the first of my two balls (I think it was shade 3251 there) to do two last repeats and that was all it needed.

The plane did some descending. I was casting off.

The plane went lower still, though the view out the window showed no signs of city lights yet.

I used the tip of the needle to work the yarn ends in as if I were knitting stitches into existing edge ones. Finally, I left little dangly ends that needed to be trimmed off because enough already, and I called it done with less than five minutes to spare. We touched down.

I eyed that ball band on that second ball: Plymouth Solstice, baby alpaca/extra fine merino/yak, squishy and soft.

I told myself, don’t be dumb: don’t save the ball band for some possible future project and recipient when you have one right in front of you that you won’t have time to say a word to about anything. It says hand wash only as well as what it’s made of and she needs to have that information and I don’t have pen nor paper. So I did, I took the band from the one and wrapped it around the new cowl by way of introducing her to it.

We were getting our stuff from the overhead bins, just steps from the front of the plane–and she’d vanished. Even just saying, Where is she? while looking to left and then right was holding up the long line behind me.

Turns out the tall male flight attendant was blocking the view. She looked up at my question and in that moment we saw each other, and I pressed it into the hands of this older black flight attendant who’d put on a good face to the passengers the whole flight, but up at the front, had looked like she just might cry in spite of herself at any moment. She needed someone who understood her situation, whatever it was. She needed a hug.

I could do none of that in the time that I had but I needed to do what I could.

I wanted to say, Thank you for helping to make it so that we could go play with our grandchildren this weekend. I wanted to say, this is how you take care of it, tepid soapy water in a sink/as little movement to the water as possible/the lace will stretch out once it’s wet, that’s normal. I wanted to say, snip off those ends it’s okay sorry for leaving those/no scissors. I wanted to say, I am with you all the way wherever you are and whatever it is.

Instead she simply got my eyes meeting hers as she exclaimed in disbelief, having watched part of this coming to be in my hands those past 80 minutes, “For me??!”

(Anybody want that second skein, just let me know. No band, sorry/not sorry at all.)

And now I know why the kids had a last-minute change of schedule not of their making that meant that we changed our schedule to a flight an hour earlier than had been planned. Change fee $0 was a nice touch to top off how that worked out. Thank you, Southwest.

So that answered the question: the small tree in the center stopped at three sets of branches, its parental figures to either side get five.

Right now they’re on the fourth.

Finishing this was going to be my Aftober project this year (the challenge whereby you finally finish something that’s been needing that last push) but I just might have to use something else for that. But we’ll see.

Hmm. A peregrine falcon soaring above the trees? Or go wider on the wings and make it a California Condor?

“Your package is moving within the USPS network and is on track to be delivered to its final destination. It is currently in transit to the next facility.”

I’m going to hold them to that.

Meantime, I am well into the second tier of branches on the afghan. Three are planned, two more short ones at the top are a maybe for the momma and poppa redwoods with the little one in between staying shorter.

It’s getting there.

If it’s a race, at this pace I sure hope that gerdan wins it.

You know, I should have had one last yarn over at the top of that dandelion. I’ve been thinking of ways to avoid that jog where the trunks go inwards a stitch at each side on their way up. You can’t see the seven rows of branching under that curl of fabric, but they’re there and (measuring tape out) I probably should have ignored my earlier calculations and started that part sooner.

There are always things you can do better the next time and it’s fine this way this time.

Meantime, we have a new young couple at church and they were asked to give today’s talks. They were funny, spiritually grounded, clearly thought the world of each other, and I look forward to getting to know them better.

The man’s mom and grandmother came.

The grandmother was taking in my blouse, this blue one, so my friend Phyllis explained that I buy them from Ukraine to help out there.

Turns out there’s an adopted grandchild in that family from Ukraine and those two women were highly interested to know where one could find such things. They’d had no idea one could.

Now they do.

Not just roots joining into the bases of the trees: gotta have a redwood in the forest that’s partly hollowed at the bottom by a fire ages ago–creating room to climb up in there and even to sit down in the cool of its trunk. One looks up and marvels at the immensity.

Little by little, it’s getting there. Don’t tell the recipients it looks in this shot like the trees have a frilly skirt–they might have a boy.

(P.S. It hit 103F today. I am exceedingly grateful for air conditioning. I certainly wouldn’t have touched this if we didn’t have that.)