I was looking for a particular Baby Alpaca Silk Petite from Lisa Souza in my stash….

And stumbled across a forgotten ziploc. A dk-weight silk shawl in a (sold out) color Colourmart2.com called Claireberry.

I had put this down to go knit for a nephew’s fiancee, and then another project for someone else, and then another one, and having been unsure how to finish this one I never quite had and then I’d simply forgotten it.

Pulling gently from neck edge to needle to see, it seemed pretty long as it was. Six long but simple rows and call it done, and that, my friends, is how you pull off a whole ‘nother lace shawl in just one day to try to impress your blog. It’s blocking and I’m waiting for it to hurry up and dry.

Last night’s shawl having nicely cleared the spot for it.

Where’s that BASP? I thought I knew right where…. Well, while I’m waiting on that I got a thousand-plus yards of Lisa’s silk wound up and five hundred of Karida’s super soft dk Penthouse. All ready to go in sweet touch-me perfection.

Cast on!

I knit most of the day yesterday, I knit a fair bit today, and the new lace shawl is done. It started off from a pattern of mine last Friday right before that infamous doorbell ring but quickly morphed into a one-off, an experiment. A risk.

I walked with it over towards a mirror, throwing it over my shoulders to see it off the needles for the first time. There were faults I rather expected to find in how it all came together.

And they were not there. You know that feeling when something suddenly turns out so exceedingly better than you had any expectation of? When it feels like you’re looking at the prettiest thing you’ve ever knit, and you’ve knit a lot, and who knew that was coming? It felt like that, and the unrulyness of the lacework hadn’t even been blocked out yet.

A little water and it settled right into perfection. If I had a fan I would blow it at it to hurry it up already.

And then I had no project and a thousand little yarny voices yelling ME! ME! and I want to knit them all, but most of all I want to KNIT.

It’s been too long since I felt like I wanted to just dive into it like that and I do now. Amazing what total success after a lot of hard work can do to how you feel about that work.

Amazing how much knitting you can get done in one day when you want to get past the fiddly stuff to the mindless part by knit night time. And I did!

I was wrong the other day. It wasn’t rubber from the plate frames, they were plastic, the rubbery grit was maybe road dust? Tire particles, I think. Whatever, still, I tossed the old ones from both cars. Who needs to advertise car dealerships?

The lady at the DMV was right: the car does look better with frames around the plates.

And so at knit night tonight, I half-jokingly, sure I was being outlandish, asked if they sold any that had, y’know, a knitting theme or something.

Sure! Okay if it says I’d rather be knitting above and Purlescence below?

Me, quite surprised: Sure!

How many do you need?

Two?

Got’em, and Greg went into the storeroom and to get one for someone else at the table and came back with them.

Me: How much?

Pamela (new employee, old friend): Free, they’re free advertising for the shop.

Me: But but but. Thank you! Cool!

And then I came home with them.

A certain someone grinned, rolled his eyes in great exaggeration, saying, I drive that car, too–and he patiently put up with me.

Well hey, I was just opening a discussion here. His and hers. We need to find/have made a ham radio one for you to go with mine for me, right?

He’s thinking about what he might like his to say. I think it might be a good idea for me to either take my second one back or find someone else who would really like one too.

Exactly two weeks ago the red leaves and the branches they stem from, some over a foot long now, did not yet exist. Only the green. I keep going outside and snapping photos every day and comparing because there are noticeable changes by evening from the mornings. Go mango grow!

Meantime, this was the Saturday and Sunday in October when the Mormon Church has its general conference in a series of two-hour sessions.

I had been letting worrying about my hands keep me from doing long stints of knitting for too long now–a half hour at a time, maybe, and the limitation was frustrating. I decided this was my chance to see what I really could do if I pushed myself, and so as we listened I got eight hours of knitting done on my shawl, with long icepack breaks between sessions.

I needed to know I could still do that. It went better than I had any expectation of while it let me fall in love with knitting all over again. The Matisse Blue is so pretty in person and the merino silk Malabrigo so soft that I never wanted to put it down.

They’ve had a good workout but there’s no tingling in the wrists: I think we’re okay here. In relief, onward!

The mango tree’s latest, to left and right, including that cluster of four that was almost upright yesterday and sideways today and already starting to swoop up again at the ends tonight, just doing what mango branches do. (For scale, those are tomato leaves in the background.)

So what I had expected to post about yesterday was that an old friend from back home showed me a picture of her toy raven for her team: she measured it 9″ beak to tail and asked if I might make it a Baltimore Ravens scarf so it could be properly attired. Maybe a half inch to an inch wide and a foot long?

Of course I would! (Oh if only all knitting requests could be that easy!)

I googled the colors and thought, bright gold and deep dark bright purple? Even with the size of my stash, do I have those at all? I wondered how long it would take to beg a yard or two from friends’ remnants because I was pretty sure I would need to. Or to buy them.

And then I found it: the bag that held what hadn’t been knitted up yet of the yarn that Melinda at Tess Designer Yarns had completely surprised me with a couple months ago. I wondered if she’d wondered why she was doing it, but she’d put in a half ounce each of worsted-weight soft wool in, you guessed it, exactly the shades of gold and purple I would later be looking for. Neither of us had any way to possibly know. I both laughed and looked at it a little bug-eyed–they were so exactly perfect. Wow. Thank you, Melinda!

The green tape measure had just verified that it was 12″ long, perfect, and I was halfway through that little bird’s quick bit of scarf and hoping to beat the mailman when the doorbell rang yesterday and I threw it down on the footrest to run go answer. This is the picture I took a few hours later after I came back from all that sudden whirlwind.

Kinda mango branch shaped there, isn’t it? 

Finally, finally I got to go to knit night at Purlescence. I almost went last week but felt like, no, after that flu and two days’  break and then a cold, one more week. Just to be sure I don’t give any of that to anyone.

I got the BIGGEST hugs! I tell you. I’d missed those guys so much.

And towards the end I ripped out most of what I’d knit there because I hadn’t caught an early goof. It still felt good because now I know it’ll come out perfect. It’s a shawl that’s been waiting awhile for me to proof-knit it a second time because I do that when I’m intending to publish a pattern. I hadn’t gotten around to it and hadn’t gotten around to it so finally I’d given the second-done one away so I would have to.

Begin. The rest is easy. And it is! Man, that Malabrigo Silky Merino is nice stuff.

Because, hey, they’re zucchinis, there was a new one this morning and a second by evening.

I scattered chili-oil suet crumbles all around the two: squirrel beware. (Edited to add in the morning, they got one anyway. The second was already 10 oz and it’s in my fridge now.)

Merino/silk, coming right up, meantime.

Just one long row at a time, I told myself.  Then rest the hands for the rest of each hour–I didn’t want to push them into a more lasting inflammation than the little bit going on. There is not a single painkiller I can safely take.

Other than icepacks. Done.

On the hour I picked those needles back up again. Then I put them back down.

Yeah that all worked just fine till about 8:00 p.m. when I just kept pushing on through till ten with one nagging break to go read a newspaper article, because I was so close to being finished and I so wanted my inner vision to become real and accomplished and right there in front of me at long last. This one had been a long time coming.

I started this shawl during my cousins reunion trip over the Fourth of July–where I forgot my instructions so I just had to make it up as I went along.

Ad-libbing may be freeing but it’s also a whole lot slower: you constantly have to stop, take stock of where you’ve been and where you’re going and how much yarn you have left and make sure it’ll be what you want it to come out looking like and that you’ve got the yardage to do it. Will it pinch in below the shoulders? Stop weigh count consider.

It made for slow progress. But it was becoming something new entirely and the closer it got the faster it was finally going and by the time I went to bed last night I knew exactly what every single remaining row was going to be and I was totally falling in love with it like never before.

It’s the lace weight that Melinda of Tess Designer Yarns surprised me with and it exactly matches a favorite shirt.

Tomorrow: cast off. Block.

Wear, with an inner thank you Melinda’s way every time.

I wanted to wear the shawl today that I made from Melinda’s yarn… Only problem was that I hadn’t quite finished it yet. I looked at the ziploc it’s in, pleading for it to somehow be done, and thought, I need to fix that. I really like that. It needs to be shown off.

I dangled what I hoped would be happy anticipation: I put this picture on Facebook with how to make it and said I had a lot more of these zucchini/pattypan hybrid squashes to bring to knit night.

So. Cut cupcake squash in half and place cut side down on plate.  Add a spoonful of water; nuke for three to four minutes till soft. Turn right side up again and scoop out seeds. Fill each with a big spoonful of Alfredo sauce mixed with one egg, sharp cheddar (or blue cheese and/or parmesan as you choose) and cherry tomato halves. Bacon bits if desired. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Found one more squash this morning, but to be sure before heading out tonight I checked under those huge leaves one more time and found two more of a good size: how on earth had I missed those? (Well hey. Zucchini.) Seven went into a cloth bag.

All the way to Purlescence I was seeing the most unusual cloud formations–dalmation dog. Leopard print. Lots of little clouds against lots of blue.

Reactions when I put those green balls on the table ranged from oh cool! to oh okay to facial expressions of no no no please keep those far far away from me.

David came out of the back at the last and his face totally lit up when he saw those last two squash and I thought, okay, now I know who saw that post and was hoping. All yours, hon, please, take them–I have five more tiny ones and these have got to go. (I did not count the blossoms. I couldn’t bring myself to. I know you can stir fry those but an awful lot of them seemed to already have even tinier squashes already attached.)

He totally made my day as he made off with them in great delight.

Just before the shop closed down for the night, someone threw the doors open so we could hear the sounds and smell the ozone: it was RAINING! In August! And no it had not been in the forecast. A little, then more, then a good steady rain and lightning as I drove home. Rain rain actual rain, .04″ worth.

Those five tiny squash? With that extra water I’m guessing they’ll be full grown in time to try to ditch them at church.

The doorbell rang. I needed to sign for a package. From Peru, oh okay, not one of Richard’s, I know what that is.

I got one once that was simply cotton muslin, almost a burlap fabric, possibly even handspun and handwoven and closed with rough string. My address was written across it with a sharpie, just legible enough. I pictured it inside a donkey’s bags, making its way carefully over a mountain pass to get to the nearest post office; it did take some time to get to me. When I saw it I was utterly charmed–I loved that it shared its background with me. I wanted to meet the people who had done this.

This one was an ordinary manila envelope. Just as much happy anticipation and I still wish I could meet the people behind it.

Because inside were 61 hand knit finger puppets.

I sent the vendor a note: his price had come to 69 cents each–I had only been expecting 60, I owed him 69 cents.

No, he wrote back via Ebay’s message board, he always puts in an extra “in case one fails.”

That was such an unexpected statement that I laughed. I wish I could show him the faces of the small, tired child starting to whine at her mother behind us in a ten-cart (!) line at Costco today in the moment when one of those finger puppets came out of my purse. Magical. Absolutely magical.

I got a shy, happy wave bye-bye not long after as the mom beamed.

There’s more where that one came from. And I am so glad. They came!

Note to myself: needle size was 7 for Karin’s Wink yarn. The shawl came out absolutely glorious, just perfect.

I wound Melinda’s Merino Lace yarn with Karin’s blocked and drying tonight. I can’t wait!

I was at the satellite Stanford clinic today for the first time in maybe a year and a half? I wondered if he still played. But it was Friday afternoon, one of his times, and when I walked in there there he was at the piano in the atrium still (intro to Piano Guy in that post).

His face lit up when he saw me, and after finishing one piece he made a point of getting up and coming over and telling me he’d worn that hat I’d knit him just last week.

There were cushy couches and chairs and elderly patients who were taking the time to listen, like I was; it’s not often you get offered a live concert simply for being present.

One woman walking past saw the knitting in my hands, smiled, and pulled out the burnt-orange wool in stockinette stitch from her bag. We had that moment of mutual recognition that knitters everywhere get to share before she continued on her way.

Piano Guy came over to our little group again with a piece of paper, where typed in quite fine print was a very long list of songs. He said he plays maybe 20% from such a list on any given two-hour set, and did I want to pick one?

The elderly woman he’d asked first had apparently picked a Beatles song. I–and I wondered immediately after what had possessed me, but I picked Candle In The Wind, and he smiled and said sure and looked pleased.

I’ve been told he’s a cancer survivor and that he plays there to give back in thanks and to make the day a little easier for others going through such ordeals. He’s a gifted musician, and I wondered what he would do with that piece in that context.

He made it into a searching, honest, positive, uplifting piece of music. I doubt the elderly there knew the words (although come to think of it they likely had kids my age so who knows.) He made it something a patient would take strength from. It was the most amazing rendition. He looked my way and nodded as his hands flew.

And then, hey, while we’re on Elton John he continued on into Daniel my brother…

He was playing the next thing when three young women walked up and singled me out and asked if they could ask me some questions, since I wasn’t doing anything.

Uh, my head was nodding and my foot tapping while my hands were knitting to the time of the music and I was actually quite engaged in the moment, but what I said out loud was, Sure!

The leader plopped down next to me and started talking, utterly oblivious to the scene around her and the look of distress of the woman who’d gotten to hear her Beatles song.

Playing music is a thing you do and become and are in the childhood that I grew up in, not incessant background chatter to ignore.

But they were so intent on their mission that it just didn’t even enter in.

Their questions were not going to take fewer than thirty seconds–I pulled them away down that hall thataway. (Reluctantly.) But they were offering me a chance to help other patients in their own way: they wanted to revamp Stanford’s patients’ website’s user interface.

And fixing that particular site was something I could totally get on board with. It’s been a wreck. If the patient with username and password at hand can’t even get in…

What did you do, did you call?

Yes, I called.

The leader asked the questions, the younger two took notes to compare against each other later. She presented page after page after page, if they had it like this, what would be good/bad about it? What about this? Which do you like better?

The eye is drawn here, I said, and that button up there in the corner is not intuitive–put it here and put a second one there by this and by that. Make it easy. Make it make sense. This? This is trying to put everything on one page, one of the problems you already have. The elderly might not know to scroll. Have a page for this, a page for that–no, you should be doing that before you get to the list of providers, it makes no sense to put it after.

Would you want a dropdown list of all the providers? Or just all your providers? Or a truncated list of yours, based on the ones you’ve seen in, say, the last year?

How many doctors are there at Stanford? (!) All one’s own providers, and that Find A New Provider entry on the next line. If a patient is seeing an individual doctor, do this, but if they’re to see any doctor within a group in that specialty at any given time without getting to choose just the one, then set it up this way.

“I do have opinions,” I laughed.

“We want opinions!” they laughed in return. “That’s what we’re looking for!”

I had totally lost all sense of time by that point, and so it was that they sent me on my way with a $10 gift card for Starbucks in thanks, apologizing that it was so small while I said No, thank you, that’s cool! (Thinking, it offers a sense of discovery: a Mormon inside the ubiquitous coffee chain, ordering hot chocolate and–a pastry? Bagel? What do they have? I just never go, it’ll be an adventure. They had no idea.)

Turns out I walked out the front door with that elderly woman I’d been sitting near and she told me our pianist had left immediately before us. I’d just missed him.

I had wanted to thank him for how he’d played Candle.

But I didn’t really need to. He knew.

Learned something new today.

I had a little conversation with a company. They were selling a garment they described as crocheted, and I wanted to know if it was hand-crocheted.

Thinking that was maybe a loaded question, because machines don’t do that, right? They can’t yet from everything I’ve ever been told. Knitted, of course, but crocheted? But maybe that wasn’t so and if not I wanted to know.

I was also hoping there wasn’t a warehouse full of children working with fine cotton yarns on small hooks for hours on end with no access to icepacks or guidance for avoiding repetitive stress injuries or for that matter, school. But I didn’t say that.

They checked with their technical team and got back to me today: the crocheting was done on a knitting machine.

Which was really good of them to be willing to tell me because I’m guessing most people would prefer hand made. I figured they were getting their terms mixed up though like most people do but machine done, well then good, if I were to get it it would be as guilt-free as one could ask for when ordering something sewn in the Third World (much though I love me some beautiful handiwork.)

And if I do order it, a certain someone would be tucking it away for me for Christmas at that kind of price tag. Bless him, before all this started he looked at the picture and was instantly wowed by the design and the hours it represented–he’s been around yarn enough years. He’s a good one.

But the whole thing got me curious and looking.

Well now looky here: the work of a crocheting machine. And this one (short video) is kind of a cross between a knitting machine and a weaving loom to make crocheted work. Anyone who actually hooks with yarn could tell it’s not hand done, just like a knitter can spot a sweater knit by hand from across the room: not because it’s flawed but because it’s perfect.

(I just know that if I link, the 64 units they had left in the small will sell out but they did say a new shipment was coming.) What I said to Soft Surroundings was that the talent and skills that went into creating their design made it a work of art that stood on its own merits.

No time to blog. Busy knitting.

(Edited to add in the morning) And then I kept knitting till I had to ice my hands and forgot to hit post. But man that felt good. And the icing did its job.