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?

Okay, that last one was an in-joke among hearing aid users.  Those orange tabs are what you pull off the air-activated batteries before putting them in the aids. They made for longer fingernails than I’ll ever have; all my growing up, my piano teacher told me that if I showed up at her house with nails long enough to click on the keyboard, she would cut them or I would. Period.

To this day, long lovely fingernails are a spectator sport.

Meantime, (this is a picture from last summer, sorry I don’t have a newer one, Kris is wearing her Water Turtles shawl) yesterday I got to see Mel and Kris at a show in San Jose–I only went because they were there. You know, pottering around a little bit here and there but mostly spending my time catching up with them; I went in the afternoon when the crowds had died down quite a bit so we could visit and not have me be in the way.

And there’s a great story to it all.  But I can’t tell it yet. I know, I’m so mean…

Dropped the camera the other day, which is why UCSF had to settle for the cell phone.  It seems to be staying dropped.

Anyway.  I ordered some merino/silk/cashmere laceweight yarn recently, two skeins of Plymouth’s new Dye For Me line, looking forward to seeing how the different fibers would create a heathery effect in taking up colors–silk being slowest so it always comes out lightest. I was curious to see if they were so thoroughly carded together you wouldn’t be able to tell, or…?

And yet, when they came, I wanted to ball at least one up immediately.  It was so soft.

No.  Then it’ll be a given it will stay white. I bought this specifically for dyeing.

It nagged me. It begged. It pleaded. Repeatedly.  But it stayed in that hank with its label firmly gripping its racetracked little shape.

Till today, when I realized that the reason I couldn’t find any more Fino was that I’d already knitted it all, and that newbie was doing a singsongy little “Neener neener NEENER, I *toldja* so!”

A little more swatching and that flower lace pattern should be ready for knitting up into the shawl I’m thinking of.  In white.  In softness.  In my hands, and then someone else’s.  Because, after all, you never know who you might run into.  (If it’s meant to be, it will happen.  Knit like crazy, and then, like I told the guy in that line, I’m in no hurry.  I can wait.)

Stumped.

I’ve been stumped all day. Too many ideas, none of them holding still for singling out.

So I wound up a thousand yards of silk. Then another 650 of violet Sea Silk. A skein of dark amethyst Fleece Artist here, a little blue sock yarn over there.  Then I scoured the mill oils out of four hanks of undyed yarn that I’d like to add my own colors to and hung them to dry to be ready for… Pink? Greens and blues?

I felt like I got nothing done, I got a lot done, it just wasn’t actual knitting yet. (And it wasn’t till that Handmaiden Sugar Plum silk was wound and the long lines of deep rose and gold all fused in with the bits of blues and greens that I realized it: I’d bought a small-scale version of Rooster Rock! And of Mardi Gras! Huh.  I guess I wasn’t done with it yet.  Colors are like people: they’re influenced by the ones around them.)

But sometimes the preparations for the work feel like as much work as the work, and yet they are absolutely as necessary.  Even when it feels like they’re only getting in the way. They’re not.

Okay, but I still need a good carry-around project for tomorrow’s big day in San Francisco.  Deadlines–they’re helpful too, definitely. Hopefully… (running away from the computer…)

A little more so-put-on-a-sweater-if-you’re-cold-in-here weather, a little more housework, a little more room readying.  (Don’t mind that Rooster Rock blocking the way on Sam’s floor.)

Looking forward to being able to pick up the kids at the airport next month with a little silliness for my 1111th post: picture from Icanhascheezburger.com but, as the one small person in a tall-person family, the scroll-over caption is totally mine.

The Rooster is rocking on. Slowly but surely, despite a day of a thousand distractions and things needing doing. And by the way, Mr. Stewart? Nice catch.  (Re that link: 1. Fox is unembarrassable. 2. Our President honoring our veterans. 3. The Muppets singing “Ode to Joy” in meep meeps, and a school in Massachusetts that has banned the nefarious word “meep.” Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up.)