Part of me wants to ask, How is it only this far along? and part of me is going, Go go go keep going you’re getting there!

There’s the ocean, the waves on the beach, the stair into the hillside and to either side and, away from where the humans would climb, the tracks of shorebirds. There’s the seed stitch (so much seed stitch is there anyone who loves knitting seed stitch I do not love knitting seed stitch) for the roughness of the cliffs facing the water, and then back a bit from there is, at long last, where the redwoods begin.

I had all kinds of ideas of how they were going to go but ripped a little out: the very trees themselves keep it simple.

There were going to be ice plants, but the gauge is wrong for that and the daisy stitch came out as random bits of rocks on the beach for climbing over. And that fits.

The little stick figure of a dandelion because there has to be a poofball for their little one to blow on to watch the little pieces all rise up into the air.

Maybe as high as a redwood!

The Alaska afghans had a dandelion in them because I was so enchanted by the one outside the kids’ door at their old house in Anchorage that was blooming well above knee-high. And because I got to feed some to well-fenced-away elk through the chain links after the farmer there said that that was their favorite food. There were a few blooming just, just past where the animals could reach to and they were happy to grab the ends and spaghetti-slurp them up from us (and thank goodness for how long those stems were; the reindeer over to the left were tame but the elk came with warnings.)

So.

I decided this afghan needed a dandelion, too. A few rows after this you’ll be able to see better where the yarnovers settle into; it’s kind of a stick figure of a flower.

But it got me thinking of Dandelion Chocolate, because they make the best there is and the pastries to match and because bite by daily bite we had just finished off our last bar from them. Chocolate and sugar. Two ingredients. That’s all.

A few people in Ukraine are making, among other things, beaded necklaces with dandelion flowers below and their seed poofs floating off above.

On a whim, I sent them a link. Not that they need to go buy jewelry for all the staff or anything–but sometimes it’s charming to know someone created something both fun and meaningful that’s out there in the world just waiting to be admired.

Of course they loved it, but then, how could anyone not.

The beach is done, the seed-stitch hillside above it is done, the steps built into the hill are finally done and the first redwood has begun.

Once this thing is finished and washed, the yarn will bloom and fill out and the areas will all look more solid.

Meantime, Lillian celebrated turning three today with much enthusiasm. It’s fun to be big!

I didn’t think I could decrease every other row in dark yarn on black needles while knitting the alternate rows plain while switching between the two circulars while keeping track of where I was on each needle and where the start of the row was while Venn-diagramming the hat at the center of it all while reading the captions while attending a Zoom of knitting friends.

It will surprise no one that if you want to enough, yes, actually, you can.

Finished the ocean part, the waves coming in at the beach, the ice plants, and most of the beach, flowing in like Half Moon Bay.

The steep scrubby hillside that rises straight up from the beach will be seed stitch, differentiating from the stockinette of the short stretch of sand below.

And then finally I can get to the fun part. The redwoods.

All that time of feeling like, hurry. Hurry. No, seriously, hurry! This needs to be done. This needs to be ready. This one. L&A’s can wait.

I was telling Richard on Saturday about that and how it felt like such a relief that it was done in–somehow in time, whoever it was supposed to be for.

His sister called Sunday. Her son had just moved to San Francisco with his wife and baby and she was flying out to help and to play grandma for the week; she would be there Tuesday.

Today.

She and her siblings are all quite allergic to wool so I thought, it would be nice, but it wasn’t realistic to hope for. And I knew if I asked, and they were, then I’d have to make not only a third baby afghan but a non-wool one for his sister, too, who also just had a baby. Right?

(Shading from the trees vs the sunset in this photo.)

Worse things have happened in my life than needing to knit for someone, c’mon.

Deadlines are wonderful things. I finally blocked this–I mean, I love the 3-D effect too but I wouldn’t want anyone to ever feel like they’d ruined it the moment water hit it–and then texted the nephew: Are you guys allergic to wool?

Answer: No.

Me (wanting to yell YAY!) Is red a good color?

Answer: One of the best. Grin.

Me: Machine washable, too.

Answer: If only babies were.

(Me: I’ll catch up with his sister later.)

And with that done and out of the way, the Northern California afghan has begun.

(Edit Thursday morning: I just put in a better, daytime photo of the finished Alaska afghan.)

Now that I’ve finished the last pattern row on the Ravelry Red afghan it feels like all the time in the world–almost–to decide on an edging. Or not.

When our granddaughter Lillian was on the way, I made this Alaska afghan for her to arrive to in Anchorage–fully knowing that baby alpaca and silk made it gorgeous and soft but completely impractical.

Which means that after I finished it I turned right around and knitted it again in superwash merino Rios, which while not quite so soft would do just fine with her daddy putting it through the laundry.

Besides, the second time I had a better feel for how it was going to go. So call this one, which is still here waiting to be a shawl for her when she grows up, the unrough draft.

It has the bay’s edge we explored, with its ice crinkled by the incoming tide pushing up the surface like rock candy (very briefly that Thanksgiving at 12F with a stiff wind blowing!), the moose we saw, knitted in gansey the way they’re often right there but you don’t see them in the trees but that one came right up to our car and peered in at us in a childlike curiosity, the pines, the dandelion that bloomed brightly well above knee height in the summer, the snow falling on the towering mountains, the bald eagles we saw.

Sam was offered a job that would take them to Washington State as her husband was driving her to the hospital in labor.

A year later she sent me a picture of the bald eagle in the tree over their new back yard.

As I thought about what to knit the 50/50 cashmere/cotton for L&A’s long-hoped-for baby on the way, I found my mind going back to those two afghans yesterday. Interesting, custom-designed, gender-oblivious. But their baby was going to be a Californian.

The waves, yes, oh, you have to have the beaches. The pines–taller, way way taller, hon. The eagle will be a peregrine falcon, the dandelion will be ice plants (non native but quite prevalent around the Monterey Bay, Kaffe Fassett memorialized them in his colorways evoking where he’d grown up), I could do those in Daisy stitch. The hills going straight up above the beach, the steps of rock or wood built here and there for safer access down to the water.

The redwoods. Of course the redwoods. How could they be anything else?

Ten more rows to finish this pattern repeat. That’s my arm, complete with vyshyvanka embroidery, holding the baby afghan up while it’s touching the floor.

All of this knitting these past few weeks, all this time, and it wasn’t till quietly working the row before last that the picture finally opened up to my inner sight how the next one should go. Has to go. Was always meant to go. What it has to look like. And why of course this red one wasn’t meant for L&A’s baby because that motif was going to be the one for them all along.

And yet the flames one had demanded to come to be, too. I’ve said several prayers of, Please make it so obvious that there’s no question when You’re trying to tell me who its recipient is.

There’s this unmistakable sense of joy when I have–I can just hear my Dad chiming in with, Oh, you’re going to love this.

Now that I know what goes on the needles next (as the coral reef afghan waits patiently) it’s suddenly a little harder to spend the time to add an edging to this one, so maybe I won’t. Ten rows and go. Block and then I’ll decide.

Grieving Highland Park, the morbid and angry thought on this Fourth of July was, What could be more American these days than a mass shooting with innocent parade-watchers shot dead?

And please, please, please, can we vote out the people who are okay with us having more of these?

So I picked up the needles to create a little solace.

Now, here’s where I admit out loud that all along, there’s been this feeling hovering around this baby blanket of, this isn’t going to be the only one.

Yonder daughter came over. Loved that I was making it.

But…

She’d been really hoping I’d make a white cashmere/cotton one like the one I made her other close friend, so beloved still by that baby who’s now five that when they moved to the mom’s native New Zealand and left nearly all their belongings behind, that blanket came with. Not having it was unthinkable.

She wanted that level of passionately loving this blankie again, and she just couldn’t see it in wool (side note: to which she’s allergic), no matter how nice. As for cultural reactions, she reassured me that whatever the immigrant grandparents might think, the prospective parents are thoroughly American and white is no problem at all.

Okay, I’m at 11″, let me just finish this one first because someone is going to need it to be already done and I just don’t know when nor who they are yet. It still feels like the right thing to be spending this time right now on, and I’ll have months to get the other ready.

After a year on the waiting list, the roofers got started today. Noisy. Can’t read to hear yourself think, so after an initial attempt with the fish yarns the baby afghan is the one that got the progress.

The color is Ravelry Red in a dye lot more to the orange side than some, which, it turns out, is perfect. When I bought it I thought, that’s for someone Asian. And it was, but I had no idea at the time why that seemed the very thing I needed to have on hand, for–? I had no plans. But it seemed to, and it demanded to be ready for them.

A year later, here we are.

The lace pattern is Barbara Walker’s Flames, and (knitting it for the first time ever, now that it’s finally found the right reason for it) it does match the name.

What if… I went to Ravelry and searched for dragon patterns.

I found a sleeping dragon, which goes with babies but even if you skipped its pile of treasure it seemed more Welsh mythology to me. The grandparents are Chinese and Japanese and this needs to please both cultures and if anyone knows anything to fill me in on or to be careful of, please tell me.

There was a curly-tailed upright one that looked definitely promising. No feet, but, I like it.

A little research… A white dragon would convey mourning in Japanese culture. No way! How about a white square center with a red intarsia dragon in it, it seems that would work? Or should I make the background black to avoid any Imperial-ness?

The solid heavy fabric of intarsia inside a sea of lace would both distort the fabric and keep it from having the stretch across that I want it to; I am for once actually making it baby blanket size because there were only a thousand grams in the dye lot. It’s 45″ wide in the lace and will stretch a little more; you really don’t want it narrower.

Though, hmm. I do have more red that’s so close it’s hard to tell they’re not quite a match so if I did dragon it, I could use those skeins inside the white-or-black. If it came out too narrow I could add an edging since for once I didn’t put anything other than a few plain rows and stitches around the thing.

But…

Eh. I’m not to where I have to worry about it yet. The dragon is 85 rows long. I’ve done 32 rows and it’s 6″ (could become 7″ after blocking). So the dragon would be about 16″ long, (maybe I should up a needle size on the intarsia?) plus whatever size white square frames it, meaning if I started the motif right now the whole blanket would come out about 30″. Nope. Ten more inches, easily, before I start messing with the center.

Sixty stitches wide to my 151 stitch project.

The eye likes things in thirds, and 16″ red, 16″ dragon, 16″ red–it would be smack dab in the center, which doesn’t fit the rule of three quite so well, but it is by thirds so tough.

Or not.

I could add a border if it gets too narrow!

I’ve only twice ever bothered to actually add a border to an afghan, and I’d have to do a whole ‘nother dive on the cultural color thing. A darker shade of red?

Lots of time to think about it yet.

I just think a dragon’s breath keeping a baby warm would be so cool.

(And no, they have no idea this is coming.)

I stopped by my friend Nina’s with a chocolate torte yesterday just because I could, and as we were catching up she reminded me that her sister-in-law is Chinese.

Could you ask her for me, I asked. I need to not make any color faux-pas on this.

She did that, and got back to me. From there, I did what I should have thought of in the first place and simply Googled for more info, second opinion, more certainty, whatever.

China and Japan both like red.

Japan likes white with red and associates it with the imperial? Would that mean I’d better not do both just to be on the safe side. Did I just answer my own question.

The pictures, though, all conveyed a more orange shade and Colourmart actually has a quite bright one that could be just the thing–but I just can’t. That light frequency is one that makes my brain want to finally have the seizure they warned me about after my car got sandwiched. (Well look at that. I’d forgotten being called sir when I looked bald.)

Besides, the Light Wine in my stash is 50/50 cotton/cashmere, not 15/85–way more softness. It is definitely on the blue side, though, which is *my* type of red, not likely theirs. Here, let me swatch that and see how much the dye crocks, red is usually the least stable color–ie, can you say self-justification?

What I should do is ask if they’re okay with wool. I’ve got Malabrigo’s Ravelry Red here, too, come to think of it, and color-wise it would be just right for both sides. Except that this is supposed to be a surprise.

Heck, in six months, even if my daughter’s friend’s baby comes early, I could make both by then and have them choose by color snip or a burp cloth of a swatch.

That coral reef afghan is going to get done someday but it’s going to be an even longer process because projects with deadlines (after the dithering is over with) are going to be constantly pushing it out of the way.

English Morello tart cherries for a pie, second round of ripening.

Did I get them pitted yet? I did not. But I did knit a good start of a cashmere cowl and two and a half rows on the coral reef, which goes so slowly that I have committed myself to a row a day. Minimum. Even if that row takes an hour. That way I don’t get discouraged and I do get to see progress.

The colors themselves say hey come play with me! That brilliant Matisse blue is toned down somewhat by what’s within it and they’re brightened by the Matisse.

Meantime, I have suddenly and in great delight been requested to make a baby blanket for the best-friend-of. So now I know what my plain-knitting respite project from the craziness of the colorwork is going to be after I finish that cowl; I just have to pick which yarn it’s going to be.

How do you ask someone what various colors might mean to them culturally when you want it to be a surprise?

To be continued.

The decreases at the top always take longer than I expect them to, somehow, but run in the ends and it’s done.

Ella Rae Cashmereno Aran (I’d say more a worsted.)

I sent off a note to my niece whose son it’s for, explaining the fall and that I’d just finished the brim and had had a pattern picked out to do next when I decided to go outside to do some yard work in the setting sun. How I then found myself waiting for the emergency dentist with my hands simply working familiar, simple stitches, again and again and again and around and around and around, too rattled to think through that pattern but comforted by how the knitting took my mind off myself and towards happy anticipation of her son getting what he’d hoped I’d be willing to make him.

I told her how grateful I was that they’d asked because they had made it so I had it when I was the one who needed that.

Finally, I thought as I broke the strand on my niece’s afghan. Now I can do colors! I walked down the hall to go get my phone to take this picture with visions of various skeins bought and not bought yet and all the ways I could play with what they could do.

Waiting on that phone was a text from another niece: her son loved the green hat I’d made him a few years ago; could I make him a dark gray one?

She didn’t say, in a color he got to choose himself this time.

There’s only one answer to that question. Of course.