Remember when I said I was researching treadmills? Ruth, whom I usually only get to see at Stitches every February, blew me away by offering hers.

Today, then, was the day.  Having gotten the master cylinder crisis already over with and the car okayed by my mechanic, my husband took the back seats out, mine being the car that was big enough, and we drove it to a place Far, Far Away.  (Shrek-and-see Deutsch?)

Where Ruth picked out a shawl and got a chocolate torte (frozen beforehand to be safe) and made us lunch and her son helped load the thing up for us. Hardly a fair trade.

“We have to take pictures for Chan.”

You’re right, we do.

She wanted me to model her shawl. Well, okay, blues with blue.

Never hand the husband the camera while teasing him.

Dear, wait–okay, could you take another one?  I think you got me at a bad moment. (As in, I *know* you did.)

“But the battery’s almost dead!”

I should have said, And we would need that battery for… what?…before we got home?

Oh. Right. Got to show those Central Valley tomato trucks, where you wonder about the ones at the bottom of that mound–now *there’s* a store-bought tomato for you! We tried to get closer, but there was a traffic jam and just no way to pass nor ketchup to it.

In Heinz-sight, it was probably for the jest, though.

(And yes, we did crank up that treadmill fast enough to flip me off the back, just to see if we could. But I’m ketchingup quickly.)

Thank you, Ruth!!!

I cast this on on Monday night. It is yet another open-at-the-front circular shawl, done on size 5.5mm needles, 23″ long lying flat and will lengthen out from its weight a bit the moment I pick it up–in other words, it is Friday night and it is now done and blocking.

Now, to get that much done that fast, I iced my hands at the first twinge, several times a day as needed. I wore the splints at night that I have for years, custom-fitted by a physical therapist to keep my hands from curling and tensing up in my sleep.  (Being allergic to aspirin, this is a necessity for me.)  I took frequent breaks, consciously putting the needles down at the end of every row or two whether I felt like I needed to or not.

Had I not, I would still be recovering just from Tuesday’s knitting for several weeks’ worth of inflammation. But I did just fine, and I can’t wait to dive into the next project with that intensity. (Why, yes, my nest did empty Monday. Funny you should mention. Overcompensating? Me?)

BlueIce ice packs are a great invention.

Last night at Purlescence, I did express some reservations about the yarn being very soft but a bit thicker than I’d have preferred. It’s Zegna Baruffa, which I think is the softest merino laceweight out there, multi-plied into a heavier yarn for Colourmart.

Yeah well. Just add water and there you go. I love it. It’s perfect.

So I had all these things I was going to do today, and one was a trek to the outlets in Gilroy an hour+ away to look for warmer clothes for the daughter about to need them.  On a whim, I threw a small knitting project in my purse, feeling a little silly but you never know.  On another whim, I said I’d drive  and Michelle went, Oh! I thought I was going to. Sure, and how about I do it on the way back?

Sure!

Which is why a more experienced driver was at the wheel and the other driver got to learn new things without having to make any decisions in the moment.

Heavy traffic, lots of braking ahead, I was slowing down–when suddenly the brakes felt dead. Boom just like that.  My car is old but well maintained but oh well.  I was sure I was going to slam into the guy up there ahead of me, but no, the brakes actually worked even if they didn’t feel like it while I was pushing as hard as I could. Thank heavens!

I was in the next-to-left lane and there was an exit just ahead. I managed to get over several lanes and the traffic just opened up for me when I turned on my signal, how in that mess, I don’t know, thank you everybody and somehow it worked without all the things that could have happened happening.

Off. I got far enough down the ramp to where there was, for whatever reason, a stretch of suddenly cleared-off pavement in the margin, not much longer than one car’s length. I took it.   Before and after that point, the breakdown lane was all covered in dry tinderbrush that believe me you do not want to touch with a hot car in a California summer.

And that’s when I saw the smoke.  Just a little, then pouring out from under the hood on the right.  Please don’t blow up on us.  Just please don’t blow up on us.  (I flashbacked: I once saw a car with its engine on fire shooting massive flames fifteen feet high and it was three blocks from my house: the driver had pulled over right under a very dried-out olive tree. In front of a gas station.  I thought, flashback, you are not helping me here.  Shut up. It shut up.)

Meantime, behind us, people were speeding and cutting over the line on the offramp, seeing us and veering back into their lane and I was glad for every inch away from them we had–and very glad to be off that freeway!

Where, while we waited for the tow, grateful for cellphones, we saw a fire truck and then an ambulance making their way forward as the traffic started to back up past that point.  Someone was having a way worse day than we were. Gratitude check there.

AAA towed us to the nearest AAA-approved garage.  While I gave the owner our contact information, the tow driver quietly said to Michelle, This is NOT a good end of town.  Would you like me to drop you two off at Denny’s to wait for your ride home?

I almost hugged the guy. I did hug Richard later.

A shout out to KatherineL, who offered to rescue us when we couldn’t reach Richard at first. Thank you *so* much.

Coming home, trying not to feel weird about leaving my car to an unknown fate in the hands of strangers, Richard had a doctor’s appointment he was only going to make to on time now if he could go in the carpool lane.  We swung by home, let Michelle mercifully out, and I went with him.  He told me I didn’t have to, he could risk it if I wanted to get out too; I told him, You rescued me; I rescue you. It’s only fair.

And I was so glad I had that little knitting project.  My coming grandson’s little hat finally got all but the decreasing done while I waited. I think I really needed that.

And yet–Michelle and I were talking afterwards and we were both saying, You know? For all that that could have been, that was as pleasant as it could possibly have been under the circumstances. The tow truck driver was a sweetheart, the garage owner seemed a decent type, KatherineL was ready to run right there, Richard enjoyed the pumpkin pie piece I bought him to go while waiting at Denny’s. It could all have been so much worse.  We got off easy, we really did.

At least someone’s going to be warmer because of that trip!

So we finally got our summer.   It’s today and yesterday, with records broken yesterday and probably today too. Then it’s supposed to go back to  the 60ish-to-70-degree coolness with the usual breeze off the Bay that we’ve had for weeks, perfect shawl weather. Tomorrow.

There’s been a goldfinch just outside my window putting on quite a display today:  it’s been holding its tail stretched open as wide as it can go, trying to cool off.  I’ve been watching it relax, go oh wait that’s right and stretch it back out–hold it right there–that’s better. Relax, flare out, hold. Repeat.

On the ground, the mourning doves are winging it in their own AC effort.

My hanging sugarpine cone was held to its string up there, I learned, by glue. It came unglued in the heat.  Smashing Sugarpines would make a great rock band name.

The suet cake is dripping slowly.

The squirrels are looking longingly through the window at my tomatoes that are grabbing at their chance to finally turn color–inside, out of reach of their greedy little thievery.

A house finch lands and spreads his tail in a wide V too as I type this.

I tell you. It’s feather-and-fan weather out there.

*siren*    *the lights flash at last*

Knitting Police.  Ma’am, do you know why I asked you to purl over?

No, Officer, I don’t.

You’re impeding frog-ness and you have stitches piling up behind you that saw very well what you did. I got a 911 call from them.

I didn’t do anything wrong, Officer! Just speeding on past the swatching stage… And yeah, I did change it just a bit–well, a lot on this version over the first shawl–but I did the math and jotted down the numbers and I knew it would work right, so I thought I’d go ahead and get started on this second one…

I thought so. Look, lady, I don’t want to get in a row with you.  Just come off those needles peacefully now.

I will not! I’ve done nothing wrong!

That’s what they all say.

…Oh… An extra stitch at the end of… But how on earth…

(And then she proved to be a repeat offender…)

Which is how this knitter spent three hours in knitter jail today and had the book thrown at her.  This might also help explain why it is not yet on payroll: it has to be done exactly right.

One row. I got just.one. row finished for three hours’ work, not because I needed more swatching, not because it was hard–it wasn’t–but because I was distracted and wasn’t paying enough attention to reading the actual knitting at a point where the pattern didn’t show well yet. I kept making dumb mistakes in very small dark stitches on a dark needle.  Tink, tink, again and again till I finally frogged way back in disgust, thinking: I could have wound a second 500+ yard ball and started over on a different needle by now and been past that point.  But wherever the mistake was, *that* should get it because I know it was perfect up till there!

And then I put it down and walked away for hours.  I finally went back to it and simply made myself get past the point that had stymied me. (And thought, What was my problem here! That was so easy!)

Like I knew all along it should be.  Sometimes you just need to go do something else for awhile.

But I also firmly believe that if you have to frog part of a project you intend to finish, you should try to get past where you were on it before the day ends if you possibly can in order to help keep it from becoming a *TOAD.  Or else the row’dkill that project.

And it is on its merry way now. Looking good!

(p.s. And this is another reason why I knit each project multiple times before putting it out there. It has to be perfect and then proven perfect again in exactly that rendition. Better yet, at least three times.  And I do.)

——

*Trashed Object Abandoned in Disgust

I could have done one more repeat, and I didn’t break the yarn yet in order to leave that as an option, but I just so much wanted to be done with the project and it seemed like it had already gotten to a good length for what I was looking for…

…Which of course (adding a little water to it) it hadn’t. Lying down, anyway. But in the circular-shawl version of “swatches lie,” as soon as I pick it up the weight of the wool will add the inches back on that I was expecting.

Two strands of Tess Designer Yarns laceweight, for two reasons: I wanted the raspberry/peach combination to melt into itself, which it did, by combining two in the same dyelot, and frankly because I just didn’t feel like knitting that fine and fragile a yarn by itself on the tiny needles it would require.  I had two thousand yards of the stuff in my stash.  I liked that colorway. (I mean, I really like that colorway!)  I wanted semi-instant gratification.

Melinda, you do nice work!

(And now I’m test-knitting draft two in a pattern of…  On to the next…!)

The last two flowers out of four. So out of season, so cool to have them in bloom just because they happen to feel like it right now.

Meantime. Tonight.

(Nah, couldn’t be.) I kept knitting.  Several people in the shop had already commented on my colorway, and the woman who’d just come out of a class in the back seemed to like my shawl project. Except she kept looking at me, not just–but nah, couldn’t be.

From across the room she was going: (Nah, couldn’t be.) She was talking to Kay about learning to knit shawls. They picked one up off the back of a chair and Kay was explaining how to do its simple dropped-stitch pattern.

Then Kay mentioned my name. I didn’t hear her, but I sure saw the effect.  Suddenly, this woman is bounding over towards me and I’m exclaiming, Are you KATHY?!

Now I don’t have to tell you the hugs that followed: our kids went through school together clear back to kindergarten. Back in the day, the elementary let the older grades out I think 40 minutes after the younger grades, and when you had kids on both sides of that, you learned fast that there needed to be extra adult presence on that playground in between. And so we parents who picked up our kids would sit and chat.

Kathy reminisced over the times I would bring my spinning wheel, and how I’d spun up Cole’s samoyed’s fur. I’d made it into a hair scrunchy for his mom.

(Take a standard covered-elastic hairband. Take yarn and crochet around it until there’s no visible sign of elastic left.  Work it as big and ornate or as tiny and simple as you want.)

And now she’s learning to knit and wants to make a shawl. I think I could help her along the way with any questions, why, yes.  So for Kathy’s sake, here are a few old pictures of projects from my book.

One last thing, just because it tickled me: Richard mentioned tonight what one of his co-workers had told him today–the lady was stopped at a light and heard ducks. A little late in the season for ducklings but you never know and you have to watch out for them, you can’t run over them! Where would the water be that they’d be toddling towards…and so she was looking and looking all over. Where are the ducks! Quackquackquack.

She finally looked up. And there, perched on the wires above the intersection, were several parrots.  Speaking in Duck. (Mari and Kathryn, that’s for you.)

Hey, lady, no Peking!

I got a package in the mail on Friday from my childhood friend Karen of the Water Turtles Shawl.  It turns out Richard was in on what was a total surprise: a kilogram of fawn superfine alpaca on a cone from a place she’d stopped in while visiting her daughter in Maine–a place where local producers sell their output.  Cool!  She thought I might be able to figure out something to do with it.

And you know? I just might. (Thank you, Karen!)

Then that evening Michelle talked about some plans with some friends for the next day, and the easiest way to make it happen was to drop her off in San Francisco and then pick her up from the local train station later.

Note that I mapquested where she wanted to go to Imagiknit and only then back to home again.  My ulterior motives were cheered on by the others.

But I dislike deep-city driving enough that after she got out I decided to bag it after all and just get on the freeway and go. However, while avoiding jaywalkers I missed my street sign and ended up on Market Street and Market Street is a long straight shot west with a whole lot of No Turns signs. You have to juggle constantly between the trolley only/not trolley lanes and I can see why Mapquest dodged it–but it was actually also the most direct route towards exactly where I wanted to go. Finally allowed to turn left? Right where I wanted to.

And wonder of wonders, despite a hugely popular park nearby on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there was an actual parking place a half block up the street from the store. I was so surprised and still so ready to bail for fear of a long walk in sun exposure that I missed it and had to circle the block.

It was still open.

Well, then. Clearly it was meant to be.

I really really wanted to do baby knitting in Malabrigo softness.  And so with the help of Kurt at Imagiknit, I got to see (in person!) their superwash Sock in the Solis colorway that was on the very top shelf without even having to hold the tip of my cane while waving its curve hopefully around way up there in the air trying to snag skeins and scaring the bejeebers out of everyone around me.

There–that skein. That one’s perfect. No yellow splotches, just the greens and blues playing perfectly, that’s the one.  Malabrigo’s super soft superwash worsted-weight Rios yarn (it has a name now!) isn’t officially out till next month–the baby blanket I want to make is waiting for the day…

I talked to Karen. She won’t mind if I do a little superwash knitting first. I’ve got a good excuse.

And so I’ve got a soft Malabrigo hat going on tiny needles for my grandson (and yes, Mari, you’re right, the Saartjes booties to match it are the only way to go.)

It and he are nearly halfway here so far.

I made a second green hat. I had a second skein. Small children do sometimes lose favorite objects. (I could wish his hat is one, at least!) It’s easier to offer a replacement in advance to the Tree Guy for his little boy if it’s already ready to go, so, there you go.

Meantime, Nina came home from a trip to Europe and asked me over today, and when I got there, she described an open-air market where one of the vendors was selling yarn she’d dyed and I think she said raised the sheep, too.  Cool.  Finnsheep. Anyway, she’d bought a bunch of skeins (seeing as how she’s become a fanatical knitter too now) and she asked me to pick out my favorite.

Then when I did, she handed me the second skein of it to make sure I’d have enough for whatever.

I tell you. I was swooning over these colors. Here, let me turn them over for you.  Gorgeous.

I went to bed last night with a new project started.

I’m going to bed tonight with my new project frogged.  Looking at that last bit of strand unstrung, there was a sense of, free at last!

If I can’t get myself to knit on it all day long, if I have to lecture myself to keep going rather than feeling a sense of joy as I bring something never done before into the world, there’s a reason for it. I’ve learned what I needed to learn from it, I know now what that baby alpaca/silk is supposed to come out looking like, and tomorrow, it will.

New beginnings are wonderful things. I can’t wait!

So. I was doodling with this pink silk/cashmere stuff. How to take a six-row pattern and make it into 34 rows long before good sense yells Stop! Nobody’s going to want to keep track of–no, just no. Keep it simple, okay?

Although, it IS really pretty and I like how it worked out. *I* want to knit it again. So maybe. Hmm.

Meantime, Michelle was talking to her friend Natalie, she of the recent hospital bout.

I was having an online conversation with Chan:

The pink is blocking. It’s silky and it’s pretty. Michelle is on the phone with Natalie right now.

(Does she like pink?)

Michelle beats around the bush for me.

“Medium colors.”

(But does she like…pink? –pointing at the thing on the floor drying.

Ah. Michelle tries again.

A big grin erupts as she stands there holding the phone, then a triumphant, “Hypothetically she likes pink!” And then a moment later, “She likes pink scarves!”

Gee, I wonder what happens next?

Michelle picked Natalie up from the hospital today. She’s out.  Yay!

Meantime, replacement to fix this broken dishwasher doorhandle: $23 plus shipping (they sent us the full assembly beyond this part; we were pleased).

Time to take the door apart, remove the broken piece,  replace it and put it all back together: under fifteen minutes. The new handle is better designed.

Time for the $133 electronic panel to arrive next: I’ll know after I place the order. So much for that. But it’ll be even faster to swap out, he says, and it’s quite satisfying to be doing it ourselves.  (We’ll reserve true elation for when the darn thing works.)

Meantime, it’s funny how having something you can’t fix right now makes it feel imperative to work on something you can make do absolutely whatsoever you say–or you will frog its little loops into oblivion, so there.  I am master of the yarniverse. I doodled with some silk/cashmere in a whole new tangent and really really like what it’s turning into, even if it doesn’t look like much yet.

Now, pardon me, our local parts place closed down. PartSelect here I come again. (And if you need a new silverware tray? You want Mending Shed for that.

Run, go, read Sheldon today. “But how do you make knitting sound kick-butt?”  Priceless! (Should we tell Mr. Kellett about walking knitters, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee‘s story about knitting while ice skating and the six-year-old boy who careened off her acrylic into a pack of tween girls trying to look cool?)

I wonder how many people mentioned to the artist that the needles point the other way.  Point them upwards, add a little hand-dyed cashmere and silk, and I think we can answer the duck’s question!

She appeared to be his caretaker. Wife? And honey, she was pretty but she looked tired.

He was maybe in his 40’s, happy as a clam and very extroverted.  He greeted whoever moved and thereby caught his eye: How ya doin’!  He told the woman with him all about the fish in the wall aquarium they were looking at.  I don’t think I ever saw him sit. He was all about being up and lively and chattering away.

It was striking how she seemed patient but resigned. Not upset, more like a mom at the museum stuck with her small child in tow after the babysitter bailed. Because as the minutes went on, watching her watching him, I think I understood–when he turned and saw me looking his way as I reached into my knitting bag to pull another length of yarn, I got a happy, How ya doin’!  too: in the way of a small child, utterly harmless. I got an impression of lack of memory and of a soul distilled to its essence.  Its goodness.

I thought, if you’re going to have a brain injury, a cheerful one seems to me a very good one to have. But I did not ask.

They called his name and he went back for his scan alone while she got a few minutes to herself.

One of the nurses who popped out the door to call off names, the second time I saw her, took a moment to come over and comment on my knitting before disappearing again. Later, she came out again and talked a little more. She mentioned a local yarn store. When I said I’d heard Louise had had a stroke and had sold the shop, she brightened–so I did know the place!– and told me how sweet the new owner was. I confessed to not having been in in awhile; I tend to go to my favorite, Purlescence.

Which was a new one to her. I didn’t think (I was on Benedryl!) to give the context, in case she might be a longtime knitter like me, that it was in the former Carolea’s Knitsche. So I’m writing it here in case she sees this; I gave her my blog addy.

She said something tentatively that–I was sure I heard “Stitches” and it was! Oh yes, I know about Stitches, I signed books there! (Been going since Tess, the namesake of Tess Designer Yarns, was a preschooler, and she’s in her early 20’s now.)

You know what the result of all this is: I couldn’t put down my knitting. I had cast on and done maybe three rows before leaving home, and there I was growing it as fast as possible for showing off.  No reading my Newsweek for a hands break, no way.  Knit knit knit! On this cool idea I’d had a month earlier, when I’d bought the Camelspin at–of course–Purlescence.

I was trying to figure out the details of a new pattern for it while on Benedryl. Dumb, but that’s what motivated me so I did it.  I made it look terribly complicated, counting stitches, running my hands through my hair, tinking back stitch by stitch over and over, wondering why something so easy wasn’t intuitive–DUH! It’s the drug, stupid–making slow progress  anyway.

It’s not finished but it’s a goodly way along and I am very pleased. And very pleased to be nearly done. Post-Pred crash tomorrow and then that is that and it’s a race to see which is completed first.

One other thing: a couple came in and as the woman’s name was called, I looked up as she passed me and I smiled and wished her good luck.  She relaxed at that and smiled too for the first time.  A few minutes later, as she and her sweetheart were leaving, she turned before the doorway and called across the small waiting room to me, “Good luck to you too!”

Totally made my day. And you know? It was that cheerful man before, whom she’d arrived too late to see, who’d set the tone so that I felt comfortable speaking up like that.

Richard left work early to take me home. (To be fair to him, he’d offered to stay with me but hey, he works just up the street anyway.) There was a box waiting at our door.  Who…? The Sibley Guide to Birds and The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, hardback, even, with love from Dad.

My folks had no idea I had been seriously coveting those very books. Those exact ones. I couldn’t justify them, I hadn’t bought them, and now here they are anyway.  Wow.

I tell you. I have the best parents ever. And they have perfect timing.  Speaking of which, and? My friend Debbie, who lives near where my Dad grew up, emailed me pictures yesterday of what she’d seen while birding over the weekend.

Dad? Pelicans in Nevada? You never told me that!