Stitches East 2008: I picked up a skein of lace weight, looked closely at the twist, the weight, and the feel of it, and said to the dyer, The base is Jaggerspun Zephyr?

Stunned, she asked me, How did you know!

I knit a lot of lace….

And that is how I met Karida Collins of Neighborhood Fiber Co (currently on hiatus due to health.) Wonderful woman.

Jaggerspun, one of the last old American spinning mills, went out of business a few years ago. The building has been sold and rather than being torn down is going to be turned into new housing.

There’s a young couple who moved to a farm in Maine who had a dream of someday owning a mill–till they priced the possibilities. HAH! No way in the world.

Later, though, a sudden thought and the courage to ask a question…

The new owners not only thought it would be great to preserve the spinning equipment, they GAVE it to them when they could have scrapped the metal. All the couple had to do was take it apart and haul it away.

Can you just picture a determined guy with a screwdriver and 100 feet long of spinner and plyer machinery with his wife taking pictures so they can figure out how to put it back together again? Their barn wouldn’t do after all, so now they’re planning where a new building will need to go that would best serve their future business–when they can pull the funding together.

You look at their pictures (blog link. To see what it looked like before the dismantling, some Instagram photos here) at the size of all of that and, holy cannoli, wow. Yeah. No wonder it’s been taking awhile.

Their crowdfunding link is here but it seems to be down tonight.

It felt so strange as I picked up all those balls and all those colors, counting as I went.Thirty-one. Won’t be needing them again this project.

Three are left on the afghan; a few stitches and rows and tomorrow it will be just be the Matisse Blue at the upper edge.

I worked all day to get it to where I could say that. I was on the last two fish–and then decided it needed a third one above them, right there, to balance the picture out, had to, would never have been happy with it if I didn’t so I did.

Three months’ work and I’m actually going to get this finished before the calendar flips to April.

The front page of the San Jose Mercury News yesterday, and today at the Washington Post–alright, it was time. 23&Me has filed for bankruptcy. Your genetics, the questionnaires you’ve answered, your lineage, your relatives, all your personal data and by some extension theirs through you could be put up for sale to anyone with any agenda.

The Merc buried the lede, which should have come first instead of as a postscript:

—

“On the website, customers can also direct the company to destroy stored saliva samples and DNA, as well as revoke permission for their genetic data to be used for research.”

—

I imagine it probably helps a whole lot to do that before you go in there and delete your account first like I did. For which the instructions from the Merc are:

—

“To delete their 23andMe account and personal information, customers can follow these steps:

— Log in to their 23andMe account on the company’s website.
— Navigate to the “settings” section of their profile.
— Scroll down to the “23andMe data” section at the bottom of the page.
— Click “view” next to “23andMe data.”
— Download their data.
— Scroll to the “delete data” section.
— Click “permanently delete data.”
— Confirm their request — an email from 23andMe will follow, containing a link to finalize the deletion.”

—

That it did.

Would you want the people currently raiding Medicare and Social Security data to get ahold of this? This was the only such company that cared about privacy and data protection and now they’re not going to be able to.

The first talk at church today was by a young man whose American family had lived in Eastern Europe for part of his childhood.

He was talking about the life of Jesus.

How his parents had fled their country under the violence of an edict to kill all baby boys under the age of two. How, when that leader died, they had at last returned home to their own country.

But how much did he ever really feel it was, and how much did the people there ever regard him as theirs, and as the speaker said that I suddenly saw how he could see that question in a way the rest of us would not have. Then he asked: Wouldn’t that have made it easier for him to willingly thwart oppressive leaders himself.

I had never thought of that.

The second speaker, someone I’ve known for years, kind of interrupted herself to make an aside re something that had been weighing heavily on her: how people–good people–people she’d loved and known and respected–had come to show a, a, (she searched for words, not wanting to tear down and knowing that people only truly change when they feel loved, not dissed) a… mean streak… that was so unexpected.

She said it near tears with so much love for them, in pain and wanting better for them, that they could not have denied the gift her words were offering them. There was a way out from that.

She is a lawyer and loves the rule of law and holding all people equal before God and man.

There were a very few in that audience who needed to hear that message and many more who were intensely relieved to hear Love Thy Neighbor given voice and attention. Intention. Towards all.

Because if we don’t have that what is left to us? But we do have it, we do, and we must.

(Photos coming.) We decided to make it one last day of yarn-shop hopping for the official Crawl. We might actually pull off a Bingo on our cards that they stamped each time we walked into a new one–and we did.

I packed the snacks. Nina drove. Again. Patterns and all that.

Having wished again and again during the afghan that I hadn’t used up all of this shade or that previously, I had my eye out for the ones I’d wanted to replace.

When we called it a day after Royal Bee, our husbands met up with us on the coast for dinner. They asked us, So: did you buy any yarn? with both of them cracking up, like, oh, no, they would never do such a thing in such a place.

My answer was, it averaged out to a skein per shop. It was fun to find colors I loved in the yarn I wanted–but the point was to spend time with Nina.

She laughed as she was nodding yes to that.

We were at Barbara’s Fishtrap. Nina and I had compared memories of Ivar’s in Seattle so I had to try a small bowl of the clam chowder to see if it was as good as theirs. The answer is, I’d have to try them side by side to tell because Barbara’s was very very very good, too, enough to make it all that I’d want to order the next time. It’s a tie. Best I’ve ever had, both of them.

There were surfers in the famous Mavericks surf whom we passed coming and going, there was the point of land stretching around the cove behind us (if you click on their link and scroll down, we were by that window in the center of the building), and at the top of that hill was a bulbous–

–I said, “Looks like a baby rattle.”

They did a double take at the water tower off in the distance and cracked up.

Edited to add: the note on the sign says, “If you are Grouchy, Sullen, Ornery, Moody, or Just Plain Mean, There is a $20 surcharge for having to put up with you.”

That first one: it came up not in the Root Riot plug but tucked down the side of it.

The next came up today from where it was supposed to.

I searched for images of the cotyledons of both: turns out some varieties of sunflowers do closely resemble some varieties of zucchini at that stage.

So whether those big first leaves are of the squash I planted or if that seed was plucked out and a wandering one from last year helpfully tucked back in by a jay, I’ll have to wait for the true leaves to tell.

I suddenly wondered if my nose would know and took a deep breath. It was very familiar. I’ve planted both before. Yup. It’s definitely one or the other.

I had only planted two zucchinis, then did a third Wednesday after that first one came up so oddly placed–because who needs more than one zucchini plant in their garden? Two was pushing it, but I really ought to have a backup.

Said the woman who had one long ago that vanished bit by bit and then in its entirety down a gopher hole. It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon come to life.

That reminds me. I need to go buy gopher cages to put them to ground in. Locally invented.

I can just see that bunny out under the mandarin tree rubbing its paws in gleeful anticipation.

Bay Area Yarn Crawl shenanigans, round two.

So we have now been to eight yarn stores. Most of them had sock yarns and chunky yarns but the first four had no or nearly no worsted weight yarn, much less a superwash merino like Rios. It was so strange. Today’s gallivanting found more, but only Imagiknit San Francisco had it in more than a half-handful of colors. Most of what I did find was non-superwash, which is fine, but if you’re going to do the kind of massive intarsia afghan project like I like to do you want to know it will survive what non-knitters will do to it in the laundry.

Granted, there have been a lot of knitters missing their Stitches West fix swooping down on these guys. But I mean, you plan for that, right?

We’ll see what the sister store Imagiknit East will be like on Saturday because we’re both curious, but meantime I bought more at the original one than I’d intended just because by store #6 I wanted to make a statement on behalf of my favorite wool that I use so much of. Plus it was–this is the point of getting your customers into your store–so soft and so perfect in the colors I was hoping for that I wanted it in my yarn library. I threw in the one skein of Mecha at the top for Zoom hat knitting.

Plus that shimmery skein of Ecola Worsted merino/silk at Firebird Yarns, and yeah, that will have to get knitted up for someone who’s willing to hand wash it but it’ll just be one small thing, not three months of my time on the line.

Cottage Yarns really has had me spoiled because if it’s Malabrigo, they have it. (They are not on the BAYarn Crawl list.)

How does a yarn store not have worsted weight superwash wool?

(I have no idea why it’s cropping this, click to see the whole thing. It’ll go sideways, though. Go figure.)

I wound up the last hank of Matisse Blue of that dye lot and then I’m out and we’re done. The seed stitch border will take a chunk of it.

I started a fish over here, some seaweed over there, and (where’s the purple. Found the purple) that should also start about there, and then those will probably be the last of the fish, unless (let’s see how much blue there is left at that point) I start one over there….

Three rows in, suddenly I felt like, nope. Put it all away. Picked up a hat and added a few more inches to it, wanting something where I didn’t have to plan and I didn’t have to envision and I didn’t have to make any decisions, just sit there and knit and think how someone was really going to like a gray hat after this was done and it will be fun to find out who and wouldn’t it be great to actually *finish* something.

I did not finish it.

And I baked snacks. Because tomorrow Nina and I are off doing the Bay Area Yarn Crawl thing again.

Another day, another ocean creature. (Let me go tighten that woven-in end a bit there.)

If I spend too long looking at the colors at hand to decide which would go best for the next ones to fit in with the others, does that mean I’m fishing for complements?

Nope, didn’t feel the quake, wouldn’t have known it had happened if I hadn’t glanced at a headline in my inbox just now. A 3.9 on the East Bay tonight is how we like them: for entertainment purposes only.

I was busy in the kitchen with fond memories of my in-laws visiting from Maryland thirty-odd years ago. I’d said to my MIL, Remember that Hot Milk Sponge Cake that you and my mom both used to make from the 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook (and that I’d found a pristine copy of at a garage sale my senior year of high school–score!)

Yeah?

Well, I substitute fresh-squeezed lemon juice for 2/3 of the milk.

Her next words were diplomatic but her face was in utter disbelief at such a use of such an expensive ingredient: Why would you do that?

I laughed and gestured: Because I have a tree!

And because it makes almost a lemon curd effect across the top by the next day, if the cake somehow lasts that long with kids in the house.

So. There’s that almond orange muffin recipe I experimented my way towards and that Nina thoroughly approved of during our yarn crawl last week. We are going again. There must be more snacks.

But my freezer is now empty of that puree and my mandarins need another month and it would be a crime to pick them too early.

The Meyer lemons, on the other hand…

But their piths are famously bitter. You boil seedless oranges for 20 minutes to make the orange puree (discard the water they’re boiled in) to get rid of any bitterness. Okay, I made it 25 min with the Meyers just to be sure. I drained them. I cut them open and spent awhile picking out every single seed.

My Cuisinart bowl being in the dishwasher, I threw them and the juice that had come out of them into the blender and let it run for awhile.

It came out the texture of the most fabulous lemon mousse you ever saw. I measured out 2/3 of a cup and then put the rest in silicone molds in the freezer for next time.

So here’s how I tweaked the recipe:

Lemon Almond muffins (gluten free, wheat free)

2 c. almond flour

1 tsp baking powder

about, ummm, that much salt, I dunno, half a teaspoon-ish?

a hair under 3/4 c sugar, which is a lot, but these are lemons we’re talking about. When I’m making this with oranges I use 1/3 to 1/2 c; my husband’s sweet tooth prefers the 1/2 c.

a generous 1/4 c melted butter, ie that’s what it was meant to be but it measured out closer to 1/3 and I’m okay with that and remind me not to grab the Costco butter that’s all one pound lumps next time

3 eggs (I know, living like kings here. Eggs!)

and the 2/3 c pureed boiled lemon into the mixer at the last.

12 muffins, 350F, 23 minutes in my oven. Will be on the pale side when the toothpick is clean. As always, almond flour muffins hold together better if you wait till they’re completely cool to eat. I use paper liners in the pan to counteract any early stick-and-crumble factor.

Definitely, definitely making these again.

Quinoa raspberry chocolate chunks. Justifiable chocolate with fruit and a side of protein on the go, right? What could it hurt? I thought a few days ago, looking at the Trader Joe’s bag trying to look healthy.

Buy it once out of curiosity. Take it to the Linger Longer church potluck, where other people can try it once too but not be committed to eating an entire half pound of the dried-seeds-in-your-teeth stuff in order to do so. Try not to let anyone see who dropped the package on the table but do keep it in the package so that when they see it in the store they’ll know exactly what that is.

Nobody came for that last little piece. As people tend to do at potlucks, saving some for whoever comes after them, y’know, being polite.

Even the little kids didn’t raid it.

I looked in there at the end and figured, hey. Good enough.

Yesterday’s yarn purchases. I don’t usually buy chunky, but when you have a granddaughter whose favorite outfit is, to quote her mother, “rainbow leopard sparkle” and you find some Urth yarn like the one on the left, well there you go.

Just got back from celebrating the anniversary of old friends of ours. Their kids flew into town, we got to catch up with them all–I went to college with one of them–and I took the youngest aside and told him,

You changed everything.

I what?

I told him, I argued with that feeling that I should knit for you, going, I can’t knit for everybody who ever compliments my stuff, there’s only one of me and there would be no end of it, I mean, c’mon!

The feeling was so insistent (and he knew the end of that story. It was a vest. A Kaffe Fassett vest, with him at 15 picking out all the colors for it in disbelief as I egged him on to choose more because I knew he wanted to) and his reaction had been so intensely grateful that I’d wanted to be a part of that again. I wanted to knit for other people again. You did that, I said. I’d kept a running list for awhile of the people I had knit for after that and at 182 went, That’s not what it’s about–ditch this. And that had been about 20 years ago.

I thanked him again for changing my life.

His foster/adoptive parents were celebrating their 70th anniversary. Good folks.

She turned into a parking lot driveway while I was going, No, the road is right there! (Up ahead.)

Her: Did you see the turkeys?

Me: What turkeys?

She pulled the car around to where I could see, for the first time I can ever remember, wild turkeys. Right up close. One took a step towards my camera and turned his head: Did you get my good side?

I’m heading out with Nina in the morning to play first day of the Bay Area Yarn Crawl. (Had I ever been to this LYS in Morgan Hill? No. This other one in San Carlos? Never heard of it somehow. Well then we will discover them.)

But first I wound the skein of green Manos Silk Blend that she brought me back from Uruguay last month as, y’know, kind of a yarn vaccine–and because I owe it to her to have it ready to cast on. Pretty stuff.

But I promise you we will succumb to the wool fumes just the same.

I took photos of two dye lot numbers to see if I can match them–you know how doubtful that is, but it has happened before and hey, you never know.

As I sit here remembering back in the days of random phone calls from investor types dialing into our area code and not having the least clue that it was in a time zone three hours off from theirs. …The email I’d sent off to a LYS, including my number. To make it easier for them? To make the inquiry feel more legitimate a reason for them to spend their time looking at all those little yarn tags? I can only guess now.

And my husband waking groggily up at dark o’clock, shoving the phone across that I had not in my sleep heard ringing, and going, “It’s your boiler-room yarn pushers in New York City. They want you to know they don’t have your dye lot.”

It’s been a running joke here ever since.

They were calling before opening the store in order to catch me before I might head off to work. It was very kind of them. They could simply have ignored me, but they were trying to be as helpful as they could as fast as they could and get that info to me so I would know to keep trying.

So let me see what I can do tomorrow.

If I don’t find it, maybe they have more of that Rios in New York City.

This is Before on that leg. (Wait, maybe I did miss a stitch.)

After hasn’t happened yet, I guess because I generally avoid doing fixes while the project is still on the needles. Could use a diagonal add-on(s?) above the eye, too. And that’s really one row too many at the bottom of the shell, but now I’m just being picky, and part of that is a bit of camera distortion from the angle.

The basic turtle, back markings aside, was the most variegated yarn in any of the critters. I’d probably go with more strands and more control over the individual colors next time, but I think I lucked out in how it came out and I like it.

That background is Malabrigo’s Whales Road colorway. The turtle is set against Matisse Blue.