Wow, did I really get off this easy this time? A little joint inflammation that dissolved away like the ocean fog by mid-day, a little in the eyes–but no loss of vision this time. A few cardiac-cough spasms that gave up and went away and were nothing.  So far so good. So different from other sun-exposure episodes.

Thank you for your prayers and your Thinking Good Thoughts: to me, it all matters, whatever your religion or lack of it. It’s all love in God’s eyes. Caring makes the whole world blessed.

And so I am blessed by people I know and whom I wish I could. Again, thank you.

Tonight I finished the baby alpaca hat I began on that mountain.  When it is right it will tell me whose it is, and then it will go from being knit for the whole wide world to just one person in it. At its time.

Part One.

I had no idea what the place was going to be like or even quite where it was going to be. Which was okay, I was going to be the passenger.

My friend Nina was taking part in a small–very small, as it turned out–holiday craft fair in Sky Londa today, immediately down the hill from Alice’s Restaurant.

Phyl was sure it was going to be held indoors and safe for my lupus, and it’s always good to see Nina, so up twisty Highway 84 we went.

Well, there were doors, that much turned out to be true: a stand-alone room of a building with the doors wide open and most of the crafty goings-on out in the fresh air, with Christmas trees over to the side being picked out and bundled onto cars, attracting people driving by to or from the coast. Come.  You see all these trees all around? Bring one home with you, pine-sized. Buy a handknit woolly scarf while you choose in the chill.

The sky was a dense fog, the ear-popping elevation not limited to the tops of the redwoods. I had on two layers of sweaters, wool knee socks, and a good wool hat. Nina was cold in a down jacket and thick hat and I realized that my heating-impaired house had gotten me more used to colder weather than I’d realized. (One site says it was 46F there today, one, a bit more.)

Checking the blog, it was Wednesday that that skein of Malabrigo Rios jumped onto my needles for no reason I knew of and just absolutely demanded that I knit it into a hat, and fast. NOW. And there seemed to be only one stitch pattern for it. That was that.

It wasn’t for my Christmas knitting queue, either. Don’t ask me how I knew that, but it just felt obvious all of its own. Well, huh.

So it got made. I knit it into the pattern that surrounds this blog, except done with yarnovers to make fern lace. I ran the ends in to finish it this morning right before Phyllis came to pick me up; whoever it was going to be for wouldn’t mind if I wore it just this one day, would they?

Ferns grow freely among the redwoods, the fronds echoing the green needles above; the Azules colorway echoed the California coastal sky, bright blue and foggy mixed together. With a touch of green. The ferns.

There was a seat just behind the window next to the door. After admiring Nina’s knitting for sale and visiting with a few friends, (side note for them: my brother Bryan’s Jeppson Guitars is here) I sat down there, figuring the glass would give me a little bit of UV protection on one side at least, pulled some yarn out from my purse, and started another hat while listening to a singer with his guitar who was seated in that room too and whose sound had drawn me in there in the first place.

I tell you, he was good. I looked around for signs of CDs I could write a check for but saw none.

Another man had told me there would be four musicians together later, and I’m quite sorry to have missed that but I can only be outside so much. But while I could be there, the one playing then, I could have listened to forever.

Yarn winding in time around wood as he played helped keep me warm.

I (in my sun worries) thought we were there about an hour and a half; Phyllis later guessed about 45 minutes. Judging by rows finished, she’s probably right. She came to me to say she was done just as I was finishing up a needle; okay, cool–and just as the musician finished his song and said what he was going to be playing next.

He had a blue canister with the word TIPS painted prominently in bright yellow.

I was standing up to go but turned to him instead, glad that I could say something without interrupting–the timing had come out perfect. I said very briefly I had no cash with me (much though I wished) and major home repairs waiting. But this I could do: Malabrigo. Some of the finest wool in the world. I had just knitted this (and I took off my hat). I had made it up as I’d gone along, and it is a woman’s, but I was sure he could find someone to give it to; “I want to throw my hat in the ring” to thank him for his music, and with that I put it in his tip jar.

The new warmth in his smile was like no one else’s.

Part two.

We were pulling out when I went, “The honey!”

“Oh, right,” answered Phyl, offering to let silly me pay her back later (I did) and she pulled off to the left to where someone was selling local honey across the side street.

He had blackberry! My favorite! I told the man I couldn’t go to the Kings Mountain Art Fair anymore where I used to buy it; too much sun time.

He asked if I were sensitive to the sun?

Turns out he and his doctor have discussed whether he had lupus on his arm. He seemed grateful to be able to say that to someone who knew what the word meant.

I explained there were two types, skin only and systemic. If he has it there, don’t let the word scare you.

He told me as we left, “You take care of yourself.”

“You too.” And I assured him that systemic notwithstanding, I’d had it twenty+ years; I’m doing fine.  He was visibly comforted.

Part three.

Costco run. I grabbed my piano hat on our way out the door. If I was able to stay warm enough on that mountain I didn’t need more than a hat thrown on down here too, right?

There was a woman in the store’s motorized wheelchair wearing a set-up that I recognized from when my son had knee surgery: her leg looked tinker-toyed. She was offered a sample of smoked salmon and wanted to buy some, but it turned out to be set on a shelf high above her head and the person giving the stuff out was too swamped with customers to notice.

But I did. “Do you want me to reach that for you?”

“Oh, yes, please! If you would.”

Now, I have spent my time needing that chair before. I know that people in wheelchairs like to browse too: like not just having help getting something down, but also like not being forced to buy it or stash it in the wrong place after looking it over simply because there is no physical way to get it back up high again, the helpful person by then long gone.

So I hung around the salmon a moment, just in case, thinking, browse away, hon.

She asked me if I were a pianist?

(I didn’t say, not like my concert-pianist grandmother nor my organ-performance-minor son, but) “Yes.”

She was too! She LOVED my hat! Wait–I’d *made* it?!

Hey (bring on the brag). I’d designed it.

I showed her the inside: how I’d wrapped the yarn across the backs of every single stitch so it wouldn’t have long lengths to snag on things. But that had made it so the black shows through the white keys a bit across the front, and for later hats, I’d gone with the long lengths. (The floats, to a knitter.)

I did offer to put the salmon back up if by chance she needed that. She loved that someone understood how it was to be seated.

However long later, Richard turned back to get one last thing for me and then we headed to the checkout. With him at the cart, he picked a line.

Which turned out to be next to that woman. Her young sons had joined her by then, one quite small, one maybe six or seven. I knew it couldn’t be easy to have Mom having a hard time getting around for awhile, especially if that’s a change.

I said a quick inner prayer, wondering. In response I felt this: could I re-create the hat? Sure, in a day, two, tops. Could I re-create this moment? Not on your life. And so while she was turned the other way I whipped my hat off my head, stepped over and tucked it into her cart just as she turned back.

She was stunned. “NO!” in disbelief. A delighted butbutbut.

May I?

She shook her head in how can I let you and joy and are you sure. Yes I’m sure.

She exclaimed some more and her older boy admired it and put it on his head. She told me he played violin.

“I don’t know how to knit a violin yet,” I laughed. (Thinking, but just wait…)

Her husband joined them right about then and the next thing I saw, all of them were laughing and happy, and then the older couple behind them in line were happy for them and admiring their hat and loving being at Costco right there right then.

I had been exposed to enough UV earlier to burn my cheeks and wonder what my T- (ed. to add, and B-) cells would do next. But as I once told my friend Scott, “Sometimes you just have to LIVE!”  I was hoping the Decembery conditions would be enough in my favor, but it was a risk and I knew it and I weighed it and I took it. Maybe, hopefully, I’ll be fine. Some things are worth what you pay for them. It was a day well spent.

But that very awareness pushed me to choose not to be selfish but to grab the moment given me to make that family happy.

As that musician had made me happy by the depth of that smile that had lit up his whole countenance. He, too, had played his part to help make it happen for them.

We all arrived of our own choices where we were supposed to be.

Parker ready to read to his younger cousin: hey look, he saved her bookmark.

When Holly was here in town several months ago, I showed her a project I was working on.

She admired the yarn, but as she did so, simply having another set of eyes looking at what I was making it into made me face that yes it was a doodle but no I didn’t like how the second half was coming out.

Finally today I sat down and risked it catching on itself all over the place and carefully ripped half of that little shawl back and reknit the now-squiggly length back up and past that point. It feels so much better.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you, starting with Stephanie, who have ever said you’ve never regretted frogging something that needed it:  at last I have a beautiful mink/cashmere project that I love and that lives up to what it should have been all along.

As it knit back up I gradually went from appeased pride, to, I can’t wait till the recipient gets it!

Meantime, Parker and his cousin, as usual, steal the show.  Birthday and Christmas season. Celebration times!

We were reading from newly-arrived catalogs at the table and giggling.

“Monkey sock wine covers, only 12.99 each. And if you buy two, you can wear them as socks afterwards!”

Him: “Star Wars Hans Solo frozen in carbonite done as a chocolate bar.”

And then he showed me the unicorn chopsticks: the horn is the stick part and the poor little horsey is tipped upside down while you get to eat; always spearing the food, never getting its own share. Oh, and can’t forget the Lil Vampire Pacifier: “If baby starts to sparkle, feed to werewolves immediately and make a new one.”

Spear the cod and foil the child.

(Those catalogs just go to show, you can foal some of the people some of the time, but you can’t foal all the people all the time…)

Hands down and hooves up, his pages totally trumped mine.

(Knitting: I frogged the bamboo/pearl yarn back to the ribbing, started again, frogged again, and finally gave up and kept it simple. Stockinette, straight up from the brim–amazing how much better behaved the yarn was for that. Zee hat, it ees done.)

A side note first in case someone out there needs to read this: last summer I started to make a chemo cap out of a bright white corn-based ribbon yarn, thinking it would go with everything for the recipient and not be itchy.

A few rows into it and it looked like I was knitting a great big garish hospital bandage to plunk on their head. I ditched it.

Today: I had to return something to Lands End. Rather than pay return postage, I looked up where there was a Sears store accepting such. Turned out I could drive south to a mall that I knew required a too-long walk in the sunlight to park, or I could go to the one in San Bruno.

You know, the one just a few streets away from Cottage Yarns. The fact that I’d knitted six projects in seven days, five from skeins I’d just bought there, needed showing off anyway.

The Sears parking turned out to be two car lanes’ width from the door, much safer for my lupus. Bonus.

I’d offered Richard to come with me to keep me out of trouble. (He’s on semi-vacation.) But no; returns and yarn just weren’t his thing.

When I was at the Cottage last Saturday, I bought a single, cautious skein of cotton/modal/I think it had some silk in it too, where’s that ball band, and knit a chemo cap out of it. My hands did much better than I expected; cotton and I are not friends, but I got it done by the end of that day with only minimal soreness.

So, back to the Cottage–only this time, knowing a little more now about gauge and effect in that kind of yarn and what needle size I could use, I took a more serious look at the Sublime Bamboo and Pearls. Again, not knowing the particular yarn yet, I bought just one skein to test.

I’m late blogging tonight because I could not put it down. 70/30 “Viscose from bamboo and viscose from pearls.” So soft! Shiny, just slippery enough to tamp down the effect of inelasticity from the celluloid bamboo, it just poured through my hands like water over pearls. It’s made of many strands but, being rounded well and with my sharpish Holz and Steins, it hasn’t been splitty.

But what surprised me, apart from the fact that it was almost as easy as wool to work with, was the warmth from the strand that suddenly caught my attention in my cool house. Cotton feels cold. I did not expect warmth. I don’t quite understand it; I can only guess the oyster is designed to stay comfortable in its ocean. That 30%, I am guessing, would have been made from what they shaved off the pearls to make them round for market. Purls from pearls knitted on needles of leftover wood from making musical instruments. It danced in my hands.

Kathryn was unexpectedly away taking care of her mom; I did get to show off to her husband, who loved the knits, but not her yet. They had more Sublime colors, you know…

I think I’m in trouble now.

Today, I was going to… And I was going to… But I…

Suddenly realized that if that yarn and needle combo had been scaled down I would have had an entire sock knitted in one day. No time for icing my hands all day long, though, so, no.

Stephanie? Loved your post. Thank you.

When my son Richard was a baby, you could not take your eyes off him: twice, I walked out of the room, walked back in just enough time later to have put the laundry basket down in a bedroom and come back to find him on top of the piano, or, the second time, when I’d learned to move a little faster, standing on the keyboard and nearly there.

This was before he learned to walk.

This was also the kid who would later be minoring in organ performance (that’s the Mormon Tabernacle organ in Salt Lake City, but sorry, no Tabby Choir accompaniment.)

Parker, meantime, is climbing the stairway to some haven up there he’s aiming for. When he gets there, he knows, if the doors are all closed, with a fuss he can get what he came there for. (The going up is easy, it’s always the going down part that takes some serious learning.)

And I just finished the third Christmas project. It amazes me forever and always how working on one project will spark new ideas for the next several, creating a momentum as well as some really nifty knits. I wish I could brag and show them off.

Hey, Purl Girls: the Eco Cloud bought at Purlescence yesterday? It fits Richard (he remarked on how good he was being for trying it on three times) and it’s done.

Hey, Kathryn: that Ella Rae Silkience that you said this afternoon was the softest thing in stock in its genre? The pattern, which I made up, guessing as I stitched, is now written down because it came out perfect and I very much want to be able to do that again without wondering what I did. It’s done.

This Christmas knitting thing might be achievable after all.

For a moment there I thought they were going to revoke my knitting license.

I’m going to a baby shower Tuesday for two friends; one is having a boy, the other a girl. I looked up baby hat sizes and measurements tonight and launched into some leftover Malabrigo Rios in Solis blue/green, sure I had enough for the boy one.

Garter stitch, seven across, till the brim is about the right length. Pretty stretchy: do we measure as knitted or as stretched. Hmm. Go for in between (but mostly unstretched). Three-needle-bindoff to seam it, pick up two out of three across the upper side of the circle, standard stuff, although that got me 66 stitches–close to the amount I would use for a worsted-weight hat for me. Hmm. But these needles were smaller than for that. I’m fine.

Richard walked in the room when I was well into it and pronounced, “That looks big enough for you.”

Nooo… That stopped me. I pulled it over my head: a bit tight, but could be done. He was right.

Take it off. Measure. Unstretched? 15″ brim, right on cue for 3-6 months. Height? 6″ and getting low on yarn. I looked for more, but this was the yarn from Parker’s dragonskins baby blanket–there are no other skein ends kicking around but the one.

Baby size it will be after all, then. Knitting license saved! Tadaaah!

Y’know… that would match his blankie…

Okay, I have two hats I need to knit. Starting tomorrow.

(Great Blue Heron, Coronado Island, and Parker, rocking the kelly green, courtesy of my son Richard.)

My friend Kelli is the prime culprit in a particularly nice anonymous favor once done me via Purlescence.

Kelli of late has had to give up knitting: she’s a handcycle racer, with a custom-fitted set of wheels–but autoimmuned hands sometimes have limits and I haven’t seen much of her for awhile. It’s hard to not be able to do the other thing you love to do.

And yet. When Penny in our knit night group had to go on chemo, Kelli is the one who pulled the hand-dyed merino out of her stash and started knitting Penny a super-soft hat.

She couldn’t finish it. She had to ask for help (I knew nothing at the time.) And so Penny showed up one night wearing it, needing to avoid germ exposure but needing to be around friends after months of isolation and needing to show off what those two, a friend helping a friend helping a friend, had created for her to be comforted by.

So. Much. Joy. For all of us.

I recently got some (more) yarn from China, 95/5 cashmere/mink this time; when it came, the green was not quite what I’d expected. I like blueish greens.

This was a kelly green.

Guess how long it took me to figure out who that would be perfect for?

So that’s what I was working on this past week in between baking and packing to help move Richard’s office. That’s what I finally cast off and blocked last night.

And that’s what came out, despite my expectations and all my inspections as I doodled with my needles, to be quite…ruffly.

I was stumped. I said to Richard, But…but…Kelly’s a biker! And then quickly had to explain that that was a joke, son, a joke, biker chick as in that kind of bike, as in trying out for the paralympics. How someone with Crohn’s disease does what she does I have absolutely no idea whatsoever, and I have been in awe of her for a very long time.

But I just don’t see her as the girly-girl type. And this is ruffly!

He considered a moment. Got the biggest impish grin spreading across his face.

“Camo!”

I totally lost it. Laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. Richard saves the day! It was suddenly okay to give her what had been for her all along, silly me, and I instantly quit second-guessing both of us.

Kelli, hon, your girly-girl biker camo awaits you at Purlescence. Love from us.

I want to celebrate Parker’s first Halloween and the best daughter-in-law ever. We are so blessed.

On the knitting front, I was going to write about the yarn that arrived from China with a label saying plane unfold arid and 95% 5% 15%–of what, exactly, it seems I don’t know, but still: bistro mathematics?

And then.

All linguistic silliness got scooped up and put down gently over there for a moment. I got a thank you note when the mail finally arrived at five that needed its own thank you back.

For the picture of a certain hat being worn and loved and appreciated, and for the words that–I found myself wiping a tear. You know who you are. People like you make it all worthwhile, and many more to come who can’t find the words will be knitted for too: because yours make me never want to miss out. Thank you.

BUH BUH BUH! Another row bites the dust! BUH BUH BUH! Another row bites the dust! And another row’s gone and another row’s gone and another row bites the dust! BUH BUH BUH!

…Back when we were newlyweds we had a couple in the apartment upstairs, who, neither spoke English well and neither knew the other’s language and they were taking a dance class because you can communicate with movement and they could only afford one ’45 single and they only played one side of it. Night after night after night. And guess which tune shook our walls till all hours? Yeah…

I so wanted to finish my project today. If I showed you a picture the recipient would instantly be on to me, so, no, but, I thought I was about two-thirds done and started in on it a little before 1:30. Welcoming every interruption I could get for the sake of my hands, nine hours of knitting and quite a few rows later than what I originally planned, it is indeed done.

I *DID* it! Let’s DANCE! (And so we did. While singing that tune. Amazing what a little enthusiasm’ll do for you.)

(Parker and his cousin four months younger.)

My daughter Sam, as a young teenager about fifteen years ago, (come to think of it, back before I had Crohn’s too) asked me if, if I had the chance, would I choose to cure my lupus, or ask for my hearing back?

That was an easy one–she was surprised when I instantly said, My hearing back. The lupus is just background noise. The hearing loss isolates me more from other people.

It was about a year ago that I was sitting in Relief Society at church, the women’s meeting, when the teacher announced we were going to break up into small groups to discuss the topic of the moment.

Groan. The acoustics in that room are bad to begin with, and scenarios like that totally make me want to bail: all I can do, usually, is sit and watch other people having engaging, interesting conversations, getting to know each other better amidst the blare of what to me is just loud white noise.

I got put in a group with Jennifer. I didn’t know her from Adam; she had just moved here. But she has a nice, deep voice, easier for me to *hear, and she was totally understanding about the whole thing as soon as she knew. I remember saying to her, I don’t know you yet but I want to.

The grateful smile on her face made me remember what it’s like to move to a strange town and not know anybody.

I too felt instantly like I was in the presence of a friend, and, by how she handled things, she changed my longstanding attitude towards those small group scenarios–and frankly, I’d needed that. That inner poor-little-me pop-up gets old, fast.

I’ve wanted for a long time to figure out just the most right thing…

She likes purple. I couldn’t figure out what the perfect purple would be to the eyes of someone whose ancestors most assuredly didn’t (or surely didn’t mostly) come from Scandinavia and the British Isles like mine did. I guessed, but just couldn’t get past that sense of uncertainty; I wanted it to be perfect. And I wanted to actually get around to it and get it done, whatever the it might come to be, but nothing… what I could find just didn’t grab me.

Remember that mink/cashmere yarn I recently discovered? Laceweight, one strand of white, one the very softest beige, knitted together for a heathered effect: after I saw the beige, advertised as cream, I ordered the white specifically to put them together like that specifically for her–I finally had my answer. I used two balls and I used them all up down to the last couple of yards and they were perfect.

And then I waited all week long for the moment to come.

But then this morning, searching the crowd before the main meeting started, I didn’t see her. After all that work and all that happy anticipation? No Jennifer? (Earth to Alison: just because you knew and came early doesn’t mean she knew or did.)

But then, at Relief Society, there she was at the back. Yay!

After the meeting was over, I pulled her away from the crowd; I didn’t want to make anyone else feel left out or hurt in any way, ever. And I said to her: “Do you like–” (shifty eyes) –“weasels?”

That was such an utter disconnect that she had no words to respond with.

I repeated it.

Okay, now she threw back her head, laughing: “I’ve never met any weasels.”

I explained about the bad translation describing weasel wool, and that no, I didn’t buy from those guys. I said it was sheared–I watched her face–mink: 70%, and cashmere, 30%, as I pulled the ruffly lace scarf out of my knitting bag. Her eyes got huge with disbelief.

Kim had stepped aside by us as if to talk to Jennifer next, and told her that I’d knit her a scarf too. Jennifer held that supreme softness against her face, just speechless. She put it on, then held the edge out to see the lace pattern.

That’s it. That’s all I need. Any time I might ever again need to prod myself  to go spend the hours knitting to make someone else happy rather than wasting my time doing something of zero impact in this life, I will have that moment to remember to push me forward to do that which brings joy into this world. Thank you, Jennifer; you made it easier for the next time.

Again.

———-

*Consonants are much higher pitched than vowels. By far the majority of people with hearing loss lose the highest frequencies first, then gradually lower and lower ones, and so, they can hear someone talking–the music of a speaker’s voice, is how I think of it–but they can’t figure out what they’re saying. They accuse others of mumbling, but it’s their own ears  that are. That last sentence would be, a uh-oo uh-eh uh uh uh uh i eh o ee ah aw. And if I can see your face and know the context of the conversation, with my hearing aids in in good lighting I can usually follow that.

I felt like I’d rejoined the human race when I got my first pair at 27.

It is blocking.

That sheared mink/cashmere yarn? I need to thank Kate in St. Louis: when she did a Traveling Woman shawlette in 12 hours, I assume the pattern name in reference to what Stephanie’s been doing, I thought–I can do that!

I figured, you get more done when you have a deadline and I really hoped to get two major projects done this week. Three, if you listen to the crazy.

So, yes, I did knit my shawlette in about 12 hours, most of them over two days–but not necessarily a day followed by the one that came right after it, and  I still need to cast on project#2.

But oh my goodness, if you can’t knit qiviut quite every day, this yarn will definitely do. You know how wools feel softer the moment they touch water, when you go to block them? This seemed to disappear altogether–just totally melted into my hands. Love love love it. And I cannot WAIT to see the look on…! My only problem is, I can’t put that look on every single person’s face. I so wish I could.

One stitch at a time. One person at a time. Deadlines, though: deadlines totally make the progress.

(And to the squirrel on my roof suddenly eye to eye when I looked up yesterday from the bathroom sink, a nut in its mouth, considering me and then abruptly deciding I was challenging him and leaping at my head, which only got him the invisible forcefield of the skylight and a bellyflop–keep that up and I will come after you with my hair brush. I will spin and knit you a little carry bag for those acorns, and you will say it’s shear luck we met.)

Winding a racetrack-shaped hank by hand is its own pastime: you create a perfectly lovely round ball, all curves and come-to-me’s, rather than the matter-of-fact flat cake from a mechanical ballwinder setup.

And it gives the mind the freedom to meander the possibilities as you wrap the tethered strand steadily around and around itself; there’s something about working with a good yarn while not being held to anything yet.  Two ounces of cashmere, 400 yards, and ideas on what on earth to do with it went from totally zero to the proverbial sixty, centered by a desire to honor the recipient as well as knitterly possible.

But there is no more where that came from. I’m debating going with something else with more yardage, much though I want this to be in cashmere, just because I so do not like having to worry about whether I can finish what I started the way I want it to come out from my hands.

Let me do some swatching and measuring and checking–but in the meantime, (assessing the inner image I have now of what this project will be, something that had eluded me all day till I finally sat down and got all wound up about it),  it’s done me a great deal of good already.

To be continued.