Thought I’d show you all a photo of baby Hayes with his folks.  Two months already!

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Downtown: where even the ranting crazy homeless guy is dressed better than us.

Went tonight for a scoop of ice cream and to go see if someone was playing in the plaza; there always is on a Friday night.

There were two groups this time, the first an older white guy and an older black guy doing the blues. Just enough amplification, no need to shout down the passersby–they were good and they knew it. People stopped in their tracks to listen. We did too, and I would have loved to have bought a CD from them had I seen any. Swung my feet in time from a high bench. Richard’s feet reached the ground.

Waiting their turn was a younger trio, 40’s-ish. We took a walk while they were setting up and when we got back, the older guys were putting things away and the younger guys were just getting going with some Springsteen.

We found us a pair of open chairs. My sweet husband has been married to me long enough that he didn’t bat an eye when I pulled out some of Dianne‘s cashmere and started knitting lace leaves in the semi-dark–the mindless carry-around project, forever in the purse, always getting just a little bit closer to done. (And I would have cast off and sewn up the ends on the spot as a cowl had a likely victim shown up. Nope. No such luck. Still got to keep working on that thing.)

A young girl, maybe seven, was fascinated and they took a break for a moment to show her their guitars, their amps, whatever she wanted to ask them about, they answered. She ran back to her mom and they fired it back up. Rock on!

Soon after, some random person whose clothes, like I say, were quite well put together but his face and his thoughts, not so much, walked over in front of the band too, kinda danced to the beat a bit but then he started yellin’ at’em.  Waving, gesturing to the sky behind, making no sense except that it was clear he wanted the attention on him, not them. He would retreat awhile, then come back and start in on them again.

Finally the tall blond guy shook his head slightly: a gentle no, no. We’re going to keep playing.

And they not only did, they sounded just a bit better.  Like they were working a little harder to justify their claim on that spot? I dunno but they were kind to the young and respectful to the crazy who couldn’t help being crazy and playing for the joy of it and it was a gratifying thing to behold.

The odd man out of it sat down in a far corner and let them go to it.

I was asked at Purlescence tonight, So last weekend was the weekend? How did it go? Did they like the baby blanket?

If every knitting recipient reacted the way Hayes’s parents did, I answered, yarn stores everywhere would have to completely restock every week.

The alarm, it had to go off early again–he had an early meeting and my alarm has the siren song that can wake the deaf.

The lupus, it flares. But at a reasonable level: too tired and achy to do much today except put up my feet and knit.

Which I did. Wow, look at that ball of Silkpaca laceweight disappear. So, so soft.

Meantime, a few more photos to show off from our trip. Big brother, little brother.

Holly got to see the Chihuly Garden! Sculptures of handblown glass. There’s a local Chihuly piece I have yet to go see, but I need to.

And then today she landed in San Francisco, took the train down, and spent the afternoon with me. Not often you get to see a friend who lives on a different continent.

Knowing she likes to knit hats and that she’d said something about not having a lot of yarn with her on her trip, not wanting to weigh down her luggage but wanting to offer something, I brought her a skein of Malabrigo Rios in Ravelry Red (thank you Kathryn at Cottage Yarns) and it exactly matched her shirt–and of course it had that legendary Malabrigo softness. She loved it.

Then she pulled out a red fabric bag. Ohmygoodness. The peach, the gold, the two of purple variegated–those are all silks! And six skeins of Zauberball sock wool from the factory outlet there in Germany.  Wow wow wow. Karbonz double points to knit socks with. Thank you doesn’t begin to say it.

We commandeered a table at the new restaurant Tava for over three hours, and they assured us we were fine. I was glad to see a good stream of customers coming in and out; nice people and good food and one of those rare days that you get to remember and treasure forever.

I wish Tava every success, and to that end, my family and I will be back.

Safe travels, Holly, and my best to you and your family.

Just need to run the ends in on the baby blanket–tomorrow. But the knitting part, it is done.

The cashmere-blend Epiphany yarn on the next project is down 28 grams and going fast.

And for a little fun: someone among the ironworkers repairing the old Bay Bridge after the Loma Prieta quake  of ’89 had an artistic side. Permission was not asked, and good thing, because state officials said it would not have been granted–but a troll was created and the workers welded it in place underneath the roadway. A little public art to brace against natural disasters. To stand guard. Ships passing below could see him and apparently the traffic news helicopters could zoom their lenses to him but I’d never heard of the thing till now, when the current ironworkers refused to let him be gone with the old span that was just relegated to history this past weekend.

This time Caltrans got it right. The little troll, our local man of steel, is to be saved for a museum still bolted to his piece of his bridge and according to the LA Times, officialdom has now asked that, given how trolls traditionally go with one bridge and one bridge only, and that ours has done such a marvelous job of protecting all from natural harm, that a new one be created for the new bridge. Of steel, in a place protected from the sun (a troll after my own heart), and they offered that it might be made by the ironworkers, or someone in a non-profit industrial arts class in Oakland, or…

On the sly. Don’t tell them. Just go for it.

Cue the Habu Textiles folks! That steel laceweight yarn I could never see a reason to buy at Stitches–it’s windy on that bridge and you know a little someone will need a good scarf.

The dark navy, almost black stripe? That one went really slowly as my hands recovered. But now the new green yarn is coming along nicely. I’m second-guessing myself, I always do, on whether the green really meshes so well with the others, but it’s very clear that once the denim blue is in after that it will be perfect in there. Colors have conversations amongst themselves, and those two will huddle at the end of the room, catching up.

And the green is already making the navy less black and more blue around it.

Re this morning, we all drove to the airport so that there would be someone in the car with the driver coming back to make sure he didn’t fall asleep. Not to mention that with the bridge closed, we actually had to use the carpool lane from San Jose, even before 6:00 am.

And I just poured myself a glass of milk partway down the outside of the glass. I think maybe I won’t get up at 5:15 tomorrow morning.

Meantime, our daughter Sam got her second paper from her PhD published here, making her Mom and Dad burst with pride all over again. (And if you’re waiting for a medical breakthrough for any disease, go bug your Congressperson hard. The sequester is ending careers for researchers as years of work are abruptly coming to a stop, and knowledge is being lost along with the jobs.)

Okay, enough kvetching, back to the happy anticipation. I can’t wait to see that baby blanket finished!

Took it easy today, knit just a few rows, and the hands are much better off.

But I did get to show Rachel at knit night the colors of her yarn coming together in that baby blankie, all but the last one in there. She loved how it was coming out. Made my day.

Meantime, if you didn’t see the story, I highly recommend scrolling down near the bottom of this page to see the longer version of the interview with Antoinette Tuff.

A mentally ill young man with an AK-47 and 500 rounds of ammo in his pockets got through the locked doors at an elementary school as a parent walked in and Ms. Tuff found herself face to face with him. His face showed his intent.

She felt the fate of hundreds of children and teachers on her, that one wrong word and they and she and the gunman and who knows how many cops would all be dead. She started talking to the guy while silently praying–not just for all the innocents but for him, too. “I put it all to God.”

She found an opening when he told her his name: that was her mother’s maiden name. “We could be family!” He was cool with that.

She told him some of the things she’d gone through to show that one could come out okay even after really bad experiences, that she wanted him to go forward and experience the parts of life that were to come for him, that the good to come would prove it was worth it, and she eventually talked him into emptying his pockets onto her desk, all the ammo, the gun, everything, and into lying down on the floor with his hands behind him while she sat at the desk so that the cops could know she was okay. So he would be too.

And thus it ended peacefully. He’d shot some shots earlier, but nobody was hurt.

I have never wanted so badly for someone to be awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. I want Antoinette Tuff to get to see the whole country cheering her for who she is and for what she did. I was the tenth signer of the petition; will you join me?

This photo shows the colors a lot better than last night’s. I’ve now gone on to stripe five.

Question: it’s about 48″ wide and the length looks like it will be anywhere from 34″ snapped back together to easily 46″ and more, given the elasticity of the pattern. That should be enough, right? (An example of the Pythagorean pattern knitted up can be seen here. Lots of patterns-within-patterns and textures for a baby to explore.)

But I just read the reviews on Cascade 220 superwash on Ravelry, and there are a lot of warnings that after the third or fourth time through the washer and dryer it suddenly shrinks up quite a bit.

That would effect the length the most. I don’t really want to do more than the planned seven stripes. The eye is much more pleased with odd numbers than even, and going all the way to nine is looking really unlikely tonight: as it gets bigger it’s heavier on my hands, and they are not happy. (Maybe, ice or no ice, I shouldn’t knit six+ hours a day three days in a row?)

If anyone has any experience with this yarn’s behavior in the laundry, though, I’d love to hear it. (It’s the 220 from the Peruvian mill, not the more recent Chinese version; this was a gift from my friends Rachel and Kathy’s stashes.) Because I’m going to tell the parents not to baby the blankie, just their sweet baby Hayes. And if that means I need to add an eighth stripe, I need to add an eighth stripe.

Thoughts?

I was at Purlescence tonight, knit night, and admired what the person next to me was working on. It was a very soft variegated purple, I think she said a handdyed merino/kid mohair blend, a nice chevron pattern, densely knit and warm, very pretty.

I’d followed her pictures on Facebook on her trip to Europe she’d just gotten back from.

She’d had a great time, she told me.

“Did you buy any yarn over there?”

“No,” she answered, hesitating– “but I lost some. One skein. One irreplaceable skein.”  She paused, then said it again: “Irreplaceable,” shaking her head slightly, still grieving the loss in spite of herself.

It was for the project she was working on. She’d bought the yarn ten years ago, long since closed out now. She had started a scarf but now it was going to have to be a cowl and oh well. “Cowls are nice,” we both agreed. She had tried Ravelry, she had tried asking every likely yarn store she could find anywhere but it was long gone.

I told her my story, which wasn’t anywhere near hers, of trying to match a dye lot, leaving messages–and not thinking to mention that I was on Pacific time. One helpful shop owner, working through emails before she opened the doors for the day, called me rather than emailing back, the more personal touch. Very nice of her, actually.

And so my husband woke up to the sound of the phone in the dark of the winter night, California time, handed it to me, and growled, “It’s your boiler-room New York City yarn pushers. They want you to know: they don’t have your dye lot!”

Oops.

During those last couple of sentences, the friend’s phone started buzzing and she apologized a bit and picked it up (oh it did? sorry I didn’t hear it) when I finished.

It was a message from someone on Ravelry who’d made a project out of that yarn. Ten years ago. She had three skeins left. “They’re yours.”

Overwhelmed to the point of tears, the shop cheering, hugs and huzzahs all around. Wow, what were the odds! And what timing! We all got to celebrate with her! For both of them! I tell you, that place was full of really happy people all the sudden.

What that generous knitter whoever they are could never know was that our friend had toured a World War II concentration camp in Germany, and I can only imagine the emotions and the losses it represented. I have seen and felt Gettysburg, a place beyond words, and that–

But…this….

Her yarn. Somewhere on that trip. It was gone.

Someone stepped forward tonight for a complete stranger simply because she knew what it was like not to be able to finish the project as she’d dreamed it and she could well imagine what it would mean to her to now be able to. Because she empathized with her fellow human being. What a gift, what a deeply meaningful gift, and may it come back to this good person again and again in her life.

“Knitters are the BEST!” our friend exclaimed.

Parker and Hudson in their matching dinosaur jammies.

Meantime, yesterday I finished a silk shawl, counting grams per row every row but I made it.  Close! For two weeks it had needed just a few more hours (and getting past that fear of running out early)  but now I was needing the sense of accomplishment at finishing, and so I sat down and got to it. Done.

Back to the hat and Hayes’s blanket.

Parker and his beloved blankie. (And I hope by linking, the very kind Antonio at Malabrigo gets to see how treasured his Rios is. He told me at Stitches how rare it is to be granted a glimpse: all that yarn they send out into the world, what becomes of it?) One very happy little boy.

And every year at Stitches, there’s a vendor who does custom fitting and then creates and mails you a pair of shoes made in America, your choice color, style, leather and that are guaranteed to fit your feet at a Birkenstock-range price.

As a 6.5 EE, choice and fit are a rare and wonderful thing, and a few years ago I ordered navy sandals from them. I didn’t buy into the reflexology idea behind the funky knobby bottoms on the things (scroll down just a bit), but they were designed for you to be able to be comfortably on your feet all day.

There’s only one problem.

Ever since a speeder totaled my car, my sense of balance has been purely visual and tactile, and it’s a good thing I like Birkenstocks because they steady me with a lot of feedback as to just where and how far away the floor is and whether I’m tilting overly.

But those, not so much. I wore them  once and decided I risked breaking bones–they’re great shoes, just not for me.

Birkenstock had an outlet shop years ago in Gilroy till the company closed all their American outlets. But in the meantime, while my friends Mel and Kris were doing a show in the area, we found out later she and I bought the exact same clog in the exact same size and same color at about the same time. 37R. Twins. Cool!

Hey–I know someone who has to be on her feet all day at art shows who would fit those not-Birks…

And so, with her permission, I sent the navy pair off to where they would actually be worn.

And today she got me back for it. She found out I’d broken my favorite hot cocoa mug and asked for a picture.

I know the Kunihiros generally don’t mail their pottery; I was expecting to buy more at the show coming up at the end of the month and looking forward to seeing them.

She and her family made four castings of mugs, the letter in the box said, set them in a row, and together they picked out the one that best matched the photo.

The mental image of that just makes me very happy. The family gathered together, the row of mugs, the winner, and most of all the love.

My hot cocoa and I are going to do some serious celebrating with that mug in the morning! And I can’t wait to thank them in person!

Row upon row and here I go! It feels great.

And then to have something small and portable to work on at Purlescence, I grabbed some soft Colinette wool that I’d gotten at their yarn swap meet. Monet colorway: how cool is that for the daughter of a modern-art dealer? My dad, my little sister and I spent the summer I was 16 with one of Monet’s proteges and his family, driving around the country museum-hopping. (Mom was helping my oldest sister with her first baby.)

I figured returning the gift of the yarn as a hat to go in the shop’s Halos of Hope box seemed just the thing.

Housework in its mindlessness (I do after all have houseguests coming in a week) is a way to let ideas sift through for the creative side: okay, if we add to the seed stitch in blue here and change the cables here and here to go over, not under, it will look like water flowing around the pier near that park… And don’t forget to add stitches to make up for the tightness the cabling causes.

But how much of that will be offset by the seed stitch? Okay, so add fewer than the typical third more. Right?

I sat down to actually start making all this visualizing come to pass and found myself remembering how much my son Richard in particular, uncle to the baby getting this blankie, liked to fit things into things. A hole where a plastic screw was missing on his Smurf ride-on toy? Bobby pins fit into it nicely. So did straws, twisties, our missing pens, anything he could get in there. We took up the air vent covers all over the old house before we moved and retrieved some of our missing silverware. Don’t let that kid near the dashboard again–we don’t know where he found the coins but we eventually found out what he did with them while I was buckling his new sister in first. Gave new meaning to the term baby rattle.

And I thought of Bashie’s story and the penny in her dad’s back. Yeah, I think a little one would have fun figuring out how to get a coin wedged into the curves of the cables.

Discovering. It’s all good.

I almost deleted most of yesterday’s post. I came thisclose. I didn’t want to make the yarn anybody else’s problem nor even to remotely seem like I might think it should be.

I have very generous friends. Thank you, Kathy, thank you, Rachel, and everybody else who got beaten to the punch. I offered Rachel to swap her some silk for her blue Cascade, sure that that basil green in my stash would be just the color on her, or maybe the brick red, and she half-waved me off telling me she knew I needed to give back but it certainly wasn’t necessary.

Yeah well.

So we’re still working out schedules to get together.

Meantime, Hayes’ MRI results came back: absolutely. Normal. (Standing on a chair and cheering  to the skies!)

See? Just the threat of being knitted for helped him get better! (I’m still waiting to hear when he’s off the cooling bed, but hey. We’ll take every good step along the way.)

Oh, and the photo? Someone brought this flower arrangement to church last week. One young man got up to give his talk and as he started, he couldn’t help but turn back to it and he marveled to his audience, wanting to share his close-up view, There are *fish* in that vase!

Okay, I’m slow–it wasn’t till I typed that just now, a week later, that I realized, oh, wait, it IS a Christian church, and as a visual poem that’s pretty cool.

The best part was the little children who came up after the meeting to see the fish swimming quietly under the flowers where you would never expect to see such a thing.

Years ago, someone from my then-knitting group (which would gradually dissolve as people moved away), a staff member at Packard Children’s Hospital, was diagnosed with cancer. It was when they started her chemo that they found she had an autoimmune liver disease and could not take the treatments.

Lenore faded pretty quickly.

Near the end, she offered our group her yarn, having no family of her own to pass it down to, and I looked her in the eyes in a quiet moment and promised her I would make something beautiful from it to remember her by; she was grateful, with tears.

And then I was not in town, I don’t remember why, for the yarn get-together: people chose, and there was a bit saved for me for when I got back.

None of which, to be honest, had the remotest appeal. Just, none. I wanted it to but it adamantly refused to comply.

And I felt guilty about that. I had promised. It had meant so much to her.

I was cleaning out some old stuff today and came across a stitch sampler that had been among those itchy scratchy hideous s0-not-my-color yarns. It was knitted very tightly, like a good solid old Irish sweater. Way too short to be a scarf, way too funky shaped to be, say, a hotpad, way too much work to just toss aside; she’d put a lot of time into it when time had been the one thing she had had so little of left.

This time I put it around my neck and imagined it sewn shut at the ends as a small cowl.

You’d want a thick turtleneck under it to protect from the itch, but, yes! At last. She herself had made the pretty thing to remember her by.

And I do.