I went to knit night determined to finally finish that baby hat. Which I did. But when I pulled it out of my bag, I got asked point-blank if it was for Jasmin‘s baby.

Yes it is.

Good time, good LYS, good friends, good yarn, and now it is done. (No, no picture, I have to keep some surprises, you guys!)

Meantime, if you have a moment: Lene has written a powerful post that is being voted on for a best blog post award in Canada, and it would help her in her effort to raise the profile of disability and access issues if it were to win; one-time voting goes till Jan 20 here if you are so inclined.

A side note first in case someone out there needs to read this: last summer I started to make a chemo cap out of a bright white corn-based ribbon yarn, thinking it would go with everything for the recipient and not be itchy.

A few rows into it and it looked like I was knitting a great big garish hospital bandage to plunk on their head. I ditched it.

Today: I had to return something to Lands End. Rather than pay return postage, I looked up where there was a Sears store accepting such. Turned out I could drive south to a mall that I knew required a too-long walk in the sunlight to park, or I could go to the one in San Bruno.

You know, the one just a few streets away from Cottage Yarns. The fact that I’d knitted six projects in seven days, five from skeins I’d just bought there, needed showing off anyway.

The Sears parking turned out to be two car lanes’ width from the door, much safer for my lupus. Bonus.

I’d offered Richard to come with me to keep me out of trouble. (He’s on semi-vacation.) But no; returns and yarn just weren’t his thing.

When I was at the Cottage last Saturday, I bought a single, cautious skein of cotton/modal/I think it had some silk in it too, where’s that ball band, and knit a chemo cap out of it. My hands did much better than I expected; cotton and I are not friends, but I got it done by the end of that day with only minimal soreness.

So, back to the Cottage–only this time, knowing a little more now about gauge and effect in that kind of yarn and what needle size I could use, I took a more serious look at the Sublime Bamboo and Pearls. Again, not knowing the particular yarn yet, I bought just one skein to test.

I’m late blogging tonight because I could not put it down. 70/30 “Viscose from bamboo and viscose from pearls.” So soft! Shiny, just slippery enough to tamp down the effect of inelasticity from the celluloid bamboo, it just poured through my hands like water over pearls. It’s made of many strands but, being rounded well and with my sharpish Holz and Steins, it hasn’t been splitty.

But what surprised me, apart from the fact that it was almost as easy as wool to work with, was the warmth from the strand that suddenly caught my attention in my cool house. Cotton feels cold. I did not expect warmth. I don’t quite understand it; I can only guess the oyster is designed to stay comfortable in its ocean. That 30%, I am guessing, would have been made from what they shaved off the pearls to make them round for market. Purls from pearls knitted on needles of leftover wood from making musical instruments. It danced in my hands.

Kathryn was unexpectedly away taking care of her mom; I did get to show off to her husband, who loved the knits, but not her yet. They had more Sublime colors, you know…

I think I’m in trouble now.

Hey, Purl Girls: the Eco Cloud bought at Purlescence yesterday? It fits Richard (he remarked on how good he was being for trying it on three times) and it’s done.

Hey, Kathryn: that Ella Rae Silkience that you said this afternoon was the softest thing in stock in its genre? The pattern, which I made up, guessing as I stitched, is now written down because it came out perfect and I very much want to be able to do that again without wondering what I did. It’s done.

This Christmas knitting thing might be achievable after all.

Coming home from Thanksgiving last night, I mentioned that Purlescence was having their traditional Jammie Jam Black Friday sale starting at 6 am–the only Black Friday store I have ever ventured into but once for as far back as I can remember. (And that once involved tall daughters and malls but at least at reasonable hours.)

Richard, knowing that my blood pressure tends to be way low if I make myself get going way early in the morning, immediately offered to drive me there then if I should need it.

Now, he likes to sleep in as much as I do on a holiday, and he knows I don’t need any more yarn. Mostly. I was very surprised–and then in a flashdance of figures in my head, 40% off the first hour, then 30%, then 20%, I figured out roughly per skein of potential Epiphany vs how the prices would rise as the sun did what the difference would be. I assured him that a, I had no intention of going at six-crazy-a.m., and b, even if I wanted to, the difference in price would come to so few dollars, and I would gladly pay that to be able to sleep in.

But my goodness, I’ve got me a good one.

I did head over there in the afternoon (after the Purl Girls Facebooked that hey, Alison, we’ve got some Epiphany left…) But there was only the taupe-purpley color having the cubespace all to themselves now. Pass. But what I really wanted, what justified the trip, would have been a yarn I don’t have but neither did they: something that would work well for another chemo cap for my mother-in-law.

Struck out. But someone else’s project from an Eco Cloud skein as consolation prize is humming along nicely.

Thank goodness Purlescence on Tuesday still had a few skeins left of the very lovely but discontinued Epiphany (royal baby alpaca/cashmere/silk) when I needed one in a particular color–from an early mill run, too, before production issues got it shut down. (Look for the 60/20/20.)

Speaking of which… It suddenly hit me as I pulled out of the post office: darn, I was going to snap pictures of that, I was going to count rows and make sure I had what I’d done written down right. I’ve made various iterations of that particular pattern, enjoying them all, trying to improve on it before I put it out for publication, but I’ve never made one quite exactly like that one and I liked it the best of all: the elusive perfection, or about as close as yarn and needles can come, and now it’s on its way to where it needs to be and the recipients will simply forever have a one of a kind.

I like that.

There was a larger crowd than usual tonight. People turned out; I think we all had an extra need for that sense of community. I got to hold a two-week-old baby wearing the tiniest, finest little handknit socks, to see (among others) a friend who’s been away at grad school, another who’s almost done with her cancer therapy whose presence I have so keenly missed.

She was wearing a pretty handdyed hat knitted by Kelli. Kelli hasn’t been able to knit for I think a year due to severe inflammation in her hands. But. She wanted to do that for her anyway, and so there it was.

Richard explained a little more today about yesterday’s having been weird: there had been reverse-911 robocalls to the Cupertino/Sunnyvale area, so the daycares knew before the school officials had arrived to find out; thus there were a lot of them that simply shut down before the workday started. (Note: the man was found this morning, and he died in a shootout with the police without the loss of any more lives other than his own.)

And so, in the midst of the grief and scare and loss of the day, small children were at the office doing small-child type things: being cute, running around, playing, finding joy in each other’s company and charming everybody while keeping Important Things from getting done, no doubt. New things to explore! New faces to meet! Cool!

And then tonight at Purlescence, surrounded by my friends, I got to hold one of the newest of the new.

I had an obstetrician a goodly while ago who had a poster set prominently in his waiting room, so that it was the first thing you saw when you entered his office suite: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”

With a random August picture of Parker thrown in.

There were maybe three times today all day when a small random flock–finches, towhees, titmice, juncos–flew in and grabbed a snack, quick, and scrambled out of sight.

It was very odd to have it so still out there. Even the squirrels barely showed, and when they did their behavior was very subdued: Don’t squirt me bro!

I didn’t see the hawks, but I have no doubt they were seeing me.

I had things to get done. Two packages to get off, one with the four hats going off to Vermont for flood relief, a card tucked inside each with a quick note of what yarns it was made of, who dyed the one from Vermont, and that Judy Sumner had given me it; I wanted to convey a sense of we’re all in this thing together. (I tucked in a few soft sweaters, too.) And this time I insured it.  Because…

I went home after talking to the postal clerk and found an actual place on the USPS website where I could send a message saying, this is the tracking number, this is the date sent, and a Kid Seta and cashmere Rabbit Tracks scarf in red disappeared after Aug 30 on its way to Germany to a recently-retired Army vet who served in Afghanistan. (I wanted them to feel a sense of responsibility to honor one who has given and served much; I certainly do.)

I went to Purlescence tonight, got to see Jasmin and Gigi and a whole bunch of people and talk and listen and soak in the yarny essence of everything and just in case, looked and found a pretty close match on the Kid Seta. I’ve got more of the laceweight cashmere. But the hesitance was in the thought, if I don’t buy it the original will show up, right? Just a little more hope a little longer.

At one point, Kay walked around the room handing out copies of Piecework Magazine’s new Knitting Traditions issue. We were all thumbing through it, reading it, admiring things in it, when Kay, who had by then sat down and was doing likewise, exclaimed suddenly, “Ohmygosh! That’s Ruth!” (She may have said “Ruth’s” with me missing the s.)

Wait, what? I didn’t see any pictures of…

Sandi (sitting on floor, left and front) came over and apologized for having forgotten to tell her it was in there:  Ava Coleman had an article in there on christening gowns, and as an example showed the beautiful lace gown she had knit for her granddaughter.

Ava happens to be Sandi’s mom (correction and thank you Kathy: her former mother-in-law–I knew that… It’s just that she’s the only mom to Sandi I’ve ever known, and they’re such a natural fit of caring, talented, knitterly people.)

Now I got it: that wasn’t someone’s following the same pattern as… That WAS Ruth’s!

My daughter in Vermont is fine, but after looking around at the videos people shot and posted here, I was going, wow. It’s almost like they had an inland tsunami. Given the 11″ of rain they had, the mountains everywhere, the already-saturated ground and the fact that the people mostly live in the valley areas…

We drove through some of the state two years ago. It’s a lovely, lovely place of fog and pine and views and people who look out for each other and, according to Mr. Ben and Mr. Jerry, colorful cows.

I hope Jill’s shop came out of it okay, but more importantly Jill and everyone else out there.

Meanwhile, we have the much tamer whirlwind here of getting Michelle ready to go back out to grad school. Ordinary life. It’s a blessed thing to be able to have.

I don’t know whom to thank, so thank you to all of you out there.

I was at Purlescence tonight when Nathania got that sneaky grin thing happening again: she was clearly very very pleased at what was just about to happen and at the fact that I had no idea. And then she got to watch my face go: But, but—!

Totally nonpsychodegradeable. Wow.

Now, I just looked back through my posts–when I talked about that shawlette start that needed to be frogged? The one that the color had been so perfect, but the texture, not so much? That got me to grab the Whales Road Malabrigo for the softness? (That project’s now at the stage where I could either cast off the very next thing or maybe continue for one more repeat.)

Somebody… Nathania said, “I know nothing. I don’t know who, I don’t know how, I don’t know when it was put in this basket to wait for you.” (I would not be surprised if the other owners of Purlescence conspired to keep it that way till after she’d given it to me.)

But my name was written on a skein of Madeleine Tosh fingering weight she was lifting out of that basket to hand to me.

The same weight as the sock yarn I’d deemed too strong a twist, designed to withstand sockitude, not quiet shawlitude.

So soft.

The very same color.

I never blogged the color that was so perfect but that the yarn just hadn’t worked for what I’d wanted. But someone nailed it.

I’ve never in my life bought a skein of Madeline Tosh; I’ve picked up many of them, petted them, then put them regretfully back, thinking, next time maybe.

And now I have some MadTosh softness at last.  I love that their website has a little image of a bird up by their URL. I love the Cousteau name for the color. I love the yarn. I love the thoughtfulness and the generosity and the challenge to try to live up to that. Thank you whoever you are, thank you all of you, thank you Universe and thank you Purlescence for enabling the culprit, and with so much happiness.

Wow.

Purlescence closed for a week to move to their new digs–a few doorways to the left from the old, a bigger space. They put in new wood floors. They puzzled over how to get the tall yarn cubes out of the old shop, those having been assembled inside for the original Carolea’s Knitsch decades ago.

Today was the grand reopening celebration, but they just didn’t need my nagging bit of sore throat.

So I decided to celebrate in spirit: I found some Kid Seta I’d bought from them and thought about starting something with it. But I have some knuckle inflammation going on, it was a bit hard for my hands to hold that fine a strand.

I pulled out a skein of very thin cashmere that had stumped me when it had arrived from an online purchase.  The color. Brilliant red on the orange side? Not so much here. That fine a laceweight would take a lot of time to use up a color that didn’t do it for me.

The Kid Seta was a muted red with the silk shimmering lighter, rather pinkish against the fuzzies.

Put those two balls side by side (the nighttime photo doesn’t capture it), and my first thought was, Nah, they fight…

But wait. Colors affect how the one next to them is perceived, they’re like humans that way, maybe they just need to be closer together. I cast on. I knitted. It lagged and got interrupted at first as I wasn’t sure, and then the further along it got the more I liked it till it was hard to put down and suddenly I was 26″ into the thing.

And it is gorgeous! Who knew?

Quick, tell Congress: the differences blending together are what make it come out so pretty.

(Pattern: Rabbit Tracks with an extra stitch each side as there should be.)

Okay, I can tell you a little background here, but but but it doesn’t follow that–I mean– ! I absolutely in no way deserve anything remotely approaching this.

Several weeks ago, as I’ve mentioned, my friend Robin was visiting from my hometown along with her close knitting friend Kunmi. We went to Coupa Cafe for the world’s best hot cocoa, we hung out a bit although not anywhere near enough, we had a grand time with what time we were able to have together, and I adored Kunmi on the spot and immediately saw why they were so close. And Robin is a peach.

Kunmi wished out loud that she could find a copy of my book. I exclaimed, Oh hey, I’ll give you one!

And so one went into the mail chasing their airplane home the next day, because Richard rightly insisted that night that I was just too tired to safely drive back over there.

And I didn’t go to Purlescence last night because I was just too tired to safely drive over there.

I got an email from Nathania, one of the owners, that was just enough of a hint that I had to today, though, and see what was up, if anything; besides, I needed my Purl Girls time.

After I got there, Sandi, another of the owners, mentioned that the Epiphany had arrived.  She knew I’d been waiting for it, although I thought I had till Fall to save up for it because that’s when I’d been told months ago Cascade was likely going to expand their color lineup of it.

This red, sold out in the shop for months, is it: the royal baby alpaca/cashmere/silk blend that I so adore, that I splurged and made an offwhite shawl out of recently, guessing the recipient would love all that softness too.

“They’ve discontinued it.”

They’ve WHAT?!

Sandi nodded, “I know,” and explained that the cost of the cashmere and silk fibers had risen so much in the past year that Cascade had decided they couldn’t sell it at a reasonable price anymore. She pointed out that the 60/20/20 had become 72/15 silk/13  for this one last mill run–“and when that’s gone that’s that.”

There sat the new bag of maroony red I’d been waiting so long for, while hoping maybe a good non-muddy teal green might come out too. (Nope.) The price of a whole shawl’s worth right now, budget-wise, much less coming out their door with more than that…  But–this was the last of it… ! Half the bag of the blue was already walking off with another customer on the spot; she’d knitted this stuff before, she knew what it was too.

Just then, Nathania sauntered over with a not-successfully-suppressed grin on her face. An envelope suddenly appeared with my name on it.

What’s this about? I opened it. Inside, a card that on one side simply said Purlescence with a pretty picture of yarns. I turned it over…

A gift certificate for, oh my stars, one hundred mind-blowing dollars. With love from Robin and Kunmi.

On the day that coveted yarn came in. There’s my shawl’s worth and then some.

I…I… I am still just totally, utterly blown away.  *THANK* you, Robin and Kunmi!!!

The baby peregrines at City Hall have discovered that it’s fun to sit on the lower ledge and watch the world go by, and now they’ve started flapping their wings up there, not willing to just sit and stare anymore.  Their white fluffy down is almost gone. They’re not quite ready to fly, but it is possible to get caught up and over by a burst of wind doing that–it happened a few years ago.

Somehow, though, (watching one step around his brother by holding onto the outer edge) birds just don’t seem to be very afraid of heights.

Meantime, my friend Karen of the Water Turtles shawl fame (OOP but Purlescence has copies) was told by her neighbor that a small bunny had been eating the neighbor’s flowers and then had gone into Karen’s yard to hide.

She went out to see, and there it was. Smaller than her fist. It froze when she came near, letting her get it into a box; she released it by a pond and grassy area nearby.

Knitter’s notes re the falcon-colored hats: needles size US 5, loose gauge, 68 stitches, 2×2 rib, one entire skein each very soft Di.v’e Autunno merino wool bought at Purlescence.

Funco the Jinch/hybrid stopped by again several times today. Cute little bird! Energetic and spunky and fun to watch: there is no fear in him, only the necessary prudence.

Meantime, Michelle from the other room heard a Rubbermaid box thwacking against the door of the closet as it tumbled down at me and called out, Are you okay, Mom?

I was just starting: going through boxes, taking out yarns, assessing yarns, you stay, you go, you maybe, I debated, I consulted. Old plans vs new.  Not quiiiiite the right shade… If I haven’t been inspired enough to use it or overdye it in how long and it still doesn’t call to me? Well then? (Being able to buy yarn in person at the store has its definite advantages over online sometimes.)

And yet. A cone of 35/35/30 cashmere/silk/merino from Colourmart.com got hanked and scoured in hot soapy water in happy anticipation–their yarn with all the mill oils still in is a lot of extra work but the price had been sufficient inducement to get past that. Definitely. I’ve used it before; it is luminously soft. Dry, dry! I want to play!

Some cashmere/merino that I’d plied years ago on my wheel from infinitely thin up to a workable yarn finally hit its reality check: I was still never going to use this one. Wrong color and too dark to overdye–it’s going where it needs to, out.

I was in hyper-busy mode without an actual project to make me sit down and hold still and catch my breath. Organize, choose… Hamsterball time, where you can’t make yourself stop running and bumping into things.

I needed my knit night. I took two balls of yarn and two pairs of needles and decided I’d let them duke it out once I got there–I still hadn’t granted myself time to think out what I was actually going to start making right now today.

It was so nice to just sit down at Purlescence and decompress. For once, the group was very small; it was easy to hear. Perfect.

The Dive’. Their soft merino won, because there was only enough of it to knit it simply while I listened. A hat is in progress. The fingers did the walking while the knitters did the talking.

And hey, there’s one last cone of that 35/35/30. Don’t look at the clock, I could go hank it up right now… (Stop!)

Laceweight (the darker turquoise blue) dries fast. This is a good thing.

I finished at 1:00 pm. Spun the shawl out in the washer (no spraying water) to speed it up, laid it out, about two hours later set out another white sheet and picked the shawl back up and laid it out over there now so the first, now damp sheet wouldn’t slow down the process. A hair dryer was tried and given up on.

They laughed tonight when I added, “So I didn’t turn on the air conditioning on a hot day to speed up the process.”

The lace pattern is a play on the recipient’s name, and since she enjoys the occasional bit of bird news, it looks to me like a flock of birds in flight.

When I was desperately ill two years ago, the folks at Purlescence gifted me with two skeins of Mooi buffalo blend as a mind-blowingly-nice get-well wish in that basket they delivered to our doorstep, full of other things too from various knitting friends pitching in to the cause. Being able to sit up and knit again was a dream at the time, but I have to tell you, it really did give me something to hold onto and look forward to: I couldn’t let them down. And that Mooi was such soft stuff.  What I would make with it someday, I did not know yet, but I knew I would.

One of the Purlescence women was in the hospital last week. You know I finally knew exactly who that yarn was meant to be for all this time–it had just needed the right time.

Delivered. Done. She loved it. YES!

In today’s patio news: you remember yesterday’s was curses, foiled again. And that Pam vegetable spray had apparently become tasty as well as entertaining.

I discovered that my parchment (porch-meant?) baking paper, which is silicon-coated, is quite wide, enough so that a single long sheet could wrap all the way around that pole up and down. Tape of course wouldn’t stick directly to it, but I could wrap it tight around corset-style, half a dozen places. Worked just fine. You could see the squirrels checking it out, grumbling under their breath.

In other news.

A line for Don’s list: I wondered if morning was ever going to come, and then it dawned on me.

I was trying to figure out the math on a pattern today after being awake from 4-6 am. Note to self: don’t spend an hour whining that you don’t want to get up–when the bag breaks, the cradletime will fall, get to it before it does skin damage. But you don’t think clearly at that hour.

Richard drove my tired self to Purlescence tonight. He’s a peach. (And while there I finally got something useful and working right out of my day with that pattern working out the way I’d envisioned; it felt good.)

Penny was there, hoping I would show up. When I did, late, she stood up, wrapped her new shawl around her shoulders wanting me to see how absolutely perfect it was, and then wrapped her arms around me in the most heartfelt embrace. She told me that when her Richard had brought it home last week, “I was just…stunned!” And she hugged me again. And again, a few more times. She looked radiant.

I know I shouldn’t need that kind of gift in return for knitting something nice for someone. But I have to tell you–it sure helps me cope with the dumb stuff better. And it sure motivates me to go knit for another someone else.

I do have a fair amount of yarn squirreled away to work with.