Good things come to those who wait

While I was at the fair on Saturday, (That’s the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters Fair, by the way, I forgot to link it yesterday) I was standing in front of the Camilla Valley Farm booth, and I was looking at all the kits for the Fleece Artist Garter Stitch Jacket. I’ve been wanting one of these for years. It strikes me as a super easy, totally wearable jacket. It would be a cinch to knit, closing as it does with a pin, or a single button or loop, and I imagine that it would be warm, fuzzy, light…the perfect thing to throw over jeans and a tee-shirt in the fall. I have given this sweater enough thought over the years that I know that I would wear it overlapped, like this. (I actually have a pretty sick obsession with that jacket too…but it’s probably best not to go into that right now.)

Lettuce Knit gets these kits in with their Fleece Artist order all the time, and every time they do I stand over the bin, root through all the colourways and then wander off. I love this kit, but I have a specific colourway in mind, and since The Fleece Artist just dyes according to her whim and ships them off…I’ve been waiting. Everywhere I go, everywhere I shop, I root through the jacket kits and bide my time. My colourway has to come up eventually, and although I can’t tell you exactly what I’m waiting for…I’ve always known that I’ll know it when I see it.

Oh…there have been ones that were close, ones with a green too green, or a brown that was too red, or ones with blue, which was right out. There was even one autumnal one that had the right green and brown and even a little rust that made it all the way to the cash register before I flipped it over and saw a spot of please-don’t-shoot-me orange. Each time I put the big hanks of yarn back without even a whimper, because I know how The Fleece Artist works. She’s over there in Nova Scotia, just dyeing her little heart out, and these kits turn out as she fancies, and one day, oh, one glorious day, the same way that a I knew that just by playing the odds game, she was eventually going to dye my perfect colourway, and one magical day at a store somewhere I would look up and suddenly, after literally years and years of looking… It would be mine.

So on Saturday I’m standing at the Camilla Valley farm booth, and I’m riffling the kits that she has and they are all very beautiful, and I’m explaining to Sandra, or maybe Emma (because I know I wasn’t explaining it to Rachel H, since she has witnessed the existential search for my garter stitch jacket kit on a near weekly basis for quite some time now) and I’m telling them about how I always check, because someday I’ll find it, and I’m telling them that even though I’ve been looking for years I’m not bummed….and I’m totally not, because I know that when the stars align and the wind blows from the west and the fullness of time is accomplished….it will appear.

I was going on about this, when Emma (I’m pretty sure it was Emma, though it all happened so fast) pointed at the bottom row of kits hanging there and said “Your perfect colourway? You mean….like that one?” and she stretched out her finger and pointed…and I followed her hand and there it was.

Mypreciousfaga1109

I snatched it up. I clutched it to my breast. I may have uttered an oath. I’m sure my pulse quickened. The green is not too cheerful. The lime is not to bright. There is not too much brown, and there’s the perfect amount of dark brown to set off the green without being muddy. It is a perfect seventies appliance colour kit, and there it was, waiting for me just like I always knew it would be.

Mypreciousfagjd1109

I am living the dream.

Except for the part where then I used a non-working credit card to pay for it, but I didn’t know that then so it didn’t spoil the moment between me and the mohair.

Mypreciouswfagj1109

It’s the perfect finishing-my-book-and-can’t-waste-a-brain-cell knitting. It’s like a fairy tale. The poetry. What a moment.



PS

Ray needs a ride to the Atlanta (whoops!) HOUSTON event. Can anybody help him out?