The young couple across the street.

The husband showed up on our doorstep about a month ago with the misdelivered birthday box addressed to us of Hawaiian-grown chocolate. It was clear what was inside. We both had a good laugh as I thanked him for being willing to give it up.

A Pod storage unit showed up in their driveway two days ago.

Yesterday evening, I saw her briefly across the street in silhouette: she was!

This morning there was a truck.

I spent too long diving through stash, looking for that perfect skein in my head, sure it must be there, and finally thought, C’mon. Speed. Speed is what matters. Hurry. The undyed (and thankfully already-wound) Rios won, even though my brain was in anything-but-white mode after two months without colors on the needles, and I cast on. It’s more formal anyway, they could use it for more places and to match anything.

The truck with the Soft Air Pac writing (?) left, a different one arrived. Box trucks, both of them, big ones.

I took a break only because my hands demanded it and fed Richard the fastest microwaved lunch I could think of. (Sorry, dear.) I got back to work. It surprised me how long this was taking me. Go go go. You don’t have time to stop. Go.

1:00 pm: I DID IT! I ran the ends in, wrote a quick note of washing instructions and tucked it inside the hat, found a gift bag, and went over there and knocked on their door.

The mover guy opened it with question marks all over his face: who are you and why are you here now of all times?

But she saw me from across the room and her face lit up as she quickly took his place at the door.

Me, stammering: I saw yesterday–pregnant? Are you–? holding out the bag.

Her: Yes! Thirty weeks. It’s a girl!

Me: I didn’t know your tastes, so, y’know, frog? puppy? lace?, so I just made it plain, but I’ve been knitting like crazy since I saw you.

She laughed with so much joy in her face. So much happy anticipation: towards the next two years abroad, towards her daughter, life, everything, made all the sweeter as she looked at that hat all squished up in a ziplock. It wouldn’t take up much room.

She declared it perfect. She said Oh thank you! when I assured her it was superwash wool, so that while it would fuzz out in the laundry, it wouldn’t shrink, even in the dryer. She saw I knew and still remembered what it’s like with a new baby.

She was so glad to see me to say goodbye before they leave on that temporary assignment and the hat just topped it off.

I didn’t keep her but a minute. I knew she had a ton to do.

The moving van pulled away a half hour later.

About three dozen stitches got dropped on both ends of the work when the needle tip simply fell off its cable as I neared the end of the row. See that gray metal down on the left?

Overly slick, pointy enough to draw blood and I was trying to remember the brand name on these needles because I am not a fan. This is why I don’t buy cheap ones (but I did and they were.)

I want to do 66 repeats and I’m on the 63d.

I got everything rescued on another needle and then that was enough. I went outside and gave all the fruit trees their three-minute soak (it used to be five) while spending an hour and a half yanking the meanest of the weeds out by the roots. It felt good.

I still need to go finish that 63d. The day will end right if I know that’s done. Okay, off I go.

Just one more from the museum.

I saw it almost immediately in this rendition of the Tree of Life: the fifth figure from the left. This artist knew breast cancer.

While, here at home: the flowers on the sweet cherry have bloomed to the top now.

The afghan for my niece, the daughter of my late sister-in-law, is coming along; 49″ wide by 40″ long so far, 50/50 cashmere/cotton at a 3/6 weight (size 9s for when I check back later to use up the last of this mill-end.)

Redwoods grow as tall as they do so as to capture the nightly ocean fog on their needles, where it condenses and drips off the tips while some runs down their trunks to the roots below. Which is why they have to be shallow, and why they’re so much at risk in a drought, especially down here in the valley, and why they’re terrible to plant close to buildings.

Volunteers have been replanting redwood seedlings in the parks by the coast where the trees had burned. Will it take a few thousand years to get back to what had been? Yes, which is why they’re getting started.

My long twiggy saplings have the fog dripping down around them in the yarnover spaces.

It took me a moment to grok the thing.

And then I started trying to rescue about twenty stitches: the wooden tip had come clean off the cable when my knitting needle self-destructed as I’d picked my project up.

Huh. I think the last time that happened was a good fifteen or so years ago. I looked at the tiny screw sticking out, thought, well that’s probably stripped, and simply jammed the pieces back together. And they held! For three rows so far.

Didn’t I just buy that longer size 9 needle to work on that afghan? I did. Where did I buy that. It’ll come to me. Always spring for the better-made needles (those weren’t.)

Meantime, the last Anya seedling is suddenly really getting the hang of this sunlight and green and roots thing. Even if it kind of looks from that angle like it’s being devoured by a tick.

It has the usual ribbing at the bottom but I tried it on like this and instantly loved it.

I’m debating whether to create a sunflower to tack onto the blue or whether just to go make another one and do it to that one.

(Yarn: Malabrigo Rios, left over from my ocean afghan.)

So, being curious after last night’s post, I googled Arlo Guthrie today.

Turns out the word “massacree” is actually a word, not just Arlo playing verbal Dr. Seuss.

From Vox: ‘A massacree is a series of absurd events, so the Alice’s Restaurant Movement is against absurdity and in favor of reason. It is against arresting someone for littering and in favor of ending wars.’

Meantime, I’d told my Zoom knitting group last week that I was working on a yellow and blue hat, and everybody thoroughly approved. Then I spent the week feeling like no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn’t knit, between being glued to the news updates and the message from my sister-in-law that she was flying to California in three days to visit a childhood friend who was quite ill and could she come see us?

It wasn’t till the next Zoom meeting tonight that I got back to it. That’s right, I was up to the blue part already, oh good. Knitknitknitknitknit.

At the end, they asked if anyone wanted to show off their work.

It just needed the top decreases. I brought it out from below the camera’s view and onto my head needles and all.

The entire group gasped, it sounded like.

We have all felt like Ukrainians these past two weeks. We can make our support visible to those in our communities who are. I know there are a lot of them in this area.

I imagine there will be more hats like that made in the coming week.

I suddenly realized yesterday that I have a silicone cake pan that I’d wondered a year ago why I’d bought it (BakeDeco was the source.) I mean, it’s nice, but I hadn’t needed another pan, given how much I love my yarn-ball one from the same company.

Wait. It is.

It’s a mold in the shape of a sunflower.

I wanted it done in a day but that didn’t quite happen.

Meantime, Thursday, Richard was driving home from across the Bay when the Check Engine light came on. Nothing seemed wrong with the car otherwise as far as he could tell so he drove it home.

Which is how we found out our mechanic isn’t open on Fridays. We spent three days hoping hard that this would not be the time we would have to be trying to replace the ’07 Prius–not this year.

The cable to the battery was loose. They tightened it. They couldn’t find anything else and that did the job, and sent me off with, If it does it again bring it right back in here.

Somehow, the phrase ‘dodged a bullet’ came to mind and immediately got stomped on hard. No. No we didn’t. Come on.

Speaking of which, if you’d like to support Ukrainian knit designers without their having to ship you anything physically, this site lists several and I just bought several patterns. (I’d tried Ravelry’s ‘Advanced Search by country’ feature and had not found Ukraine listed, though it may well be now.) That gray hat that is the first thing that shows up in Blackbunny Fiber’s link stretches out on the head across its top into a sunflower per the Ravelry pictures. Perfect.

I’ve spent the last two days wishing I had some yellow yarn, but since I never wear yellow I don’t buy it either.

I was thinking about that again this evening as a purple beanie went slowly round and round in my hands during my Zoom knitting meeting as people were talking about the attack on Ukraine: where we could donate. Where we could hope to do the most good from so far away.

Wait.

Moments after it ended, I suddenly remembered back when I bought way more than I used and what a mistake and a waste I’d thought it was at the time (and I gave some of it away) but… I went running to look.

I did still. There you go. The octopus leftovers. That blue, a bit darker in a different dye lot, for the sky, a yellow with a slight peach to it for the sunflower national flower. Superwash merino. I can dive right in after all.

You know if I walk around with their flag on my head a lot of people are going to ask for one.

Let me just finish off the top of that other beanie to get it off my needles and out of the way.

Last night, Richard set the heat to go to 75 at 7:00 a.m. to try to last us the day.

7:30 a.m., I made a tall mug of hot cocoa. I made a second for him. I made a third for me and poured it into a thermos.

8:15, the lights went out.

He took the car into work because he sure couldn’t do it from here.

I put a long piece of scotch tape across the fridge and freezer side-by-side doors to keep me from having a stupid moment borne of 28 years’ habit of opening those particular doors. (On a side note, if I buy a new, prettier fridge with no broken shelf, how will I ever get one that will hold up as long as that one has?)

I started reading a book.

I drank my cocoa, but to no one’s surprise it was near room temperature three hours in.

I opened the thermos. That cocoa was still hot–careful. It was 1 pm. I sipped away as I finished the book. I thought, if that’s been too warm too long to be safe don’t tell me because I’m only being guilty at that for today.

I made progress on the barely-begun new afghan project.

I made progress on organizing a whole bunch of stuff.

I wished I had more hot cocoa.

I wished the city would hurry up and finish with their power upgrade/maintenance work. I thought about how we live a block or so from the infamous Pipeline 132 that blew up that neighborhood in San Bruno so thank you I’d rather utility work got done right rather than in a hurry. I can wait.

I didn’t want to wait.

I wished for takeout.

And then at 4:30, half an hour early, the lights suddenly clicked on oh thank you thank you.

When he finally got through the commute home, we finished off the lemongrass chicken in the fridge to make sure it wouldn’t go bad.

But the last of the milk in there was still cold.

The scotch tape saved the day.

Morning light somehow captures the color best so far.

For my own notes: two strands of dk Cashwool in Mulberry (sold out) from Colourmart, two 900 gram cones with 208 and 162g remaining but that includes 32 grams for the plastic cones they’re wound onto, size 8 needles, 239 stitches per row and could have been wider but with lots of sideways stretch it will definitely do.

Definitely.

The recycled cashmere sweater bought with LLBean Bucks came yesterday and I’ve been wearing it today.

So here goes.

The fit is quite generous, allowing for shrinkage I’m guessing; I would have bought a small rather than a medium had I tried them on in a store, except that the sleeves are inexplicably on the short side. Long enough to work out okay for me personally, though, since my arms are slightly short, too, but it made me not return it to exchange sizes.

I took a close look at the distribution of blue vs white in the heathered yarn: both front and back have slightly more white at upper left. Go figure. Not that anyone’s likely to notice it, though, it’s definitely not much of a difference. Overall, I would say the color distribution is surprisingly good considering the likely randomness the fibers took in getting to that point.

It’s garter stitch, and I’m trying to figure out if that’s why the fabric seems–I want to say more floppy than the usual. I’m not sure how strong the yarn would be if I were knitting it and I’m guessing less so than one straight from the goat.

But it will do. It will definitely do. I like it. I mean, it’s cashmere and the shade of blue turned out to be just what I wanted.

But if I were given a choice between recycled yarn and not (and they generally seem to be close in price on Colourmart) I’m definitely going with the not.

I’ve seen the description “recycled cashmere” in garments for sale, and now in a few yarns at Colourmart. And wondered what processes were meant by that. Is it just the leftover pounds of yarn from a production run, or is it something more? Tell me they don’t shred already processed yarns in the carding machines. Or I guessed maybe they must?

Colourmart decided (not on this particular listing, but here’s an example and it’s on sale) to add a link.

They actually cut up old sweaters? Surely in an automated process and that picture of people holding scissors is for show? There are actually stores that do trade-ins? Where? What about moth damage? They’d have to make sure every stage of such things is eradicated. What about the weak spots that would be left behind in the fibers? Stains? Is this why the recycled sweaters seem to tend to be thicker? To make sure everything’s covered?

And yet the yarns they create all seem nice and even to my eyes.

Well, huh.

LLBean ordered some of this latest trend but given this past year’s shipping issues, got theirs in (if they even did yet) after Christmas.

I have a credit card account in their name that periodically earns me Bean Bucks and I’ve been letting them slowly, slowly accumulate. I’d been thinking I might blow it at the end of the year on a cashmere sweater but they didn’t have any that grabbed me hard enough.

But now they do. Only they’re recycled, even if I think, so far, that I’d rather they were not. They’re not cheap (well, in my case, at an outlay of $12.95 yes they are, never mind) but I’m just curious enough. Plus I happen to like it.

Shipping, they say, commences approximately February 8. Hopefully.

Silicon Valley might call that vaporwear.

Stayed up late talking. Talk to you tomorrow!

Early on in this whole pandemic thing, when everything had been on lockdown and particularly so in our area, the county north of us decided that a customer could buy something online and the shopkeeper could hand it to them outside now. You could have that close a contact, briefly. Youcouldn’t browse, you couldn’t go in, you couldn’t touch their credit card machine, but you could do that.

This is when they were still trying to figure out the details of how covid-19 is spread.

I talked to one of my local shops, saying that what I wanted was two bags of a particular blue Malabrigo Rios that matched so that I would have enough for an afghan. I knew that officially it’s ten skeins per bag equals one dye lot; rumor, though, is that they’re matched up in groups of ten but that the mill produces more than that in each lot. But that’s a rumor.

So.

I wanted twenty skeins. I’ve found matching bags in the past, but I wasn’t going to be able to go in and eyeball anything.

Turns out the whole supply-chain mess meant the shop didn’t have and couldn’t get them in from Malabrigo for months.

But maybe her yarn rep had them on hand, she wondered.

Turns out she did.

Once those were delivered, I swung by the shop, they handed me the bags out on the sidewalk rather than frisbeeing them from, y’know, six social feet away through the car windows and all that and it was so good to see actual human faces again, not to mention old friends.

(Unspoken: Still here. Still here. And you too! Stay that way. Thank you for wearing those masks. Pray those vaccine researchers get their studies finished fast.)

I waited till I got home to see if my initial quick impression was correct. It was.

She’d been so relieved that the two bags matched like her rep had been sure of.

Now, here I interject a quick story about my folks visiting the dye works for a tapestry weaver in France at a time when they decided they needed just a bit more of this one color for their project, so the dyer was asked to create more.

He asked Mom if this and this matched.

She said no, not quite, and why. But no, sorry.

He hadn’t thought it was discernible but since clearly it was, he added just a touch more to the pot. There you go.

So blame it on the genetics. Here I was, staring at those blues, going, but they’re just not quite the same. This one’s more vibrant. This one’s darker. You can put them in all kinds of different lights and it doesn’t change the fact. It’s certainly not a huge difference, but…

So instead of becoming the next big project they’ve sat there for all this time because I can’t use them together unless I separate them by enough other colors and space that the difference might not matter, in which case I would no longer need twenty skeins of Matisse blue because half of the afghan would be something else altogether. Which has had me wondering if I should ask my friends who do diving and photography if they have a particular reef photo I could use, to riff on last year’s fish theme.

I’ve been musing about trying to match the one or the other, but I don’t know if inventories are back up yet.

Here, let me finish this other project first before I worry about it too much.

I just like to know what’s ahead.

I was in a knitting group meeting by Zoom today where they asked everybody, What is the yarn that you’ve been hoarding and not knitting that you most love?

I told them that Colourmart had some heavy laceweight 150g 98/2 extra fine merino/vicuna yarn that was really nice stuff, but that every now and then–twice that I know of–they’d popped up a few cones of some with 7% vicuna content. It’s cobweb weight but it sells out fast.

So, having knit two 7% cowls, one for me and one for a friend and swooning at every stitch–nice stuff!–I’d been stalking the site to see if any more showed up, y’know, like during an inventory check or something. For months. (This is after I’d plied it on my wheel and sworn I’d never do that part again–I should have paid the five bucks for them to do that on their machinery. Cobweb weight is super fiddly to get right when you can’t see what you’re doing because it’s black and my spinning was wonky, although in the finished cowls, who could tell. Or care. So soft!)

Suddenly one day there was this one single cone of not seven but 10%, and not only 10% but it was blended with extrafine cashmere. No sheep.

I ticked the ply box and picked a number: twelve strands, the maximum, for a thicker yarn to work with. $55 total for 5.29 mill-end ounces, when pure vicuna retails for $300/ounce.

As one of my friends described it later, I bought it so fast I showed speed streaks.

It’s black, of course, which my eyes would rather knit later rather than now, but the thing that’s actually holding me back is that there’s only the one cone. When it’s gone there may never be another. How would I risk letting anyone feel left out of receiving the one best thing, and how on earth would I choose who should get it?