Lorraine, owner of Cottage Craft Angora, a small mill, wanted to know what I thought of her qiviut. No, she really wanted to know what I thought of her qiviut. Her 100%. (Picture of a Musk Ox here.)

Now, I’ve bought her Arctic Blend; one 2-ply skein, just to try it out, a 30/30/20/20 qiviut/baby alpaca/silk/merino mix, and dyed it myself, exploring.

It was exquisite. I could be satisfied with this soft stuff oh yes most definitely forever. It made a lot more of a lace scarf than I’d expected to get out of it–for, are you ready for this, ten bucks. Ten. And shipping.

My Mom and my sister Carolyn both wanted that one, out of all the rollaboard-suitcase’s-worth of knitted items I brought to the family reunion. Actually, all the women in the family who saw it did. Anyone would.

I lamented when the website said awhile ago that that blend was sold out; when more appeared just a few days ago, I selfishly ordered some quick before mentioning it to the blog now. Note that I am being very nice in telling you all about it when I can’t afford to stock up more than one color and weight to work with for right now, and I really really like the 2-ply. Haven’t tried the 3-ply. Yet. (Don’t take all the navy, okay, guys?)

Just one more skein… How’s that for a variant on the classic knitter line.

And then. The mailman rang the doorbell this afternoon. There was a skein of that Strawberry Red 100% qiviut from Canada, 44 grams’ worth, for me to go play with. Christmas!

I just happened to be wearing a blouse that matched the yarn as I opened the package; yes, I might like that color. Like, a lot. In the 100%, I would call it more a burgundy, myself.

She’d told me it was coming, actually, and I had just the pattern in mind for when it might arrive.

Ever planned on a name for a baby and when it was born it just wasn’t it? Yeah, I once had our family’s doctor stop by the hospital in New Hampshire to check on my newborn and then he stepped into my room to say, very pleased, that Michelle was doing well now–and I’ve always wondered if he just thought I was an exhausted new mom as I did a moment’s doubletake of an unspoken (Who? Oh right, right, we did change it), “Thanks!” (Duh.)

So. One look at that yarn and I threw out my plans and rewrote and re-mathed.

I doodled a bit to get a feel for gauge. I cast on. I kept the longtail long enough (and it came out exactly to the 1/2 inch) so that I could wrap it across the back of every bump as I purled the first row, an extra strand of yarn to strengthen that edge. Not my usual double-the-cast-on neck edge, though; this way left me the possibility of running a bit shy without having to start over and without risking wasting any.

A few minutes later I knit the first three stitches of a 126-stitch row wrong.

I thought about it a moment and realized, wait. Extra time with pure qiviut. This is a privilege. And not only that, after tinking I can weigh and measure exactly how much yarn that row took up to try to get a better idea of how far I can go with my 320 yards.

Zero grams. It came up zero grams. I can knit this stuff forever.

I saw two of these, one in faded tones, yellows rather than vivid oranges, and the one shown on the left with the sunspot its apparent mate: Black-Headed Grosbeaks. Breathtaking up close. It’s been a year since I’ve seen any. The little house finches (like the little female on the right) were annoyed that they didn’t play the ‘fight and fall up or off and let me grab your perch’ game; just couldn’t get a rise out of them.

Dude. Let me eat my lunch while I ignore you. How else do you think this place gets its yumminess: I am the sun to the seed.

The squirrel flicked its tail side to side like a cat. Another un-intimidate-able bird: Not. Cool.

Oh yes it was.

Meantime, Michelle was trying to buy walking shoes for her trip and at the store I realized I’d been right when I’d grabbed yarn on my way out the door. I pulled my needles out of my overstuffed purse, eyeballed out the length I would need for longtailing it, and cast on.

Not something she’ll need in DC’s summer blaze, though.

p.s. Just for fun? There is someone who made a really loved Bug: those are all tiny seed beads. I’d be afraid to drive it, I mean, think what a fender bender would do, but, wow!

And today we celebrate some more. Just like our family reunions last week: rather than having everything all at once and then over, we spread out the joy a bit. One of my sisters had a baby on Dad’s birthday, mine came the day after, and another’s, two days after that, all in different years.

Or like they say, a day late and a tall-or-short. Happy Birthday, Richard!

We all celebrated last weekend because that’s when all of us, we daughters, sons, nieces and nephew and a great nephew, several grandchildren and one great-grandchild could all make it into town at once. So he gets to hear it again: Happy Birthday, Dad!

I just spent an hour trying to puzzle out why this picture wouldn’t load, finally got Richard to come over, he stood over the computer, I demonstrated…

And poof. Picture. I did everything exactly the same way, the only change being the 6’8″ computer scientist standing above me.  It knows who’s the boss of it.

Knitknitknitknitknit.

Wow, that was fast.

The last few days I’ve felt like I really needed to be working on that white fluff project in case something happened and I found myself wishing it were done yesterday. But I was busy doing a lot of back-home-again things other than sitting down and holding still and brushed away the thought with, it only needs about three more hours of work to be long enough; if something comes up, I can do that pretty fast. Right?

I did talk myself into starting something else today, putting a hank on the back of a chair and standing there winding it up–but my hands could not be convinced. I wound up that ball, telling myself I’d leave the cloud for when I needed brainless knitting for carrying around. I saw no hurry.

But I felt one. I just could not make myself actually cast on with the new ball. The cloud was demanding to be done. Now.

I had no idea why.

We were talking to the kids tonight and I found myself asking them, Is there anything you need knit?

After a moment’s hesitation, they said, well, actually… if…

Turns out someone they know well and we all love, someone fairly young, was diagnosed just a day or two ago with metastasized cancer. They were wishing… But they wanted somehow for something to go out quickly: for immediate reassurance, for love, for the hope that it would represent coming from all of us.

And here, right here in my hands…

Some of that lace will have been knit just because, just the very first few inches of it (that stayed, because kid mohair is too hard to frog and I knew that since I’d wanted to work on it once, someday I’d want to work on it again.)  A lot of it was knit because something somehow prompted me a week ago to go find it and grab it while packing for my trip, after all its years of ziploc exile. (It was the needles that stopped it. Never knit snaggy-fibered kid mohair with very blunt tips.)

And some of that lace, now, will have been knit expressly for the loved one it’s going to. Which is why I’m glad now that I didn’t think to grab the finer-tipped needles before the trip, which would have sped up the knitting and gotten it finished before I got home.

One hug of soft airy fluff, coming up. Phyllis, this is from the leftover yarn from your shawl.

Fingertip to fingertip, arms outstretched…

I turned to Rachel at KnitNight tonight and asked her if it should go way longer.

For a cloud of fluff like that? “Oh yes, definitely.”

For anyone who has my book (the usual note here of, it’s OOP but Purlescence has copies) this is five repeats of the lace in the main body of the Water Turtles pattern: cast on 51 and off you go.

Groucho Marx. Look at the little guy.

I wondered why the weeds took over my green lawn in the last two years after being lawn forever before that.  Those golden rolling hills of California? They’re green in the spring before the rains stop (supposedly by now, and the weeds got tired of waiting for it to stop being so wet and turned brown anyway.)

At long last I know why we’ve been going native.

I’d seen the little thing running up a tree about a week ago with a mouthful like this, and then later doing what he again did today–he was digging and trying to plant this mouthful as if it were a nut. A weed-farming squirrel!

The quail likes the seeds from these, and I guess the squirrels do too.

Um.

Still, it does look funny with that straw beard.

(No knitting today: too much to catch up on, housewise. Quite a few home improvement projects happened in my absence and I’m trying to do likewise in return.)

I did not know when I booked my trip that my aunt and uncle who live in Virginia were going to be flying in to Salt Lake City, where my folks now live, that very weekend–and that they would be joined by three of their children and their families for a celebration of their own. I hadn’t seen most of them since our big reunion for what would have been my grandfather’s 100th birthday in ’98.

I did know that there were cousins coming from my dad’s side that I hadn’t seen since my youngest was a preschooler. And that another uncle was turning 90; one of his daughters flew in from Florida for that get-together.

I did not know I was going to get to see a relative on my husband’s side who’s been fighting cancer; I hoped so, but I didn’t know. She was a good distance away; timing of treatments was an issue; I was not going to have a car.

But my son John and I did get to after all.

I got to see Abby, too–and to see her walking! With crutches, but her dad told me she’d walked a little without, too. And then told me, with her in the room, that she just *loves* it when he talks about her in front of her, totally calling himself on it like a good dad would: he saw her point of view and let her know he knew it and cared about her feelings while trying to fill me in so she wouldn’t have to explain everything to me.

I had introduced myself to her as the one who knit the purple hat.

Oh!

It was reunion after reunion, joy after joy, love held close, coming in a five-day-long stream rather than an exhausting all-and-then-nothing day. And I got to see my brothers, my sisters, my parents, and of course my youngest son, my nieces… The list goes on.

And to watch the news, rather a novelty now for this non-TV-owner. Remember my staring up at the new white stuff when, come on, guys, this was Memorial Day weekend? A skier on the screen was exulting that this was the best snow all season and the resort operator was saying they planned to keep the slopes open weekends till the Fourth of July.

That ski resort was where we held that big reunion, the slopes properly cool but summery, in August that year.

And–be still my heart. There was a sign telling people to watch out for falcons! http://wildlife.utah.gov/dwr/learn-more/peregrine-cam.html I’m just sorry I didn’t get a picture of the sign, much less the birds themselves.

My brother Bryan made a side trip to Arches National Park as part of his vacation and showed us the photos he took; one was of an antelope. An antelope!?

He smiled the happiest smile, affirming, “An antelope.”

Wow.

I got to see a striking black-and-white magpie, long tail flicking, landing on top of the low stone wall alongside the cemetery where our grandparents are buried. And a dead fox near the airport.

Bryan wins.

Now, if only he’d followed it around looking for any shed winter undercoat for my spinning wheel… G’wan, go back, bro, you know you want to…

Michelle picked me up at the airport this afternoon. It was so good to see her again. There’s nothing like family. We drove home, the post-seasonal rain gradually letting go; we walked in the door, I looked out the window, wondering–

–nothing around. So still. So unusual. (So much food available around here this time of year whether we provide any or not, so while I was gone, the others did not.)

I walked into the family room.

Immediately two towhees hopped in perfect tandem onto the wooden box.

Okay, I got the message. I’ll unpack in a moment. I went out and filled the feeders and one of the little Bewick’s wrens didn’t even wait for me to go back inside before it swooped around, singing loud and close enough by that I actually heard a few notes: Hey everybody! Feederfiller’s back!

It was like a Disney movie in slow motion. A few at first, then more and more, crescendoing till about two hours later, the whole crew was back. And more: a female scarlet tanager flew in, a bird I’ve only seen once and that was a year ago. I went Oh wow! out loud and scared it right off.

They hadn’t gone totally unfed; I’d succeeded in hanging a suet cake long side up where the squirrels couldn’t get it but so that the wrens could stand on it the way they liked to, without having to hang off the sides.  I saw the titmice working at it in twos, too, then chickadees: clearly, that idea had worked well.  And it wasn’t quite empty. Yet.

I put more in there, too.

It was the same old birds, for the most part, but in my absence some of their patterns had changed. It was fascinating to watch, not that I had much time to spend doing so.

A pattern of mine had changed, too, one of avoiding the project that would not be frogged: I hauled out a kid mohair UFO before the trip, abandoned ten years now, a shawl. At 16×50″ it is now nearly done and my seatmate and the stewardess raved over the soft cloud of lace.

I wonder who it finally needed to be done for.  I do know that memories of that trip and of all that love are knitted into nearly all its stitches.

Heading out for another busy day with more relatives but I wanted to stop and say: looking out the window, there is new snow on the mountains right above us. Some of the peaks that were spring-green when I got here.

It’s Memorial Day.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in California anymore.

My brother Bryan, owner of Jeppson Guitars, picked the piano hat that sings in the blues.

My other brother’s daughters each picked out their favorites–but not till one had piled the whole stack of scarves around her neck and all the hats on her head and declared it Dobby style (think Harry Potter.) My sisters picked out something. And my cousins from Nevada are coming soon and their hats are waiting.

Listening to my dad talking last night about his having gifted a fair amount of his art out into the world, I thought, this is where we all get it from: parents who treasure being able not to keep but to give of themselves freely.

Dobby picture coming when I can figure out how to get it online from here.

My sister Marian arrived a few hours after I did; much laughing has been enjoyed already. And when I mentioned the single bar left from Morgan, Mom told me she’s already been melting bits of dark chocolate in her own hot cocoa as of late.

Good influence. I haz it.

My brother asked me back in December what I wanted for Christmas.

A chocolate bar. Good dark chocolate. Just one, doesn’t take much to make me happy.

He bought me a case of Endangered Species Chocolate Extreme Dark 88%. And I (and Michelle when she’s been home) have ever since been gratefully breaking off just a little and melting it in our hot chocolate every morning.

I opened the box just now to grab one for my trip and found it was the last one.

“I’m going to take this with me and share it with Morgan in our hot cocoa there.”

Michelle: “Does Morgan drink hot cocoa?”

“He will when I get done with him.”

Happy Anniversary to my son Richard and his wife Kim! More Parker pictures when I can get them to load.

Running in a few loose ends before my trip. I should have saved some of the other snips before I took the picture so the colors could be more representative, in case anyone at my destination is embiggening that and wondering which is going to be theirs.

That done, it finally feels like I can pack and be going.  I have no idea what yarn to take with me or any plan in mind other than to just get on the airplane by myself and go. I can’t wait.

The squirrels are discomfited by the quail: they don’t tease it when it’s holding still like they do the Cooper’s hawk and they keep a cautious, mindful distance always. Whatever this weird thing is that showed up a few days ago, they’re not messing with it.

The quail was on the near end of the big wooden box that I put suet on top of for the ground birds that like it. He was singing at one point, for whatever reason, but he wasn’t admiring his reflection; there’s a screen door there. Maybe he just wanted to see in from higher up this time.

I suddenly saw a pair of black ears and the very top of a head leap into sight at the far end and before the whiskers could even surface, push back away just as fast and disappear back down. You could just hear loud squirrel swearing going on behind there–that thing is up THERE, too! Dang, that Feederfiller has her enforcer!

He knew I would squirt him if he jumped up there, but he knows how long it takes me to raise the squirt gun and open the door and he always grabs a bite before he runs. He can get away with exactly so much and he knows it and does–wow, I never got a reaction like that.

Ergo: the quail is scarier than I am. It’s bigger than they are, it’s outside, and it runs fast after them when they run from some random startling noise. And it can go up in the trees, to top it off.

The squirrel sulked and bullied and chased a mourning dove for a moment in retribution, and I thought wow–even a squirrel can get in a bad mood and take it out on some other being unlikely to get the better of them when they do. Who knew.

It reminded me of my kids having their moments towards each other on a bad day and as the mommy, working on getting them to be nice to each other. It is so joyful to see them all grown up now and looking out for each other the way they always really wanted to.

I bet my parents feel the same way. Well. This week, we’ll show them, huh!

Meantime, a box came today. A new cane; my favorite from Karen had been well loved for half a dozen years and was showing it. This one was quite inexpensive, enough so that if it didn’t work out I wasn’t going to cry. But wow–it was beautiful, artsy, and very lightweight. I really lucked out!

But when I tried it out there was just a tiny spot on the underside of the handle where the wood hit my hand wrong–it had a pimple, is the best description I can think of, and I knew it would get uncomfortable quickly if I had to grip it for long.

I wondered out loud where the sandpaper might be. It wouldn’t show if it had to lose its shine there. I showed the thing to Michelle.

My daughter is a genius. “Use a nail file!”

And that was all it took. Done!