I was sitting waiting for a prescription to be filled, my instructions a piece of typed paper on my knee that I checked from time to time, my cloudweight of lace in my hands. An elderly woman (Chinese?) was silently entertaining herself in her nearby seat by watching me knit. I rather wished I had spare yarn and needles there to offer to share with her.

I looked up from time to time and smiled and nodded hello; she smiled back. I held the glance for just a moment the next time, trying to give her permission to speak up if she wanted to.

She simply smiled back. I went on with what I was doing.

And then I went fishing through my purse, crossed out  the ( and the ) and the word twice and scribbled in what it should have read there, tweaking the pattern.

And suddenly noticed the woman was startled, staring, perhaps even a bit distressed.

Was it that I wrote on the page? That I was making it up as I was going along? (I partly was.) I wasn’t sticking to the script! I *wrote* over the instructions!

At that point I really would have loved to have had a conversation, to have found out where she was coming from, what stories were behind those eyes, what they had seen, but for whatever reason, be it language differences or simply the ongoing quiet, the words didn’t break through. Goodness, honey, I didn’t mean to bother… I mean… Too funny. Huh.

I smiled I hoped encouragingly and knitted on, and she settled back into watching me do so. We went back to as we were.

Then the pharmacist called my name, I tucked it all away, and that was that.

Soft grays, turquoise, I was told when I asked what Paige’s favorite colors were.

I found one single taupe-ish gray ball in my whole stash and it just didn’t seem the thing. But I happened to get an email from Cottage Yarns in South San Francisco: the store was bursting with yarn orders and everything was 20% off to try to help her clear out some space. I talked to Richard about it and then headed on up Saturday.

Kathryn has a lot of Malabrigo yarns and Malabrigo never goes on sale and, much though I don’t think of myself as the brand-conscious type, I adore anything they produce and the people who produce it: if it’s Malabrigo, it’s very soft, and I love that I’ve gotten to know the owners a bit at Stitches every year.

And Kathryn was right–when I pulled out bags of Silkpaca to try to see the colors of the ones stacked up behind them, they were packed in so tight it was hard to get them back in the cubby (and one doesn’t want to make a mess). Bags and bags and bags of woolly goodness everywhere–I tell you, if I ever have to be in a building in a major earthquake again I want it to be that one.

But there you go: I did, I found a soft gray in there, baby alpaca/silk laceweight, Polar Morn colorway, perfect. I didn’t find what I was looking for turquoise-wise, but one thing at a time. I have about 500 yards of a cobweb-fine bright turquoise cashmere/silk that needs to be double-stranded with something similar in color and softness that I was trying to match up; I’ll find it. (Or dye something from stash.) But let me get this soft gray done first.

I got to tell her how much Hayes’s mom had loved the blankie she’d helped come to be. (The green, that’s from her.) That alone was reason enough to make the drive up there; she was thrilled. And I love that she was cheering Hayes on after his rocky start to life.

And so with the silk/lycra project blocked and out of the way, and with me healthy now, I got started for my cousin-in-law.

Three hours nonstop of laceknitting creates so much fabric.

Three hours of nonstop laceknitting makes such a tiny thing.

Three hours nonstop of knitting lace by the second time around actually does begin to make a goodly bit of fabric. (Break out the icepacks.) I just had to remind myself it was one single stitch when I started yesterday.

Tomorrow I again get the privilege of doing something for Paige to cheer her on in her fight: knitting is a gift that gives both ways. I look forward to all the individual moments I will never know of when she will wrap warmth and love and comfort and color around her and know that she is not alone.

Cherry, cherry baby.

If you were writing a pattern, when specifying the yarn, about now’s when you would edit it to say not one but two…

Let’s see, twelve rows so far, 405 stitches each….

Not bad work for a day.

My friend Gracie Larsen, the founder of the Lacy Knitters Guild and to whom at least one of the Interweave lace books is dedicated, and a member of our local knitting group, talking to me about eight years ago: “Alison! How’s your book coming along?!”

“It isn’t.”

“Well, that’s no good!” and she asked me what the holdup was. Then she handed me the names, emails, and phone numbers of some of her dear friends to get the ball rolling again for me.

Including, among others: Meg Swansen.

Barbara Walker.

One of the things that had been stumping me was that I wanted to use some of Ms. Walker’s lace patterns within my shawls but I had not a clue how to reach her to ask, nor whether she was even still alive; my mother had bought her stitch treasuries around 1970, and I had no idea how old she’d been then. My father had spent ten years researching and writing a book when I was a kid that someone else later pirated a great deal of, so copyright issues have always been near and dear to my heart–I wasn’t going to just appropriate those stitches.

I had finished my shawls. They had sat there.

Meg was as gracious as anyone who’s ever interacted with her in any way would know she would be. Barbara was deeply gratified at having been asked; she told me she sees knits with patterns she knows she created pop up in various places with no credit given.

My son was living not far from Barbara at the time, as it turned out, and we swapped hurricane stories a bit. I tried not to take too much of her time but was and am very grateful for her generosity and her goodwill towards me personally and the whole of the knitting community.

My husband came home from work that day and I was still just too stunned, trying to take it all in, who I’d been talking to that morning–wow! Grace’s gesture had been the knitter’s equivalent of, here, go talk to my friend the President, here’s his private line! Like it was the most natural thing in the world. And once online or on the phone with them, they made it feel like it was indeed. (Terry Martin then at Martingale, too.) Good people.

Why I’m mentioning all this. Barbara Walker is having an auction, via Schoolhouse Press, Meg Swansen’s company, of things she has knitted. Things she photographed to go into those stitch treasuries. You just have to go have a look: if you’re a knitter, this is part of our history. Pretty cool stuff.

Blocked now. Done, in three days, and if I hurry I can finish three projects in under two weeks.

That is, I was thinking, if I knew what that third was actually going to be. I knew what I wanted to do: grandson stuff, Paige stuff, daughter stuff, but the germs were the issue. And so I went stash diving for inspiration.

Not that, I want something brighter, not that, it just doesn’t…too blah, not that….

Oooh, look, that cherry silk/lycra goes really well with that burgundy-red laceweight baby alpaca! Who knew! And the lycra will help anchor the silk in place and keep it from slipping out and away from the other yarn. (I’ve learned the hard way: pure, slippery-spun silk doubled with something else? Don’t.)

I had no intention whatsoever of knitting anything remotely brown, none. But the yarn cat’s-cradled me and ignored my protests–this was it.

Even said a little prayer as I sat down to swatch to test for best needle size, was this really what I was supposed to do next?

Blink. Okay, then. Just make sure to tell me the right place to send it when I’m done, okay? And germ-free?

I did redo the cast-off on yesterday’s. I blocked it. Now it is what it was meant to be: ready.

Susan at Abstract Fibers once gave me some Burnside Bridge colorway wool to play with, and I did; I liked it so much I bought some in Picasso, their baby alpaca, via Purlescence.

And that’s what I plowed halfway through today.

And in the middle of it I got the emails–I need to finish it and get it out of the way fast.

It happens to so many people. It’s so personal. My cousin Bruce’s wife Paige found the lump the mammogram reading had missed and had a double mastectomy yesterday. Three tumors, at least two lymph nodes look involved–and yet, I know someone else who came out of surgery with that kind of news where the pathology report a week later said one tumor only was malignant. And that friend is past the five-year mark now.

Eight to twelve months of treatment ahead.

And I am blinking, trying to figure out what the very softest yarn I own might be and what color it should be. And no, the above projects, nice as they are, aren’t it. Hmm.

The picture does not begin to do it justice, way too blue and too sedate–here, try theirs… (Running and Googling so I can link up.)

Well huh. I guess they don’t carry Gaia anymore. The grass colorway isn’t quite as deep but it’s the closest.

So what it is: I splurged on a single bright jewel-green 100g skein of shimmery worsted weight goodness at the Phydeaux Designs booth at Stitches West this past February: half silk, half Falkland Island wool. Which reminded me of our second apartment and our new and first baby and the Newsweek cover by the easy chair that read, The Empire strikes back.

Best-written headline of its day.

And then it bugged me that I didn’t know what to do with the yarn.

And then Sunday I did. My cowl is done–although, I’m thinking I need to undo that cast-off, it seems a little tight. (I didn’t break the last of the ball off yet.) Blocking would say yay or nay on whether it needs that, but I like the fabric as is so much that I didn’t block it tonight and just might not. (Or maybe that’s all inner code for, I’m done with it for the night don’t bug me.)

Let me see what the morning says.

New photos from the kids today. Nobody can get as big a grin from Hudson as Kim can.

Wound off a 150 gram cone of merino fine laceweight oh, ages ago, and dyed it purple.

It felted. Thousands and thousands of little tiny woolen velcro-y snag points and I should have expected that but but. I was hoping it wouldn’t be that bad; it was.

It went into the stash, where I pulled it out every now and then and admired the heathery color and always ended up putting it back.

Today it somehow finally jumped out at me and of all the things I could be doing, demanded to be wound up. Now. *Carefully. For two long what-was-I-thinking, wow-this-is-pretty-stuff hours. There was a little silk in it too, and the winding was bringing out the sheen.

Y’know though, thought I, for this amount of time I could drive up to Cottage Yarns, buy their Malabrigo baby alpaca/silk laceweight for ten-something a skein in that colour, bring it home, wind it up easily, and get a good start on the actual knitting.

And yet this was here. I mentally chucked it at Purlescence’s yarn swap tomorrow but it refused to go. I kept at it.

I finished the thing. (Almost. It snagged and broke in two places with maybe ten yards to go and I looked at that last little bit defying my good will and threw.it.in.the.trash. Yes I did.)

I spent the evening swatching ideas with something else altogether, determined to get a pattern past the almost-perfect and feeling a little stuck in Edison’s 99% perspiration mode. But I’m definitely closer.

We ate the second Fuji apple. It confirmed for me that the first one really was that good. Apples were not my most favorite fruit, but I’m rethinking that for the moment.

*When you wind wool by hand, always run it over one or more fingers holding the ball as you go so that it isn’t pulled taut. This keeps it from stretching out.

Having a hard time putting down the knitting for the friend’s daughter long enough to write. So let me distract you with a few more baby pictures. (TNNA is in San Diego next time? Hey!)

And thinking of little boys playing, if you didn’t see it yet? A ram very gently teaching a young bull how to go about this head-butting thing.

The bull is more the Ferdinand type, though. Peaceable.

Back to the Epiphany.

I know, I know, it’s name dropping, but this is just too fun not to share–for me it brings back so many happy memories with that good family, and I knew if I put it here I could find it again. My parents weren’t big picture takers and I had no idea this existed.

My brother Bryan says our Mom sent him this photo some time ago and before everyone else had heard of the guy, of his best friend from across the street just before the best friend moved away to South Carolina.

Stephen Colbert was four.

Meantime, I finished the Malabrigo Silkpaca shawl and have gone back to the Epiphany project after a week’s break to figure out how to redesign the part I didn’t like. Ripped relentlessly, thinking of how Stephanie says she’s never regretted frogging something that’s not working.

And now that I’ve seen how it could look because of how it did look but that came up short, (see? It wasn’t wasted time) I finally knew what to do to make it come out perfect. It feels so much better now. Full speed ahead!

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

———-

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.