Rachel is moving to Maine (note that that is farther from here than Barrow at the tippy-top of Alaska. I checked), and only because I don’t have any say in it. But then her dad–okay, so, she’s allowed.

She had some time to stop by today.

I pulled two things out of an overstuffed bag and then shook out the rest, saying they were my back-up plan, but she’d already picked up the baby alpaca cowl. She did a double take at how much softer it was than even what one would expect out of such a fiber. Didn’t even look over the others, this was it.

The hat, too–they’re a set.

The hat?

I told her they were in memory of the qiviut she’d spun up for me back when my fingers couldn’t feel to spin that fine a fiber with any justice. I’d told her not to give it back; she’d given it back.

We were both really glad of that after it went to a high school friend of mine as a small but very warm scarf after he was paralyzed when a car hit his bike. Grateful to be able to do something. Grateful to each other for making it so we could.

I am so going to miss her.

So, off to another friend’s for her and church for me.

A burgundy cashmere cowl (not in the picture) was exactly the favorite of… The pink pearl was worn proudly throughout by…

We had a linger longer after church, a potluck (with the desserts on a table set on blocks to raise it and keep the littlests from devouring only sugar. I was much amused.)

I found the husband of the one I’d knitted the silk for, a couple that’s only been here a few months and whose name (his I mean) I don’t think I actually know yet: is B here?

She’s out of town, he half-apologized.

Oh. Could you do me a favor?

Sure!

Could you give this to her for me?

And in that moment I was given the great privilege of seeing how much that man loved his wife. Wow.

At the last, I found…

That large smalt-colored cashmere/cotton cowl I’d worked on Friday and all day Saturday? When I got up this morning it was a beautiful thing, and still a little damp. I hairdryered it. I felt, with a good night’s sleep between finishing it and seeing it finished, that I would be disappointed somehow if it didn’t go to her. Sure, I could knit her other things later: but this knew where it wanted to be.

I asked her if she liked this color, then reached into the bag and pulled it out.

“That is a beautiful color!” she gasped. And on her, it very much was. It was perfect. It had been worth every stitch.

I came home and eyed that butterscotch baby alpaca that had been sitting in my stash for ten years until this morning, when it had leaped onto my needles and cast itself on. I considered taking it off and frogging out that tiny little bit and picking up something more my color.

Which is why the first of the two 110-yard skeins has now transmogrified itself into fern motifs. Butterscotch it is.

When I let the yarn be the boss of me, someone out there always wins. I do, too.

A few mild days and nights and suddenly there are baby figs (that’s two there, with a leaf whorl at the top) and more Indian Free peach blossoms. (Just noticing–the copper tape needs fixing. It does work at keeping the snails and slugs from eating the fruit tree flowers at night, but only when it goes all the way around.)

I had a cowl I’d started yesterday that I wanted done. I would describe it as densely spun almost more like a sock weight, 66/34 cashmere/cotton (mine was the smalt blue) that I wound off into two 75+ gram balls a few months ago.

Straight from the cone without scouring first. I’d forgotten that. That was a mistake. I believe in letting me enjoy the yarn as much as the person who gets it, but this time with the dried-hair-mousse effect still there, let’s just say it accentuated the knitting-with-cotton aspect.

The wooden circular needles did not want those stitches to slide across (after all, the whole purpose of that coating is to keep fibers together in the spinning process), and when I tried to change to a smoother pair I found my others that said 4mm were, but the one in my hands was more like a 4.2–they didn’t match up and I was stuck with it. At least I’d cast on doubled to speed things up.

I started at 10:30 this morning. Other than a load of laundry, heating leftovers, icing my hands, and a quick run to the grocery store, I basically knit all day long, breaking the yarn at long last at 8:40 p.m.  Done.

After all that angst and those short circs, I finally got to try it on in its crumpled-tin-foil stage of the lace.

Oh. Blink. That’s why I did this. This is actually gorgeous. Who’d have thought.

Almost crowded out by the thought of I DID IT AND I NEVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN!

It is soaking those oils out in the suds and will be luscious and soft. Or at least softer. Tomorrow I will simply totally love it.

Whether I’ll be ready to give it up immediately after all that is another story whose ending I quite honestly don’t know yet. Let me look at it in the morning. That vividness is not quite my shade of blue. Close, though.

Done. It stretches sideways easily and will adapt to anywhere it gets put in there.

The people in my South Bay knitting group were knitting a memory blanket for one of their oldest members, who has Parkinson’s with dementia these days, and did I want to knit her a 12″ square?

I hadn’t made it to one of their evening meetings in over three years and I hadn’t heard the news. Vera had knitted a very nice square for a blanket they had all made for me a dozen years ago, and yes, absolutely.

She likes bright oranges, pinks, reds, cream–I knew poppies were her favorite flower.

I went to Cottage Yarns looking for something in machine washable worsted weight and came home with something I liked but that I couldn’t persuade myself in the end would quite be her favorite. I just hadn’t found what I was looking for. I was stumped.

I found something wonderful at Stitches, but oh of course, it needs to be machine washable. That’s not.

There’s nothing like putting the fear of deadlines into you, though, so when I got asked a couple of days ago if I could get mine to the person piecing the squares, I did a deep stash dive after putting down that silk last night.

And lo and behold: I remembered those two sock yarns–I knitted them together to make a hat for…and it all came back to me. Did I still have enough? I weighed them. I was sure/almost-sure I did.

One strand was Lisa Souza’s bright Earth Birth colorway in merino, the other some other hand-dyer’s merino/tencel.

I remembered Vera once approaching me in great excitement years ago when I showed up, complimenting me on my new blouse: “Is that Tencel?”

“No, silk.”

She was confused. That was not the answer she was anticipating, so she asked me again, with less certainty: “Is that Tencel?” Because she had been knitting some Tencel yarns and loved them and she was clearly excited for me.

I had to explain that no, it was (just) silk.

I’m sure she doesn’t remember that. But I do, and here was a bit of that fiber she loved, and I could make it make flowers. One could even claim poppies. She may not see nor recognize them in the swirl of colors, but she will have the warmth and love from all of her old knitting friends to wrap around her, with a photo of each of us holding our squares to help her hold onto those connections as long as possible.

I knitted for three+ hours, rinsed it, spun it out in the machine, put it on a pillow with a clean white pillowcase and hairdryered the heck out of it and delivered it to Green Planet Yarns, where the person doing the piecing works.

Driving away from there, I was so very glad–and relieved–that I’d been part of that. I marveled at how I’d almost thought, and in reality for several weeks did think even if I wasn’t admitting it to myself that I was too busy to get around to actually doing it just then: the stash diving, the knitting, the measuring, the designing, choosing every variable involved and then getting it done.

But what else is life for but to be there exactly when someone needs you. Not just when it’s easy to pitch in. I just made it.

Maria in the comments was right. I picked out that colorway at Stitches specifically to match a sweater I’d seen a friend wearing (that I thought was wool) but before I even pulled it out of my bag I asked her if she was allergic to wool–and she said she was.

“But I’m not allergic to cashmere.”

I laughed. I did indeed have some, albeit in limited colors. What was her preference? She was at the head of my list.

So that freed that cowl up, she never even saw it, and across the room was someone who had moved into town two weeks ago. It is never easy to  have to start from scratch on making friends in a new place, so hey, maybe we could speed up the process. I went over and introduced myself (church having just ended) and said I’d spent last weekend at a big knitters’ convention having the time of my life, and so–“Are you allergic to wool?”

That was the last question on earth she would have expected from a complete stranger and she laughed, “No?” with a question mark.

“I think this would match your jacket–if you want, and if not tell me your favorite color.” And I pulled the cowl out.

Sharp intake of breath: “I LOVE it!” She put it on and petted it, gobsmacked and very very happy.

She just made a hundred more knits happen for other people. Just watch.

I’ll try to get a picture tomorrow.

There was an older woman at Stitches selling 76 gram 200 yard skeins of three plies that she’d clearly plied herself: because one was 85/15 cashmere/silk, one was silk, and the last one embedded in there was a strand of mylar/nylon sparkle.

And that sparkle yarn had hundreds of matching cobalt-blue glass beads strung along it.

She had done that stringing herself.

And she was selling those skeins for $18.

I bought just one, and told her I knew I would regret that. Which I do. I was in Stitches overload and sparkly isn’t usually personally my thing but even then I knew I would wish for more of this stuff. It was very striking. I asked the woman if she sold them online and her response was, no, because she can never keep up.

I went looking today out of sheer curiosity and found lesser amounts of wool beaded in villages in India for three times the price and a beaded cashmere yarn for $74 for, again, less yarn, and realized that my take that the lady at Stitches was seriously undervaluing her time and product was definitely an understatement.

So here I was today, not thinking of that at all but rather of a friend who sings semi-professionally and who loves a good formal dress for a performance. She wore a striking new cobalt-blue one to church yesterday. She is a profoundly kind human being and I told her a week or two ago that I wanted to be like her when I grow up.

She laughed in surprise and told me I had that backwards.

Yesterday, though, she opened up a little to me about how hard this parenting three small children thing was being just then. I sympathized; I told her of when my two-year-old had danced to make the four-month-old giggle, had suddenly stopped, pulled back her foot and kicked him hard in the face just to see what would happen.

Mommy grabbing her shoulders and screaming, NO!!! in her face as the baby screamed hysterically is what happened. Trust me, they’re good friends now.

So here I was today, thinking of her needing a hug and a you’ve-got-this, winding a skein of superwash wool to match that dress: practical, soft, and one less thing for her to stress over. And I sat down to cast it on.

I only got to about four stitches. The wool just refused.

But with little kids and a baby surely that’s what she needs, and it’s the right color….!

I looked up mid-self-argument and saw that beaded yarn.

Sometimes it feels great to be more than just the mom.

Instantly I knew why, in all the time I’ve known Becca, I’ve never yet made her a cowl. It was because her yarn hadn’t existed yet, and I didn’t know that, but now it does and it is perfect. Nobody else will have one like it, and that’s okay: nobody else does what she does.

I sent a note in thanks to the woman who’d strung those beads and she was very pleased.

I’ve got the stitch count. I’ve got the first row. I just have to get past the feeling that I only have just this one chance to knit this gorgeous yarn right–and that after that I may never get to again.

There was a young mom with her infant in a front pack, her adorable young toddler whose legs still wobbled occasionally, and a friend to walk the aisles with her at Stitches to help keep a second pair of eyes on him.

And suddenly there was a finger puppet, because in that crowded venue among so many strangers it was something he was going to need. Something wooly and bright and soft of his own.

His mommy had him waving thank you for it.

I smiled a been there at the women and got out of their way.

So here I was an hour or so later suddenly realizing that they were coming at me from a side aisle–and that that little boy, not yet old enough to talk (or at least not among lots of strangers) had seen me before I’d seen him, because I didn’t notice him till just as his hands moved at the basket on my scooter, having gotten ahead of the grown-ups at seeing me.

He had grabbed a quite-small skein of light pink exquisite softness his mommy had just bought and was stuffing it in on top of my Neighborhood Fiber skeins: clearly that was where I wanted my yarns to go. I didn’t see the label and don’t know what it was but it was clearly the good stuff.

That was one of the best thank-you presents I have ever been given.

His mom suddenly saw and was apologizing to me but clearly also delighted at the graciousness of his intent and we were both very proud of him. I thanked him.

And handed it back to her.

He wanted to fix that and do right by me–didn’t we understand? His mom and I both laughed with love and gently insisted it needed to stay with her. But to make sure he knew he wasn’t being scolded nor his gift rejected but rather, praise had been earned, I thanked him again for the lovely gift.

He is going to be a good man when he grows up.

First, a side note: my phone died. Anybody trying to text to meet up with me tomorrow at Stitches, we’re going to try a different charger tonight and see if that does it.

Meantime, one of the first booths you see as you go in the door at Stitches (turn right) is Buffalo Wool Company‘s.

Where, last year, Ron Miskin said to me in surprise, I didn’t know you wrote a book!

Just like that they had a copy. Funny how that works.

I had just bought a skein of their buffalo silk yarn and suddenly he grabbed a twin to it and put it in my basket. I protested that that wasn’t a fair trade for them, and he grinned an oh well! at me.

So today. I go in there, and I say, I’m bringing some yarn back; it just didn’t work for me. I hope they didn’t mind if it was slightly used.

He was catching on…

I was pulling the cowl out…

I forget if I said happy birthday or merry Christmas–I try to say the first these days, it’s universally applicable–and had fun watching him be blown away. Theresa, busy with another customer for part of that, tried it on and loved it. She asked about the pattern; I said it was a doodle.

I told them how much I had regretted having restocked my husband’s socks supply with (bignamebrand) supposedly washable merino socks, and how much some of them had shrunk and some had had elastic threads tear out even though I handwashed them (I spin them out in the machine). I’d then bought two of their buffal0/merino socks–and they were soft and got softer with washing, they didn’t shrink, they held up, they are fabulous socks and I am not buying my husband anything else from here on out.

Do you live where it’s cold? he asked.

Right up the freeway, actually, but we’ve been to Alaska several times now with a baby grandson there. And we talked a little about that airport vending machine that had made me guffaw–perfect product placement!

Now, I should have guessed what Ron was going to do next. He grabbed a pair and put it in the scooter’s basket.

I protested and he grinned.

I debated a moment while he helped someone else, and then admitted that I have 6.5 feet (even if EE) and my husband’s a 13 and I was afraid neither of us could wear his size large.

So he grabbed more expensive versions–two, no less, one for Richard and one for me, and when I tried to tell him he couldn’t do that he grinned something along the lines of, try to stop me.

You know I can’t get ahead of them.

But we’re having fun trying.

Finished that cowl.

Found a rental scooter. (The batteries on mine are fine, the scooter, not so much. Props to Richard for asking me to check it out a week ago, not so much to me for not doing so till last night.) The rental is the 2018 version of mine right down to the color so the controls are very familiar to me. Its basket is noticeably smaller, though–clearly its designer was not comprehending the Stitches yarns concept.

Tried to clear up space on my phone so I can start taking pictures again.

Got sent this one from my daughter’s.

I put down the afghan and came over to the computer to try to figure out what to write about tonight and an email had just come in: Jerry and Vivian, with her saying she’d stolen one of his hats for the picture that they were posing for.

With the most radiant smiles.

I tell you.

I described to them what Stitches West was, that it was this coming weekend, and to let me know what colors or fibers they’d like next and I’d be right on it. And I wished they could see how big the smile was on my face too right now.

Someone dear to me had a co-worker she knew was abusive and a liar and she was not at all sorry to hear that he’d quit.

Except maybe that’s not exactly what had happened.

Everybody was suddenly ordered to go take the rest of the day off, go somewhere nice, out, enjoy.

In the middle of our deadline?

Them: (Clear. The. Building.)

When you crawl fast pushing an upside-down paper plate across a wooden floor, it makes a deeply satisfying amount of raspy noise.

My friend Karen dropped by today to pick up the amaryllis I’d promised her (thank you, Dad!) and we ended up chatting awhile.

One of the things she told me was something that in 30 years I’d never known about her: that her family had had an older neighbor who’d never married and had no family around and they with their seven sons had just kind of adopted him as their local grandpa and he loved it. They had had him over for dinner at least once a month for forever and made him theirs.

When he could no longer care for himself and needed to go to a memory care unit, they helped him with that move. He’s 96 now.

She was talking to someone who worked at the nursing home and that is how she found out that the residents got fruit for dessert: but no chocolate. Never chocolate. There was just no reason for it in the caretakers’ eyes, I suppose, nor for the expense.

“Not even, like, brownies?”

Nope.

Well that was definitely something she could do something about–she knew how much he loved the stuff and went to his room and asked him if he’d like some chocolate.

Now, he might have some dementia but he remembered chocolate. Definitely yes. Yes please!

So now she has something she know she can do to cheer him up, to connect to him wherever he may be in there, every time she comes.

And I thought I would pass the good word along. If you don’t know how to visit or what to say to someone in a nursing home–bring them chocolate.

And if it’s ever me in there, dark would be great, thanks.

As of just now there is a second soft, washable wool beanie (Bobby Blue to go with the previous Stonechat brown mix) to mail to my friend with the massive skull scar curving widely from the top of his head and halfway down  in front of his ear. The good news is that it was a slow tumor, and there are treatments in trials for curing it. They couldn’t get it all, but they believe they bought him plenty of time before they have to face it again and there is great cause for hope. Thank you for all your prayers and good thoughts Jerry’s way.

The best news is that he feels completely himself again with it gone, and that was no sure thing going in.

(Note to self: Malabrigo Rios, size US6 needles for the body of the hat, 80 stitches was the right number in stockinette. I considered doing cables but thought, nah, he doesn’t need the extra warmth where he lives. He just needs not to look quite so Star Wars bar scene-ish while his incision line gradually recedes.)

I almost missed it. There was the most stunning sunset going on, deep pink and blue streaks as far as the eye could see from right to left and up to down. I walked out the front door to see if it reached clear to the east as well.

Which it did. But more importantly, an older neighbor was out front as well and I went over to say hi; I don’t get to as often as I’d like.

Turns out it was a day when things were going a little rough for her medically, and though she’s not one to complain, today she just needed a listening ear. But first she told me, It IS a beautiful sunset! And that set the tone.

Her triplet grandchildren are in college already?! How on earth did THAT happen?

She laughed: I know, right? Then she told me the suddenness of the empty nest was an adjustment for her daughter-in-law. “She’s a *good* mother.” A few minutes later she said it again, wanting me to know just how much she thought the world of the woman her son had married.

I’d caught her between her car and her front door, which when she went through a few minutes later, she no longer felt so alone.

And all because Someone had nudged me: Hey. You. Look at this sky I made–no, no, go, Look.

The unseen unnamed people who bought the house down the street have been re-landscaping it, and one of the things they did was to plant some plants in a tight row in front of what I assume is a bedroom window, about ten of them and all about two feet apart. So that the spaces between will fill in nice and densely.

With redwood trees. I did quite the double take. Redwood trees?! Under the eaves of the house, no less. Okay, they’re pretty and maybe you guys are new to California but didn’t you at least google the name on all those tags?!