Watch out, the kid’s pretty, wired right now.

If anybody here doesn’t already know, Stitches West is next weekend at the Santa Clara Convention Center.  If you have ever had any desire to hold a skein of yarn in your hands in your life, and you can in any way make it there, go!  Inhale the wool fumes! The colors, the creativity, the sheer size and enthusiasm of the crowd of fiber lovers.  Heady stuff.  (Not to mention parking is free; what have you got to lose?) Come check out that silky new yarn made out of sugarcane fibers! (I kid you not.)

It used to be held in Oakland but it completely outgrew the place, and the last year there, the organizers learned that they needed to go to online ticketing after there was a two and a half hour line just to pay the entrance fee to get in the door.  We are not few. I didn’t mind; I could sit in my wheelchair–necessary for long days out–and knit and chat.

There are classes, there’s the market, but what I love best of all is getting to see people I never get a chance to see at any other time. It’s all about the friendships, and they grow from year to year.

Speaking of which. I flashed that picture of Cashmere America fiber at the interwebs the other day, hoping the lady that ran that booth might google and see it and come say hi.  Then I googled her co-op and found that Cashmere America had gone out of business–no wonder I hadn’t seen her nor her booth the last few years. I miss her.  If she reads this over there in Texas, I hereby wave hi a little louder.  You are part of our community, and you are missed.

Julia rightfully warns of carbon monoxide poisoning. If you go here, you’ll see why I’m so glad she brought it up.  Yesterday, a little too personally aware of the subject, we had the sliding door open just enough for the cord to pass through and kept the generator as far from the house as we could manage.  We have definitely had a CO alarm since that day 24 years ago.  I’m glad for that warning to be out there for others before, rather than after; thank you, Julia, for that.

On a more fun subject. More stitches and more rows than last week’s shawl, another five-day project, I did it! A ball-anced life, definitely.

I got home from Purlescence and Michelle asked me, “So how was your cult night?”

I explained to her that they’d just gotten a long-delayed shipment in of some of my most-favorite yarns in my most-favorite colors. And I hadn’t bought a single skein. (I didn’t add, “yet.”)

She looked at me with big eyes, and asked, “How did you DO that?”

“Stitches is next week.”

She guffawed. Busted in advance.

No project!  I grabbed some by-inspiration’s-invitation yarn last night and cast on, and now I’m on the second ball of Royale Hare ‘s merino fingering weight in lavender; so I’m about 300 yards and 12-13 inches into the latest shawl in a new pattern.  I only put it down  to come write this because my hands demanded I take a longer break.  I’ve got knitting fever, bad.

I have no idea how Karen got a solid fiber, not a blend, to come out shimmery and heathery out of a single color as if it had some silk in it that might be slightly resisting the dye–but there isn’t any, just ordinary wool doing a pretty dance.  I do have to say, it grabs my eyes and my hands and sits me right down there right on that seat and declares, “KNIT!”

And so I do.

Maybe that deadline of Stitches next week to gleefully show it off to her is helping, too.

From winding a ball of yarn Tuesday

To this

To this

To the last. Cast off!

With a comforting hat for one of the Taylors, dyed and knitted by Karin, added in, and thank you, Karin. (I’m trying not to touch it or breathe on it, but I had to get a good shot.)

The shawl is blocking now, and oh goodness, if I thought it was soft and lovely as I was knitting it, rinsing the brushed cashmere and silk and Dianne’s laceweight knit together and laying it out in its pure form now…

One thought to add in here.  I’ve knitted two strands of laceweight together before, and found it mattered to me that they be a little grabby at each other. I once sent my sister (sorry, Carolyn, but it was so pretty!) a shawl knit of a strand each of baby alpaca and of a gorgeous, shimmery silk–and before I mailed it off to her, I managed to snag the silk somehow and that stitch slid wayyyy out of there.  Working a stitch back into a lace pattern, tugging gently along its lines, is one thing; doing it when one slippery strand has gone bonkers while a twin strand has stayed demurely in its place was something else.  It took me two days to fix, and I mailed it off with a catch in my breath, no time left to reknit the project in something more sensible.

She, however, is graceful. I am a klutz.  Her shawl has hopefully done just fine there.

Won’t be a problem with these two yarns.  They’re best friends, hand in hand, for life.

A last thought on yesterday’s post: at the time Kurt’s wife and my father-in-law had that conversation, probably 15 years ago, I remember wondering why it was so important to her to know something that had happened years before–and why now, finally.

A little older, a little wiser, I get it now: she was trying to cope with the death of her brother by searching for a way to be thankful for the dramatic good that had been given him in his life.  To express gratitude towards a person who so much deserved it, to let him know his heroism and his kindness had never been forgotten.  (Or, by that point, to at least tell his family so as to make sure they knew that part of their father’s story, too.) And at the same time she wanted the comfort of knowing for absolute sure that all that was real.  It was.

And so Life–whatever way one is most comfortable describing it is okay with me, for me, it was a clear sign of a loving God–let it all come together for her to ease her pain.  I remember my father-in-law, after we got home from church that day, marveling over and over, Nobody else could have told her. Nobody else in that room that day is still here to tell the tale.  I’m the only one!

And I marvel at that meeting having been scheduled at just the right time, the driver from another town coming in for it and being at that one intersection at just the exact moment…

Which would have been meaningless had he chosen to just pass on by. But he did not.  He could never possibly know how many lives he touched by his caring that day.  The good that we do does live on.

Now.  In the where-moth-and-rust-doth-corrupt department: nine hats in nine days, and my fingers were starving for something back in my own comfort zone and routine. I had this marvelous skein of Creatively Dyed’s calypso-line Tempest laceweight that had been impatiently waiting its turn.

But it was so fine.  I wanted more instant gratification.  Let’s see, that Cashmere Superior in the stash, as long as it’s a splurge project anyway…

And thus Michelle came in and saw me working on this yoke.  In real light, the Cashmere Superior is a fairly subdued rust color, much improved by the Tempest. (I’ll try for a better photo in the daylight tomorrow. )

Now, as a parent, you can never teach your children all the things you know, and I’ll never learn all the things they know.   She’s a generation removed from the art-dealer-daughter life I grew up with.

And yet. She instantly recognized what I’d been thinking, and told me that “All that colorwork”–and she gave recognition in that word, the way she said it, to the actual and extensive work that had gone into creating that colorway–“is lost in that rust.”

“Well, not lost, but it is subdued.”

“Yes, but if you put it with a black strand it would really pop out.  Or red.  But better black.”

I looked at it a bit stunned.  She was absolutely right.  Black hadn’t even occurred to me.  (Wait–maybe because I have like about zero black yarn in my stash.  Knitters?  Or at least older-eyed knitters? You with me on that one?)  I said something about art dealers and backgrounds and how I ought to have picked up on that, and she grinned, “Well, I know clothes,” and went on to describe her best friend’s new outfit that was in exactly the Temptation colors and black.

Wait–(man am I slow)–that might have been a hint.

656 yards of the Cashmere Superior before I run out, 1200 of the Tempest.  If I use a slightly heavier yarn and bigger needles the second time around, I can definitely try it with black later.

What to do.

Dithering: I hanked 1550 yards of white merino/cashmere/silk blend off a cone and scoured it. Wound 440 yards of suri alpaca into a ball.

I wanted to knit a hat.  A good, useful, guy-type thing, right?  I bought some Zara merino Friday at Purlescence because it was so soft yet tightly spun–but when it came right down to it, I realized later, it was thinner than I had any desire to knit in ribbing.

Yesterday at church, Brian’s oldest sister was thrilled when I gave her the scarf made from Liz’s Belisa cashmere and Robin’s Cashmere Superior; they’d danced beautifully together on the needles. Then the purple cowl for her little sister.  Their older brother stood there, delighted at how happy the one sister was and how much the other one was about to be.

I’d already planned for him to be next. Zara, don’t look at me like that.

And so I got those other useful-later tasks done while not-knitting.

Finally, I pulled a tub of yarn out of the closet, opened it up–and felt, oh, at last.

Now, you can never get ahead of nice people; I once surprised Tina Newton with a shawl, and she surprised me right back with not only more of the same Geisha yarn so I could go make me one too, which I did, but also a whole whack of other stuff too.

But the Silkie (link is to the colorway) in the lot had refused to budge. Its time hadn’t happened yet.  I wanted to thank Tina by putting it to good use, and all it would tell me was, Just you wait.

Today, as I looked at the Zara and that open tub, the Silkie went, Told you so.  So there.

It’s just a plain watchman’s cap in 1×1 rib, but the colors came out in a slight diagonal all over that delights me. Leigh Witchel’s basic 2×2 hat formula I riffed on, here.

Three younger siblings done, five to go.

I needed to immerse myself in work.  The house is cleaner now and guests were fed tonight, with Michelle and John preparing as much as I did. It did us all good.

I had two unfinished lace scarves, and considering the pair for several moments, I picked up the one that didn’t require much out of me; just a little more of my time. The one I’d thought I was going to finish Saturday night after Nina‘s birthday party, before we heard the news.

A little water and wire, now, to bring out the best in it so it can be ready to go forward wherever it may need to go.  Created with love, to be sent forward for peace.

I did not know how this was going to go.  I guess I was a little nervous about it.

Yesterday I met a fellow knitting blogger and, it turns out, an absolutely delightful person, Holly, visiting from Germany; as I walked into Coupa Cafe, a short distance from her hotel room, a woman stopped me and admired my Peace shawl, reaching out and fondling the bottom of it a little and asking if I’d made it.

“I designed it,” I smiled, searching her face, thinking, No, you don’t look the least like that tiny thumbnail photo I saw.

She didn’t seem to want to go further, so I thought, well, that answers that question, and excused myself and continued on past the patio and inside and ordered my hot chocolate. And saw my old friend Glenn.  Glenn!

Alison! How ya doin’! Let me introduce you to my colleague!

The red Peace shawl shown here? I made it for his wife Johnna. (Her computer was down that week.)

When there was a break in the conversation, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder: “Are you Alison?”

A different woman.  Called that one right. But I bet the three of us could have sat down together on the spot like old friends.

Which is just what Holly and I did.  There was such a warmth in her face as she asked me if I were me that I felt instantly, Oh, good!, and she probably did, too.

And it just got better from there.  We swapped stories for hours, and she’d brought me sock yarns from Germany in a bag from the conference she and her husband were here for; I, having had no idea what she might like, came unprepared, a thought she completely waved away with a smile.

They will be moving back to the Bay Area in a few years. I, for one, can’t wait.

(The new bag in the background: tomorrow’s post.)

At Purlescence last night, people were swooning–moaning, quite honestly–over this skein.   One person shopping the store whom I didn’t know, oblivious to the conversation in the group, stepped close enough to get pounced on: Here, I told her, feel this!

Her expression went from, yeah, okay, I’ll humor you, whoever you are, lady, to *big eyes* and “WOWWW!!!” and her glance sweeping the room, her expression exclaiming, where do I FIND this?!

Maybe six or seven years ago, I was at Stitches West, talking to a woman who was selling qiviut fiber combed from her herd of Alaskan musk oxen.  She and her husband had devised a holding chute to keep each animal still (and, I imagine, from goring them) while they combed out the undercoat it was ready to shed across the tundra.  They would then pick out the guard hairs by hand to avoid damaging that precious fiber.

Small wonder, then, that her little one-ounce ziploc bags cost $30.

But then she had me touch it.

Qiviut was then the softest, finest legally available and humanely collected animal fiber on the planet.   And given where the animals live, very, very warm.  The musk ox had only recently been taken off the endangered list, and hers was, if memory serves, the first non-Inuit-owned private herd on the continent.

There was a moment of surprised delight last year when my first surgeon mentioned she’d bought a qiviut smoke ring in Alaska on a trip and I asked her, At the Oomingmak cooperative?

How did you know?!

My surgeon owned and treasured Eskimo-handknit lace qiviut, of all things.  I knew I was in good hands.

Back to the scene at Stitches.  The woman had a big black plastic garbage bag full of the stuff, ready to weigh out to order, and I laughed and asked her, just out of curiosity, how much the whole thing would cost.  She eyed me with a grin and shot back, “With or without the divorce lawyer?” (Ouch!) “About six thousand dollars.”

So.  I bought one ounce–a year later, at the next Stitches, after having thought about it long enough. I was going to spin it, I was going to ply it with mere cashmere to get twice the yardage, oh, I had plans.

And then I actually tried to spin it.  It was almost like dryer lint.  It needed to be spun very fine, which one would want to do anyway, but I have almost no feeling in my fingertips and the job would be purely visual.  Pass the microscope.  And that gets old and very difficult very fast.

It sat in the closet. I know, I know.

I finally, talking to my friend Rachel one day, told her that it was criminal to have qiviut, of all things, going to waste and that since she liked to spin finely anyway, I was giving it to her. She was under firm orders not to give it back. This was for her.

Yeah well. Do your friends like to be ordered around? Neither do mine.

And so it was that I got a text message yesterday incoming: “Will you be at knitting?”

I still have yet to manually enter most of my contacts into my new phone; I had no idea who was asking. So I typed back, simply, “Yes.”  Kind of a no-brainer: it’s Knit Night? I go!

I walked in, sat down, and Sandi casually tossed a bag on my lap as she walked by.  ?!??!!  Yes.  And the message sent with it was, You’ll know whom to knit this for.

I instantly did. Oh, I did. I told them, I’ll have to think more about it and pray about it, but–

–And you know, I did all that, too, but, I knew immediately and that was that.  I can’t tell Rachel how grateful I am for her gift of those 186 yards.  It’s for someone whom I’ve needed to knit something for for several months, someone going through worse than ever I did all of last year, someone I would give anything to make her family’s sudden severe burden easier, if only somehow I could.

Someone for whom I’ve gone through my stash again and again and again, looking for just THE right thing, and somehow nothing felt good enough. I couldn’t figure out why.  Now I know.

Maybe, the fact that a total stranger did all that work spinning it for the sake of goodwill towards whomever the right person might be, added in with my own goodwill knowing whom it cries out to be knitted for, maybe, it might ease her burden. Maybe just a little.

A little basic human warmth and kindness.

A little bit of fluff.  But it can go a long way.

Got your batteries in and ears on?  Okay, here goes:

1. Finished the Manos shawl.

2. The chickadees supervised the process.

3. The squirrel:  Scarlet-o-hairy made me burst out laughing.  Reddy, though, short for Redwood or all kinds of possibilities, has stuck with me all day. So far. (Rodent is an anagram for Redont chew near the house.)

4. Now I have to go design something to live up to today’s mail delivery: Dianne does nice work.  One feels, knitting her calypso-dyeways yarns, like one is assembling a Claude Monet (and as the daughter of an art dealer who worked with one of Monet’s proteges, I get to say that insufferably smugly.)

It always feels wonderful to buy from the kind of person a fellow knitter can hold up as, this, this: is what knitters are like.  Kind, creative, artistic and generous, with a loyal following for good reason.  I can’t wait to see Dianne at Stitches next month!  (Saving my pennies for that amaryllis yarn that I didn’t even see till after my order had gone through. I mean, how perfect is that.  And the. And the. And the. And the.)

I thought I knew just what I was going to do with this Temptation CoCo when it got here so I could dive immediately in. But sometimes, colorways, once they’re present in person, design themselves just right and just so. If we listen.

I’ve got my ears in.

Can Nut Lady come out and play? Pretty please?

It’s just the one, the red-bellied medium-black squirrel of the three siblings, that has decided my purpose in life is to open the door and toss it a walnut.  It has now learned that if the walnut goes past it, it’s still there, and will now turn and go find it.

It has surprised me the last few days (I apparently learn slower than it does) by perching there in the morning, watching me at the computer, waiting patiently for me to get with the program.

I am utterly charmed.  It’s training me well.

Okay, question for everybody: I succumbed to Margo Lynn’s mention of the Cherry Tree January sale and ordered some suri lace.  They threw in a grab bag with random additional skeins, a pair of SWTC needles (size 8, 32″–perfect!) and these two… black plastic hearts?

Anybody?

Is there some cosmic knitting significance to these that I’m just not grasping?  I am at a loss. Huh.

Meantime, Phyl, the purple flowers you gave me for my birthday are still blooming the winter away, as are the first of the amaryllises, a gift from Richard.

Happy January!

Sometimes you need a little success to get back and get going.

A little new (the yoke), a little tried and true (the Water Turtles motif, practically no-look knitting), a little anticipation, a little self-imposed deadline.  Boom.   Done.

And then all the sudden my stalled-out Manos project, where I realized last month that the design I’d sketched out really just didn’t work, that I didn’t like the next try either, rip, rip, that I finally tossed in a bag in time-out–bingo, now, I’ve got it!

It is so much better for the wait.  It was like a teenager in the dressing room, old sneakers on, trying on every outfit, distracted by its pimples in the mirror and sighing over its unfixable hair while its mom goes nuts outside waiting to see how things look actually on.

It is now the senior in the finally-chosen prom dress, gorgeous, hair done, shoes just so, with the very biggest smile you could ever hope to see.  Looking all grown up. Almost. Here, give me a few hours to pin on the corsage of these last few dozen rows-es for it.

Michelle was envisioning how to sweep away “this yarn infestation,” quickly explaining that she meant how to better organize it.

I say my needles just need to get out more.  (Don’t miss the caption.)

You know, that tingley Spidey sense and all that.  (I know, those look more like weevils, and this must be Spiderman’s cousin Webster.  He lost an s and his weapon it went with and is left with only wordplay.)

Michelle shrieked at a small scrambling cluster of spiders the other day while getting John’s room ready for his homecoming, and I went Eh, gimme that vacuum hose, I’ll get’em for you.

It is very useful at times to have impaired pain nerves. On the other hand, so sometimes I don’t have as much sense as I should; I decided today, when the swelling on my finger was worse, to play it safe and take it to the doctor.

I’m told it should clear up in a week or so.  But hey, I can still knit okay, and there’s some blue Manos Silk blend going at a good clip.

But still just not fast enough to knit all the things I wish I could in time for Christmas. Okay, so, that method didn’t work.  Mrs. Weasley?