Another grand performance by the Cooper’s hawk this afternoon.

A raven later cawed a few times at the top of the Cooper’s nest tree but despite the momentary swagger did not hang around long.

Meantime, deadlines are a wonderful thing: I finally finished a cowl I’ve long been wanting to wear to Stitches this coming weekend, and as I did those last few rows I was thinking about another yarn I’d been wanting to have done by then too by way of showing the dyer see what I did? but I’d never actually quite figured out just what that was going to be.

As I was casting off I thought, y’know, that other is in the same natural color as… I’ve got it! Only took me a year, but, yes!

Can I pull off a design-and-knit by Friday. The race is on.

I missed it before. January did more than just flowers.

An O’Neill blueberry quietly doing its thing, waiting for the others to catch up. (As I look at the yarn and the calendar and realize Stitches West was almost a year ago and the next one is in two weeks and how on earth did that happen already?!)

I got me some knitting to do.

I put off doing the seaming for at least a month. Deadlines are a wonderful thing.

I put off running the ends in on the red jumper for longer. Deadlines are a wonderful thing.

Malabrigo Arroyo for the English Rose pink and Malabrigo Rios in the Ravelry red–only the softest for my grandbabies, and only superwash for my daughter-in-law and son to have to deal with.

I was late for knit night because I was stitching up those four pink side seams at home where there was no question there was enough light. The last part I did was around the armholes, which I should have had curling the other way.

Next thing you know I might even make baby booties. That fit. But here, let me run the last of these ends in first.

Got my computer back. There was a woman wearing a gorgeous handknit cowl at the Apple store as I waited for them to retrieve it, so I sat across the table from her and pulled out my own cowl project, figuring there’s no way a knitter would fail to notice. I wanted to compliment her on hers, whether she’d made it or not–but she had her face deep in her phone and never looked up. Ah well.

And I got the plant covers from Mr Garden, coming via express delivery. I guess they figured if you wanted frost protection in the dead of winter you wanted it right now! True that.

I pulled one over the mango as the sun went down, and thinking there was no way that fabric with all those little holes in it could seal in enough heat from the lights I ended up putting the thick plastic bag I’d been using previously over it to double-layer it. The forecast was officially for 45 tonight, but we’ve gone eight and nine degrees colder than the daily local forecast pretty consistently. Good enough for the Page mandarin, not so much for the Alphonso.

I kept checking the remote reader in disbelief and finally grabbed that black bag off so as not to cook the tree. I was impressed: okay, this thing does work. I expect it would not have the condensation problems of the other and, fungus-wise, to be much healthier for the tree.

Hours later it is still 19 degrees warmer than the ambient air. But we’ll see in the morning if it’s dry under there. Letting in 85% percent of the weak levels of wintertime UV is not enough longterm, but it is good enough that we could leave it on for a day or two should we need to before spring and that alone makes the purchase worth it.

It is, though, compared to the black cover, kind of like having a nonstop full moon out there.

A pronouncement of 20/30 so far at the eye doctor’s and then I dropped him off at work. Back to normal life.

Home was so quiet, but that was also a perfect chance to knit more than just in that doctor’s office and my queue is long. I turned on the stereo and picked out a CD from its list, because if there’s music going at home it compels my fingers to knit in time to it and me to sit and pay attention. To both.

Uh, dear, we forgot to wire the speakers back up to that thing when we moved everything back in this room after the carpetbaggers left.

A glitch. Richard to the rescue. My mail is working on the new computer now.

Things are settling in where they belong.

To every person who took part in knitting and piecing together my get-well afghans (and the Congratulations on finishing your book! one from my Campbell knitting group is in the other room, it should be in the photo, too) I just wanted to thank you all over again. You wished me back from the edges of life and I think of you all every time I see what you created for me. Every time. All that time, all that love, all that good yarn, offered in hope, taken from string in a skein to one-of-a-kind works of art. It is something to try to live up to and to be worthy of. (Hey RobinFre–“Same as it ever was.” Nails it.)

We got to see a video of our granddaughter sneezing. I tell you: there is nothing like the sights and sounds of a newborn, even across a screen, and we are utterly besotted.

I went outside this morning to set out some suet crumbles for the wrens, the juncos, the white-crowned sparrows and the towhees: the ground birds.

Coopernicus appeared out of nowhere (hawks are good at that) and fluttered at ease down to the top of the tomato cage to get a better view.

He was relaxed as he watched me.

I, not wanting to scare him away, though, rather than being interesting, froze in place, marveling: he had never before come closer in while I was outside. In no way was he threatening me out of his territory nor was he in any hurry; he looked curious, is all.

The angle of the sun had his chestnut feathers and gray wings in the best light–all he needed was MJ telling him he was gorgeous and has he been painted? Photographed?

Having said hello, he lifted off easily after a minute or so in a bird version of ambling away.

Meantime, on a more down-to-earth note, a well-aged UFO got excavated and finished today because someone asked if I might have a rustic, handspun, undyed, earthy-looking yarn? They were helping set up the annual Creche Exhibit and I had just the thing–it just happened to be attached to a project that only needed 3000 more stitches.

Had I done that particular math I’d have just broken it off and handed the ball over and reattached it later if later ever happened, and if not, eh. That project was a UFO because it and I were not friends. Handspun and rustic? Definitely. There were enough really thin spots that I never did trust that yarn to stay in one piece. After four years, a bug could have contributed, too, but the ziploc looked clean of such.

It and I were less friendly after the second big madly-running break suddenly showed up. I repaired both, finished–that thing on my needles was a ruffly scarf? Who knew? Washed and laid it out ever so carefully, carefully to dry, no tugging.

And boom there was the third. This one is definitely not gift-giving material.

When it is dry I will fix it. (I tried not to resent the Christmas-queue time spent.) Oh well. *shrug* I wound off a bit from the remaining ball to use for hopefully all repairs it may ever need from here on out, and when they come to pick their yarn up I will tell them sweetly and firmly to never, ever bring it back in my sight.

Hopefully that scarf will be good for more than bird nesting after this.

And while I was fussing with all that, I got an unexpected email from my friend Mari in Wisconsin who’s been fighting breast cancer for some time (get checked!) She validated my grumping without judging, heard me out, and offered perspective.

I wanted to be a better person in that moment.

Hers was the true gift-giving material.

There was this sudden moment today when I knew I needed to knit for a particular person–like, yesterday. Now. Never mind the queue, never mind anything–this had to be done as immediately as I could possibly manage it.

I finished off the hat on the needles that had already been at the decrease-at-the-top stage, found the softest yarn, hoped the color was right and cast on immediately and have been off like the wind.

Knitting to the rescue.

I love getting a bunch of these for Christmas but my supply was getting low a little early so I ordered a few. Not from my usual source, where I know pretty much what to expect–they were temporarily out.

Now, much as I love to knit, I’ll let someone else make the toys on the super-tiny needles. Let’s see, we got some funky ones in this batch–someone started with a penguin and finished with a horse’s face and what kind of bird can we pretend that is? Toucan play at this game. Up top, a fox’s face with a cat’s whiskers and a horse’s tail. Maybe someone had knit so many of these things that they decided to, y’know, mix it up a little bit. After all, it’s all about kids and their imaginations.

But one must never run out of handknit finger puppets for waiting rooms, lines at Costco, and once so far, the go-stick on an elderly man’s scooter. The women in Peru who have the patience to knit them must never run out of the means to put food on the table. And tired, hungry toddlers who need a hug most of all need the distraction of a cute little animal surprise (with their parents’ okay) hugging a finger and dancing with them and changing the world right there in that moment. Happy Birthday! Oh, today’s not yours? Well it’s someone’s–let’s celebrate! No, no, (as the parents try to get them to return them) that’s for you.

I was the mom of four kids with the oldest just shy of six. I know what it’s like.

Okay, world, ready when you are.

(p.s. Courtesy of Lynn in Texas: don’t miss the cabled-skull sweater picture.)

(Updated to a daytime picture that does justice to the socks.)

Debbie was coming all the way from Fairfield for a quilt show and sent me a message: Purlescence was having an eighth birthday party tonight and that would be afterwards, so could we meet up there?

And so we did, and we found ourselves a quiet corner a bit apart from the crowd and talked for over two hours, swapping stories, catching up, belonging in the best way that friends do, a too-rare moment together. I adore her to pieces.

She reminded me of something I had utterly forgotten: she had asked me awhile back what color socks I wished I had.

Oh blue, definitely blue, any blue, wait wait wait you don’t have to…! (She wanted to.) Well then no time pressure ever and if it ever happens I would love it and if it doesn’t don’t ever feel guilty.

She had me try the first one on and it fit as if I’d been next to her through every stitch. We both cheered! She finished the very last bit of the second one right there on the spot (I loved it, that would so have been me, too) and ran the ends in, then made me take the first back off my feet–it’ll be stinky, I warned her with a grin, you sure, it’s been on that foot now, y’know–and she ran the end in on that one, too. And I sat there with the prettiest socks on in the whole entire yarn store, prouder than anything and just amazed and happy and grateful and wow. Thank you Debbie! There’s a lace pattern curving around it and I’ll try to show it off better later.

I have very happy feet.

I got asked about a month ago if I would teach a how-to-knit class at church tonight. Sure!

Come the time to go, I was tired, I was grouchy, mostly over worrying about someone I know who had a brain tumor taken out today (wistfully cheering on Karen’s brother Paul from too many thousands of miles away), and I wasn’t at all sure I was even up to going.

But I went. Boy am I glad I did.

Sue to one side, me to the other, five newbies willing to give it a go and we were off.

I had just said something about different knitting styles but they all make the same thing when Sue happened to walk out of the room and so the woman she’d been sitting next to brought her work over to me: let’s see, is this the right way to hold the yarn?

I laughed. “Sue taught you so I can’t help there at all.”  Then, “Wait, wait, come back here” as we all cracked up.

One person who came in later took immediately to this casting-on stuff, just got it. A natural. But then when I said okay, now here’s how you knit the first row she was astonished: “You mean I wasn’t knitting?!”

“Yes you were knitting, that’s the first part of it.”

She gave it a try but gave it up. I was like, blink. What? But you’re intuitively good at this, I saw! Maybe later, says she…

Meantime, another who had struggled stitch after stitch after stitch trying to remember which way the yarn goes which way the tip goes no not that way oh right–persevered. Kept at it for an hour till she was sure she had it and was making good progress.

I told them that the last time I’d taught a class like this at church, one woman two weeks later came back to me to say she’d made a baby blanket and two hats already.

They looked at me wide-eyed. No no I wasn’t saying they had to do that–but rather, you can get good fast if you keep at it.

Someone else had picked up yarn and needles so I wouldn’t have to run that errand. Which was very kind of her–but after our little group had been working their scratchy-acrylic Red Heart for awhile (really? They still make it like that? I had no idea. I didn’t say that though), I had them fondle my Malabrigo. OOOOooooooohhhhh.

I explained, This is what keeps knitters knitting.

They totally got that.

Wanting to be sure they really did have it and not to lose any progress, three of them proposed on the spot to start a knit night–on, thankfully, Tuesdays, meaning I can go too. The plan is scarves for foster children.

I had a blast. And this is only going to get more fun. I’m so glad I didn’t just throw in the towel and leave it all for Sue to teach alone.

I did it.

I deliberately put on my purple skirt this morning. Now, this purple skirt and I have a problem. It shades slightly towards the brown side, unlike the supposedly identical broken-zipper one it was replacing that I’d loved, while the top I’d ordered to match it does not.

They clashed. I overdyed the top and I love how it came out but it still doesn’t match the skirt and my eye is not happy with them together.

So yeah, I wear plain white with the skirt that arrived not quite the right color. The price of hating going shopping.

And the reason I mention this is the scarf. The long, soft, endless, boring, pretty, repetitive, densely knit, heavy, I’m going out of my mind scarf that I’ve been desperate to get off my hands and off my needles so I can dive into the baby stuff before my granddaughter arrives, because I know if I abandon it again it will stay abandoned and my cousin’s move from warm California to chilly England was postponed so she doesn’t have to have it this month after all and that makes it way too easy to say oh no hurry then, whenever.

It is purple. And it is a prettier purple than either of the two in my outfit and yes I did put on that skirt and that top. Deliberately. By putting on that combination I only love separately I knew I was making it so my eyes would want all day to reach for the shade that peacemakes between them. The scarf is actually also two different shades playing together–only they really do, the Malabrigo Arroyo in Borrajas and the heathered mink laceweight, calm and steady and setting off the best in each other.

You would think those yarns would work up quickly. You would think wrong. In all these weeks I’ve knitted and knitted and I’ve blackholed it the whole time.

Till at last calling towards the other room tonight: “Did you hear that snap?”

“What snap?”

“The snap when the yarn breaks.”

“It’s bad when the yarn breaks!”

“Not when it means you just finished your project.”

And that, that, is how you get a two month long stinking endless dragging scarf project off those needles. Make it be the place where your eyes get to rest. (And turn on the stereo for some music relief and laugh out loud when you discover how much fun the little grandsons had moving all those pretty tiny buttons around on the stereo equalizer.)

Pardon me while I measure the thing for gauge-swatching and cast on the matching hat, quick, before the day is done. I’ll wear that skirt again if I have to but next time the top is going to be white.

(Pottery by my friends Mel and Kris and sons at mkwares.net.)

I snoozed through most of the first session. I tried.

I was feeling much better during the afternoon one and knitted through most of it–except for a few minutes there when the phone rang, checking first, and then the doorbell did. Glenn!

He was here for a business conference. He moved to New York City a few years ago and he wanted to stop by and say hi while he could. I waved through the window while Richard went outside to chat and to meet Glenn’s girlfriend; there was no way I was going to expose them to my germs. Sometimes it’s just not the day.

But at the end we did open the door between us, and standing well away from each other exchanged at least some actual greetings before they left.

And I…have run out of purple Malabrigo that’s wound up. I need to get up the oomph to wind the next ball tomorrow; today there was just no way.

Tomorrow I need to make the call to my GI doctor like the ER doctor had wanted me to do. This morning was worse, not better, and she made it clear that, even if I didn’t want to hear it, she thought the Crohn’s symptoms were actually caused by, y’know, my having Crohn’s. Flu does that.

Or maybe it will all clear up together. I’m hoping.

It is supposed to rain come Thursday, a whole .12 of an inch, but still, actually measurable rain as opposed to last week’s random scattered few drops that couldn’t even clean a skylight.

The first of the season in California always brings a string of accidents from all the months of accumulated oil on the roads as the surfaces all go slick in a way they will not after a good washing-away, an annual phenomenon I’d never heard of till we moved here.

It was time. The new tires went on today.

The mechanics forgot to tell me my car was done. I was in no hurry to walk outside and risk the UV exposure, so having commandeered a padded chair I found inside next to the photo lab I simply sat. And knit. And watched the reactions of passersby to the randomness of a woman knitting at Costco.

The photolab guy kind of sneered and silently but clearly wished me out of there. One woman made up for that when she stopped midstep at the sight of my needles: she looked thrilled, and almost, almost struck up a conversation. I would have myself but I let her decide at her own comfort level, wondering if there was a language barrier–but I would have told her that really, there was not. Her face lighting up like that had said what I’d needed and I wanted to tell her thank you. So I smiled greatly in return.

I knitted on. That purple scarf for my cousin I’d been meaning to really get going on? Now I have. I really like how it’s coming out, which is when a project about knits itself, y’know?

When my hands needed a break after two and a half hours I finally did get up and go back outside and in the other door to ask after that car.

Oh, right, here’s your key!

And so one sense of satisfaction at a needed job getting done became closer to two.

(Edited to add the next day: when it got past 5:00 I saw my chance at redeeming the interaction between me and the photo lab guy. I asked him what time the tire center closed up for the night, I mean, y’know, I hadn’t missed…?

He said he was pretty sure they had the same hours as the rest of the store and that everything was okay. And in that moment, he got a chance to help and he did so gladly and we both came away better off for it. Good for him.)

I needed a stuff-in-my-purse project. So to my cousin Wendy, should she happen to see this, I finally finally got the right yarn and got started: purple she wanted, purple it is!

Still wishing for Malabrigo Rios in that colorway.