It occurs to me (woefully slow, I know) that maybe I should ask those so inclined to offer up a quiet prayer, or to Think Good Thoughts, that the many hats that have now begun to be sent out to Congress might receive a warm reception at their end points.  We’ve done and are doing our part in the cause of civility and respectful speech in the public sphere; from our hearts to our hands to God’s along the way, to, hopefully, the staffers’ and recipients’ willing ones as they open those packages.

Let them know it’s coming. Give them the happy anticipation. State our cause and our hopes upfront.

Meantime, the answer to the earlier blog question is, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland gets the Malabrigo hat to match Parker’s, with my thanks for his work restoring the Chesapeake Bay, his hat done in the colors of the Bay.

Part of me will always belong to my home state. Whose beaches, mind you, know which end of the day the sun is supposed to come by for a visit. And with ponies! Don’t forget the ponies!

As I write the hat count is at 243.

By the sweet challah pattern on thy brow shalt thou greet thy braid all the days of thy life.

I was looking at the spreadsheet this evening for Warm Hats Not Hot Heads and was dismayed to find that nobody had signed up for Jackie Speier.

Jackie Speier is a hero to me. Until her speech, I had no idea Congress was trying to criminalize a procedure that not only is used on abortions but also when a woman is miscarrying a long-wanted and hoped-for child, as happened in her case, in order to protect her health so that no infection or massive scarring sets in that would keep her from being able to conceive in the future.

Wait. You mean the–wait–I had a miscarriage at nearly four months! And they want doctors not to know how to take care of women who *want* to have their children?! Wherever one may stand on abortion, those complications are what mine told me were a possibility if things were left to fester unattended. My loved, wanted baby had already passed away out of this life, just not out of me.

Speier was shot and left for dead while trying to help rescue her boss’s constituents during the Jim Jones/Guyana massacre. And when she spoke up back when she was in the state legislature about just what these men here were talking about banning, medically, back then too, and what she had endured with the loss of a baby she and her husband had tried so hard to have, one responded with, “Jim Jones should have finished the job.”

Wow.

That, in the commission of a crime, would have qualified as an enhancement under the hate speech laws.

She did manage to get pregnant again; she was expecting when her husband was killed by a driver who had no brakes and thought he could make it to work anyway. She’s been raising her children as a widow. She has persevered.

Speier represents the folks in San Bruno and has been holding PG&E’s feet to the fire more than anyone else. When they say that no, they didn’t know there were any welding flaws in the pipeline that blew up–there were 150 just in that section–and then say with a straight face that there couldn’t possibly be any more anywhere, she tells them, I don’t believe you. Do the work you must do to make these lines safe. Lives are at stake.

That same pipeline runs about 500 feet or less from my house, between two gas stations. Go Jackie go.

If ever there was someone I wanted to stand with, hat in hand, pressing Congress for accountability for their words and respectfulness towards one another’s life experiences in all things, she wins.

I have a lovely, soft yarn that was bought at a store I think in her district. I’m knitting it for her as fast as I can.

I got another hat done today, in the same colorway as Parker’s blue one here. We’re now at 208.  I like that he and a member of Congress will match each other; may it charm them as much as it does me.  This whole WHNHH project is for our children’s future as well as trying to set the tone for today.

While Parker wonders dubiously but respectfully whether Grampa remembers how to pull off this carseat idea.

Thing the first:

Last night just around bedtime. Me: I smell something funny.

Him: I don’t smell anything.

Me: Something smells funny; I think it’s more here (standing under the air register in the hall while the heat is blowing.) Do you think the furnace is okay? (Given that we’ve had three die in 24 years here, this is easily worried over.)

Him: (getting out of bed to check) I’m sure it’s fine.

I walk away down the turn in the hall for a moment and suddenly hear behind me, Open the front door!

Me: What? (wondering, why on earth…)

Him: Open the front door, quick!

I run and do so and there he is right behind me, this thing in his hands, running to put it outside on the stone-and-concrete entryway and out in the rain.

Remember that battery pack that didn’t work? He’d tried again to see if he could recharge it after all. I’ve never seen a battery (and we are talking a big battery) bulging all over like a can with a severe case of botulism, ready to blow.

He hadn’t smelled a thing–but he was willing to get up and go check it out.

Thing the second:

As he got in the car tonight after disassembling the scooter in the rain and putting it in the trunk, he remarked, pleased, that I looked far more energetic than last night.

Well, yeah!

I thought, I didn’t have to spend the day anticipating going back across a very busy street and bouncing across the lightrail tracks in the dark and the rain, being low down and out of sight and trying not to be hit by cars while going to my own far across the parking lot, being so cold and soaked–you get a lot wetter sitting than standing–that I could barely feel my fingers, and the basket bouncing right off the wheelchair on an unseen pothole that splashed me and scared me that I might short the thing out while the countdown on the light cycle was getting ever closer, and how do I get to my basket! … And thank you to whoever it was that grabbed it and helped me out, and then I had to try not to be hit by cars in the lot backing out that couldn’t see me at all…

I’d scootered across that lot once after circling in the car for a half hour trying to avoid it, and I knew I had to go back out there. I waited to leave till there would be a crowd going at closing time so at least I wouldn’t be alone.

When I got home and described what it had been like, he went, Nuts to that, he was going  to take me and pick me up right at the door. And he did, and I knew I had no worries. He is *My Hero* (trademarked) and with good reason. I know how lucky I am.

I forgot yesterday to mention another new-to-me vendor that I found absolutely delightful and wanted to praise out loud: Ellen’s Wooly Wonders, with patterns for felted dinosaurs, motorcycles, butterflies, turtles, airplanes, crabs, etc, a new grandmother’s delight and a little kid’s too.  Dreams of orange dragons, in whatever color, came home with me.

My thanks to all the people who stopped me to say hello and for a hug the last two days while I had my head down trying not to cream anybody’s toes but missing the faces above me. Thank you for all the hugs, all the kind words, all the great times hanging out around fellow knitters and crocheters. Stitches West is one of the high points of my year because you all make it so. I hope I returned enough in kind. Lisa Souza, the folks at Abstract Fibers, Melinda and Tess at Tess Designer Yarns–more on that later–Sheila at Ernst Glass, Blue Moon, Malabrigo, Warren of the much-missed Marin Fiber Arts… So many people and I love every one of you. I tell you. This knitting thing: it’s a great life.

And Warm Hats Not Hot Heads is up to 171 tonight. Woohoo!

The first thing.  Benjamin Levisay and Molly Vagle of XRX came into Purlescence this afternoon; good conversation was shared with a little chocolate torte on the side and a good time was had by all. (Thank you Laura for sitting next to me, laughing off my deafness when I needed that and repeating a few misses for me.)

The second thing. National Public Radio in Massachusetts did a segment today on knitting.

India called in. India and Ellen have been the main reasons the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads campaign actually got off the ground, and it was good to hear her voice as she did a great job of saying what it’s all about and why and encouraging others to join us.

As I type, we’re at 130 hats. That’s a whole lot of people who put down whatever project they were working on to go knit towards a cause that they too felt was important. I think one more and we’ll be at 25% of Congress.  Go knitters go!

The third thing (and why I’m glad I’ve already finished my representatives’ hats). My cousin Jim’s 14-year-old daughter Abby fell while skiing yesterday. Hit a tree. I’ve never heard the highly-unwelcome term “burst fracture” before, but it was two of her vertebrae. (To Amy: T12  L1.) The doctors were, to quote her father, very pessimistic last night.

This morning she felt tingling in her toes and said she needed to go.

And I, both powerless and…not quite entirely, while marveling at the almost too good to hope for that that is so far, knowing that so many others have wished for such moments and never had them and knowing there’s a long way to go, wonder what her favorite colors are. (Just got the answer: purple!)

That, and continuing prayer, I can do.

(Oh oops. I was adding the hats not committed yet to individual recipients with the number next to it, which was the overall total, not the committed total. (This reading charts thing…) So we’re up by nine to 103 today, and my apologies for the mistake.)

Phyllis and her husband Lee came by this evening, the last night that they could visit with my folks before they go home, and we celebrated with sponge cake, homemade chocolate sauce (zap dark chocolate bars with heavy cream, making sure to first dunk all the chocolate completely so all of it has touched the liquid before the heat is added so none of it seizes into unmeltable lumps) and homemade strawberry mousse (run random amounts of frozen strawberries, sugar, and cream through the Cuisinart for about ten minutes. Turn your ears off first.)

The puns were flying around in their natural echo-system. For instance. My hubby had been one of the computer scientists working on the then-new UNIX system at DEC. (Anybody remember DEC? You know, the then-second-biggest computer company? The one whose CEO proclaimed there would never be any use for a computer in the home?)

Lee asked something about was it genderified?

Me: Genderally speaking.

And a good tine was had by all.

My folks have nonrefundable tickets and are arriving Saturday, Dad’s got business here–and I’m still sick.  I took Parker’s suggestion and got a bit of a nap today and am hoping that does it.

But at least I got another hat finished!

I finished my Abstract Fibers scarf, though it’s bleached here by my flash. There is no pooling other than what I created by how I laid it out.

And while I was knitting–221 yards’ worth of fingering weight this evening, the math side of my brain needed to figure out repeats vs repeats done tonight vs weight etc–I was listening to whatever random CD came up on the player. If the music keeps playing the needles keep dancing.

The album cut by the old high school jazz band started up.

Okay, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but… When my son Richard was in middle school, his jazz band teacher also taught jazz in the high school and he aspired to join that group in a year or two.  They won a place in the high-school jazz competition at Monterey, so we drove down there that Saturday to cheer them on–and they were good enough to be invited back later to play as professionals in the main Monterey Jazz Festival, thus that album. *That’s* what a great teacher can get kids to accomplish.

We cheered on the kids on another team that had driven in a bus all the way from Maine for the competition. Now that’s heart!

We later went to the end-of-year school concert too, and again they played a piece that I’d liked so much: Bedtime for Bigfoot. I think it was the one that had been written by one of the kids as an AP Music assignment and it was hard not to get up and dance to it on the spot–you knew those kids were having a ball when they played it.

Richard-the-younger and I did a quick grocery store run afterwards, and as we got out of the car I asked him to sing the first note of that song.

He nailed it. Perfectly on pitch. The kid is good, and I about burst with pride.

When I was naming one of my shawl patterns, it seemed only fitting that making a giant version of my Rabbit Tracks lace should be called Bigfoot by comparison.  It wasn’t till later that I realized why I loved the word so much.

A teacher who believed in his kids.

Kids who learned what they could really do.

A rocking, happy song that celebrates that.

And I bet you my son could still sing it starting on exactly the right note. And his new son is trying to tell us he could too, just let him get the talking thing out of the way first.

Blockage: clearingnowohthankgoodness. Cold: from me to Richard and back. It surprises me as if it were all something new–which is a good sign, I like being used to being well.

But I needed not to feel sorry for myself so I finished another hat (my Congressional hats being done.)  Then I made good headway on some lace in the Grape Hyacinth colorway from Abstract Fibers and found that just looking at it puts me in that familiar, magical place where I feel like I’ve never knit anything so pretty in my life. They do nice work.

Thank you Kim and Richard-the-younger for the Parker pictures. Stop the germs, we want to go hold him!

Our family was once on a tour of the White House when the guide (gotta love his question) pointed out the ancient but still-sharp-looking Eagle rug.

I told my aunt, who was with us, that certain species of moss nearly became extinct because people had so coveted it for the color back in the day; it grows back so slowly.

I was reminded of that today.

At the grocery store, I ran into an old friend of my husband’s, who recognized me but I didn’t him till he called out my name–I recognized his voice. Ah yes–one of the other ham radio/disaster services volunteers, how are you?  He was amazed to see me out and about and looking so well, when just a year ago, who’d have thought…

…It’s been two, actually, I told him. Hard for me to believe it too. I wanted to add, and isn’t it wonderful amazing glorious to be alive on a fine day like today!

Later, the phone rang. It was one of those calls that is the price of caring about people who happen to be mortal.

The first of my outside amaryllises sent up a bud today, my Dancing Queen, one that, going by the book, I should have tossed two years ago when it contracted red virus; it wasn’t supposed to survive anyway. But it just kept on doing what it does despite my absolute neglect during my months of being so ill, and there will be flowers again this year in a month or so.  I pulled it inside so the squirrels wouldn’t give it a taste test.

And inside the pot was a good thick covering of healthy, green moss. Thriving. I very much like it.

Later, a Bewick’s wren was bopping around at my window, its beak inches from my nose at the glass as it glanced upwards. Somehow, when I need a moment like that, it comes.

Then I picked up my needles at last, cast on, and got past the brim on the third and last pink sparkly cashmere hat: I will finish it and give it to someone who’s going to love it and then, that yarn will be gone.

And it will be time to let a new one dance in my hands.

And another hat got finished today.  I’m hoping our Senators and House Representatives have plenty to choose from by the time we all get done with Warm Hats Not Hot Heads. Shoot a note over to Ellen at the twinset.us blog when you get done with yours, if you would, or let me know if I can for you.

I want to knit at least an extra hat for the Afghans For Afghans basket at Stitches West, too, to feel like I’m taking care of the truly needy as well.  But I needed a break to work on something not-hat for a little while. A little variety.

There’s the qiviut waiting; I’m trying to use it as incentive and motivator–what I’d had in the queue ahead of it was being obstinate and  I wanted it done. It’s some Abstract Fibers Supersock that I’d started on, gorgeous stuff, but I’d put it down while my kids were here and had tucked a note in the bag saying I’d goofed on row x and would fix it in the morning.

Did I fix it? I have no idea.  Which absolutely will not do.  I knew it had to go: it is a new pattern, therefore it must be done perfectly, end of story. But it looked so much prettier knitted up, they always do, because then you can really see how those colors can show themselves off.

Ripped. Totally. Gone. I finally did it. And looking at it with the yarn laying there in kinks it suddenly hit me that, look at that, you know, I could… I did like this one hat and, you know, I could riff and do it like…

Bam. Totally new approach. Totally new take on what I was going to do. And that could only have had a chance to hit my brain by my having knit something for someone else that was so different from my usual–because I’d wanted to make them no more than just a quick little hat.

Parker’s being Kinneared.

I bought a single skein of Arctic Musk Ox Blend in the 2-ply a few months ago, undyed just to get a peek at what was underneath before I bought any more, and it’s been my carry-around project for awhile: small, mindless knitting, easy to stuff in a purse, and laceweight, taking extra stitches to work up in case I got stuck somewhere for awhile. (Always a possibility when your minivan is older in car-years than you are.)

But it was easy to feel it was never done, so today I simply stayed with it till it was finished, all but the blocking–18 out of the 22g. I actually had some left over.

What would you do with 4g of qiviut-blend laceweight?

Although, I have to give J. credit. She’s an old and much-missed friend who now lives back East and was in town yesterday, so a bunch of us got together and caught up for old times’ sake. J., I noticed, was careful to enjoy both the small crowd as a whole and individual time with each one of us.

I pulled out my needles and showed off. J. thought it was just so pretty that I came away feeling like how could I not have had this done and finished and ready to go?

A little water now for it to relax in the pool by, lay it out on a beach-sized white towel, let the amaryllis come play palm tree to complete the scene, and it will be.

Here you go, and I’ll try to get a better photo of it in the sunlight. This is what I finished for my local House representative, a woman, in our knitters’ campaign to ask Congress to speak to and of each other with civility and a sense of decorum: for we knit softly and carry a big bag of sticks.

At the brim: a line of cables leaning to the right, a line of cables leaning to the left, a purl stitch dividing them, but when they’re relaxed, the purl disappears into the fabric and they come together in an interlacing effect as one.

I figure that’s pretty representative of what I’m trying to convey to them.

Congressperson hat pattern, version 1.

(Note: version two would be to use a heavier yarn in, say, a dark color for a male recipient and only pick up 2/3 of the stitches as noted below for a beanie effect above the brim. It would be fewer rows upwards, too, thus faster to make; I wanted this one to have extra height and width above the brim to go with that knit/purl pattern for a slouch effect, and to protect my congresswoman’s hair from being matted down by allover tightness.)

Yarn: worsted weight. I used Misti Baby Alpaca Royal (apparently now discontinued), 86 g out of two 50g skeins, a very soft, very drapey yarn, but very fine and thin to my hands for worsted weight.

No gauge swatch necessary, although a measuring tape pretty much is.

Needles: I used US size 6, 4mm.

Cast on 17 stitches. You can use a temporary cast-on, or later just pick up the stitches of the side of the strip; I found it easier to do the temporary cast on.

Row 1 and all wrong side rows: Purl 2, k2, p4, k1, p4, k2, p2.

Row 2: K2, p2, k4, p1, k4, p2, k2.

Row 4: k2, p2, slip two stitches onto a dpn and hold in back of work, k2, knit the two stitches on the dpn, p1, slip two stitches onto a dpn and hold in front of work, k2, k2 from dpn, p2, k2.

Repeat these four rows till the strip is the length you want to go around the head. Hat size chart, again, is here.  Remember to take into account that the strip will have a bit of give to it; on the other hand, it will, if you make the hat long enough, be folded up over another layer, taking up just a little of the give. On this particular hat, the cable part can be folded up as high as a person wants to go as there is no right or wrong side above the cabled strip.

I did 25 repeats of my cable pattern to get what looked like 18.5″ sitting there but easily stretched to 21″. If it’s a little loose on the person, they can always just fold the cabled part up higher.  End with a cabling row.

From here, I undid the temporary cast-on, putting those stitches on one needle and the live stitches at the other end of the strip on the other needle and did a three-needle bindoff to work the short edges of the strip together; then, I picked up the stitches around the top of the now-circle.

For a standard hat, you pick up 2/3 of the stitches. For this one, wanting a slouchy hat that wouldn’t compress a coiffe, and given that I had a good drapey yarn that matched that concept, I picked up all of the stitches: 100 stitches. (Remember, 25 repeats times four rows.)

I knit five rows.

Then I purled five rows.

I repeated those ten rows till I had, facing me, four sets of purl rows alternating with five sets of knit rows.

Ending:

Row 1: P2, p2tog, p1, repeat across row.

Row 2: Purl.

Row 3: P1, p2tog, p1, repeat across row.

Row 4: Purl.

Row 5: P2tog, p1, repeat across row.

Row 6: Knit.

Rows 7 and 9: K2tog across row.

Rows 8 and 10: Knit.

Row 11: P2tog.

Row 12: Purl.

Row 13: P2tog.

And then I think I did one more p2tog row–I ended up with five stitches and cast those off. I wove the end in a little and added a “Created with Pride by” and then my name on the tag on the inside of the hat and wove the strand in just a little more.

Note: When I knitted the light pink hat with the braided cable out of the King George yarn from DBNY, I picked up all the stitches as well: cables tend to shrink the size of the fabric by a third, roughly, so picking up all rather than 2/3 of the stitches worked–but the cables are slightly stretched  when the hat is worn, at least in that pattern on my needles.

And when I knitted this bright pink one, the hat that started this whole thing, I picked up 2/3 of the stitches and made it shorter than the red one is because it had no extra width for a slouch effect; on the head, it simply comes out as knit/purl stripes.

Here’s another shot.

The yarn was a gift from Sandi at Purlescence: awhile ago, to my great surprise, she handed me a bag of this cashmere-with-sparkles in a heavy worsted and told me that I would know the right thing to do with it.

I don’t know if any of my three Congresswomen want bright pink sparklies. What I do know, is, playing with that yarn got me familiar enough with this pattern that I could go play with it comfortably and offer up my own version in the pattern above in hopes that others run with it, or with whatever pattern they like, and help to create a little peaceableness in the halls of our Congress.

And one other thought: I want our representatives to know that people care about them personally as they go about their work serving us all.

This started with a stray comment between us but the idea has only grown more insistent.

In response to the shootings in Tucson, Arizona,  Ellen and I have been talking about what we could do to make manifest the idea that we want our Congresspeople to deal civilly with one another. To hear one another. To talk things out. To not do what will play on the news the loudest but to do what’s best for all of the American people the best they know how.

How could we personally help make that actually happen?

My uncle Bob Bennett of Utah, in his remarks to his colleagues on leaving the Senate last month, discussed the general philosophy of the Republican party vs the Democratic party re the role of government,  and then pronounced, “Both sides are right.”

This is a man who had been rated one of the most conservative members of the Senate (and with whom I often disagreed politically).  But he’d also had real-life experience: as a homeowner trying not to lose his house at one point. As a former business owner who knew that for businesses to succeed, their workers had to have the peace of mind of knowing that they could have adequate medical care should something happen to them or their families.

He said, and I’m paraphrasing to the best of my memory, It’s the meeting in the middle to negotiate our differences that is where we do our best work. None of us is supposed to get everything all our way in any other part of life, and certainly not in politics where we are working with people with completely different life experiences.

So here’s what Ellen and I are hoping for.

Never mind, I’ll let her tell it, she says it better than I do.

From Ellen:

——————————-

“Here is what I think I’d like to do.

Invite any and all knitters who would like to join in to knit a hat (sizing information here) for their own congressional representative, whether Senate or House.  Ask them to email me, perhaps send a photo or link to a Ravelry project, and let me know to whom a hat has been sent.  I can track who is being covered (literally!) and if anyone wants to knit more than one hat, they can send them to me and I’ll handle mailing them to a rep who hasn’t received one yet.

I’d like to write a standard note to go with it, to which any knitter could add her own personal message.  I’m also thinking how cool it would be to design a hat for it, but I am also telling myself to keep it manageable.  (Her husband) suggested that the hats be purple, a blending of red and blue, but I told him I want them to be worn!

This doesn’t rule out hats for the victims, which is also a good idea and could be a use for some of the extra hats, though I still don’t know how to go about getting the names or how to deliver them.  After thinking on it all week, though, what is really compelling me is to highlight the need for civil discourse even over things we disagree on.”

———————————-

From me: I would plead that the hats be of a material you’d want to wear yourself. I want each recipient to feel they are being treated with the great respect we all mutually deserve.  For whatever it’s worth, I can vouch for the fact that the Plymouth King George (how’s that for an ironic name!) baby alpaca/merino/cashmere blend on sale for four bucks a ball (for the moment, at least) will make an absolutely soft, warm cabled hat using two balls; I just knitted one. Three balls should I think get you two plain beanies.  All in a day’s work.

I’m not trying to shill for DBNY, I’m just trying to convey the idea that it doesn’t have to be a lot of money for it to be something nice if you don’t have something ready in your stash. Support your local yarn store, too. However it works for you.

We want each individual to be glad they got one–and wouldn’t it be cool to have Congresspeople swapping around with each other to get just what they want? Let the cheerful negotiating begin!

I just ordered two more balls in, yes, Ellen’s husband, purple.

Can you just picture the photo-op we could all make happen? Knitters can change the world. We can set the tone. In wild color combinations or subdued: as the song says, We’ll give them something to talk about.

You in too?

(ed. to add: What should we call this campaign? So far I’ve come up with Talking Heads.)

Remembering fondly a sweater my mom knit me when I was a kid that was close to the color of this hat, that I refused to outgrow, that I kept wearing till Mom finally hid it so she wouldn’t be embarrassed to have me be seen in public in it…

This idea from Knitty’s Coronet hat where you knit a cabled strip, join, and then go up from there? Version number three.  I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with the idea.

Pictures later, but, you know, if you make the body of the hat in a stretchy pattern, you can pick up those stitches and continue *without* joining the ends of the strip, simply leave them flapping around down there, and then, go back later and crochet them together (as I did). What you have, then, is a hat that can be made small for a child and then, if it’s their most most favorite hat ever and they never ever want to outgrow it–but they d0–you can go back and undo that bit of crocheting that you made sure not to overdo the job of running the ends in on. You might want to crochet a row down the ends of the strip to neaten them up a little. (I didn’t.)

There. You’ve got a hat with a brim that doesn’t have to be folded up anymore, thus adding length, you’ve got sideways stretch from the pattern you used above, and you’ve got collar-ish points at the back of the hat where the strip ends separate in a V .  If you decide to make that the front of the hat, make sure to do a jogless join at the start of each round as you’re going up.

(Don’t you love instructions that tell you what to do in the middle at the end?)