A small sweater, a big trip

Home again, home again.  Sorry for the radio silence knitters, but I always forget how completely full Madrona is, as an event.  I knit my way across North America, trying hard to finish that little sweater – it had a hard deadline of Thursday morning, when I’d meet the little miss it was destined to grace. My connection was delayed, I missed three shuttles in Seattle, and finally called Debbi and asked for a rescue. She ever-so charmingly not only picked me up from the airport, but drove to the hotel with a light on so that I could cast off the sweater. I walked into the hotel, tossed the sweater in a sink full of water to wash it, gave it a quick block on an end table near a vent in my room, and went out to dinner, wishing it dry thoughts. Rather predictably, it wasn’t dry when I got back, and rather disappointingly wasn’t dry in the morning either. I stood there, my hand on the still damp sweater, and tried to figure out how I’d get it dry by 10:30, considering that I had a mountain of work to do, and couldn’t stand over it with a hair dryer or something. A series of failed experiments later (one involving a chair, my belt and a binder clip) I hit on the solution.

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Bingo. So simple it was magic, and about an hour later (with breaks to let the dryer cool off) I had a dry sweater. (Well. Dry enough.) With 10 minutes to spare I sewed the buttons on, wrapped it in tissue paper I brought from home, and brought it down to meet its owner.

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Her excitement was palpable.

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Pattern: Rutelilje – it’s from an older Dale of Norway baby book, one I’ve had in the library for years, now sadly hard to put your hands on. (I buy all the Dale baby books I see. They’re always lovely, and transient.) Yarn is part Dale of Norway Baby Ull (for the colours) and Loopy Ewe solid series for the body – both delightfully from my stash.

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It’s a charming little thing, and should fit the lady in question about the time she learns to sit up, stops puking on all her outfits, and can show it off to its best advantage. (A few of you with good memories have noted that this is the second time I’ve knit this, and I bet it isn’t the last. It’s a favourite of mine.)

The rest of Thursday passed in a blur leading up to the Teacher Talent Show for Charity (I’d tell you about it, but there’s a media blackout. Be assured you missed something remarkable) teaching 9-5, events in the evening, and culminated in Amy Herzog and I making the time for a rather remarkable (and expensive) 20 minute sprint through the marketplace on Sunday, just before they shut the whole thing down.  I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow, but suffice it to say that three things remain true.

1. I make wild decisions about yarn when rushed.

2. I still have a fairly serious thing for stainless steel yarn.

3. My love of knits that fall into the fashion category of post-apocolyptic-my-clothes-are-all-rags-but-I-still-look-so-good-I-should-be-in-the-matrix is intact.

(PS. If that leads you to believe that I fell down and swiped my credit card on the way to the floor at Habu, you might be onto something.)