Well poppets, a lot has happened since we saw each other last.

Our lovely visit with Joe’s parents continued, and we did lots of fun things – including a bus trip to Guadalajara (great city) and then on Friday morning we got up really early, and we went to the airport so we could fly to Mexico City and then on to Toronto, and we checked in for our flight, and we went to the gate, and we started to wait. We waited until it was supposed to be time to board. Then we waited a little longer.  After a little while, they announced that they were going to start boarding in a few minutes, and that confused us a little bit, because there was no plane at the gate. Still – we had three hours to make our connection, so we didn’t get sweaty about it.  After about another fifteen minutes, I went over and used my very dodgy Spanish to gently ask how it was going. Did they expect a plane soon? En cuántos minutos?   “Viente” the nice lady said, and that’s twenty, and that seemed fine. We would still make our connection.

Thing was, in twenty minutes the answer was still twenty (and I was wracking my brain to be sure that the word for twenty was what I thought it was) and twenty minutes after that the plane finally arrived, and Joe and I (the two of us had been getting progressively twitchier this whole time) heaved a sigh of relief.  We signed into our Air Canada flight online so that the short time we had to connect would be smoother, we talked about how we’d have to hustle, but it would be just fine… we texted with Joe’s Mum about the most efficient route through the Mexico City airport, and then, hearts light, we boarded.

Then we sat there. We sat there for about 15 minutes, and then the Captain came on, and he said a lot of things very quickly in Spanish, and I thought I understood him, but then I realized that I couldn’t possibly have. I’d caught “tráfico excesivo” which seemed clear, and then I’d heard something about eleven o’clock, but what was happening at eleven seemed wrong. It was ten then, and it’s only an hour long flight – so, was the pilot confirming that we were going to arrive at 11? That would be just fine for us. Our flight out of Mexico City left at 12:45. Joe and I can run any airport distance in an hour.

I thought about what words I know in Spanish, and then I leaned over Joe, and asked the guy next to him what time we were going to leave, and he said eleven. “Dejar a la once?” I asked, and he confirmed. We were going to sit on that plane for an hour before it moved, and that is exactly what we did. We sat there until about 11:10 and Joe and I knew it was over. We were going to miss our connecting flight. Sure enough, we landed at 12:20, we got to the gate at about 12:45, and that was the time that our other flight was taking off. Honestly, we both considered freaking out, but it seemed really counter productive. I mean, what’s the point? We’d catch the midnight flight, or worst case, one the next morning. Whatever. Stay loose, we told each other, as we trotted through the airport to find our bags.

Thus began a day of a pretty seriously craptastic nature.  We collected our bags and went to the airline counter. Nobody was there. We went to another counter and asked around, and they sent us a million miles to the airline office. Nobody was there. We came back down (the Mexico City airport is as big as the city of Chicago) and bought a SIM card so one of our phones would work, then installed ourselves at a restaurant that said they had WiFi so we could start sorting it out. It turns out they didn’t have Wifi – so while Joe went back to the SIM card place to buy us another one, I used our working phone to call Air Canada. I waved Joe off confidently as he left, quite sure that the nice man on the other end of the phone was coming back momentarily with a reservation on a flight in just a few hours.

When Joe came back twenty minutes later I was off the phone and had a largish glass of wine. There were no flights. Not that day, not the next day, not the day after that. “What are you talking about?” Joe said, sliding into his chair with a shocked look on his face.

“March Break in Canada.” I said. “Spring Break in the States, Easter Break here. There are no flights. Not until the 22nd. Five days from now.”  Joe stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “We’ll go to another airport” he said. “We’ll fly to Houston, or Atlanta, or …. ”

“There are no flights.” I said, trying to make him understand. I’d told the Airline representative that we were willing to take any flight – anywhere – any time, even drive somewhere else,  and the answer, after checking everything he could think of, was that there were no flights. Still, we’d only checked one airline, and it seemed to us that there had to be a solution, so- determined to be cheerful – we paid our bill and moved on to another restaurant that claimed to have WiFi but didn’t – and then finally went up to the airport hotel and asked if we could use their WiFi, and 45 pesos later, we were online, and discovering that there really were no flights. Joe dealt with the insurance company, and I continued searching until I found an exorbitantly expensive flight home on the 21st – but that got sold out while I was asking Joe for our credit card. An hour later I had found another one, and booked that instantly.  Shortly after that we managed to find a hotel, and then crossed the airport again to (somehow – turns out I know more Spanish than I thought)  manage to get some paperwork from the airline that had been two hours late and started the mess, and the whole time we took deep breaths, tried to be really nice to each other and reconciled ourselves to the way things were. We were stuck in Mexico City. We were hemorrhaging money. Neither of these things was changeable by us. We decided that it was all going to be about attitude, and that if this was the way things were going to be, and clearly it was, then well, we might as well make the most of it.

So we did. We worked for a few hours ever morning and evening (since we were supposed to be back at work)  and in between, we went everywhere. We climbed the bell towers of the Metropolitan Cathedral, and stood on the roof while the bells were ringing, we walked through cobblestoned streets and found a Mexican Vegetarian place. We drank Mescal. We found out what agave looks like.

We went to museums and to monuments and lots of churches and climbed two thousand year old pyramids. (We did that along with tens of thousands of people. Who knew that the spring equinox was the most popular day of the year to climb the thing?)

We saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, we walked and walked, we learned (ok, I learned) that Clara Parkes wasn’t kidding a few weeks ago in Texas when she told me not to touch cactus, even carefully.

I finished socks.

ONline Supersocke 4-fach Neon Color #1718, my basic sock pattern.

I started some other socks (Agatha Socks, and I love them)

and last night, after making the most of getting stuck, we and our good attitudes finally caught a flight from Mexico City to New York, then New York to Toronto, where we fell into bed.  Tomorrow, we fly again.  There was supposed to be five days in there, rather than one, so excuse me while I unpack,  repack and chat with the worlds top knitwear model.  I’d better find more yarn, too.

Over the last few years, both Joe and I have found ourselves with Snowbird parents, of a sort. My mum is pretty good at it, she rents a place by the ocean in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, for a month each winter. Joe’s parents are really good at it, and they have a place in Ajijic, Mexico where they come for several months a year. For a few years now, I’ve been going to be with my mum for a while every time she goes, and Joe’s been making a point of visiting his mum.  I go to my mum, he goes to his, divide and conquer – it works really well, except that he doesn’t visit my mum, and I don’t visit his, which is a shame because I really like Joe’s parents, and he really likes my mum. Still, we had it all under control.

Then this year my mum rented her place for slightly different dates than she usually does, and that ran into two work things that I had to do – and so my daughters all went down to visit my mum, and Joe planned a trip to his parents, and I… didn’t.  That was until a few weeks ago, when Joe realized that if we tweaked things just a little bit – if he came and went at slightly different times, then I could go with him. It seemed too good to be true, but it was, and on Sunday afternoon (having wrapped up an awesome Birthday Bash for Ken) we got on a plane and flew to Mexico City, and on Monday morning

we got on another plane and flew to Guadalajara. A short-ish drive from there, and we’re tucked into Joe’s Mum and Dad’s house in Ajijic, and we get to stay until Friday Morning, and we are having a pretty nice time. We are living like retired, snowbird Canadians for five days, and that means that for the last 24 hours we have been the youngest people present just about everywhere we’ve gone. (This is a refreshing thing to try in your late 40s, and I highly recommend the feeling it gives you in a bathing suit.)  Today we went to some hot springs, and last night out to dinner, and right this very minute, things are very tough indeed.

That’s a finished Capture, hanging on the chair in the background.  (You would not even begin to believe how fast things dry in Mexico.) Two skeins Woolfolk Far, one skein silk cloud, and I’d show you a modelled shot except it’s 28 degrees and nobody here is putting that on their body.  You would not even believe the way that mohair sticks to sweat. (Maybe when we’re back in Toronto I’ll enlist the Worlds Top Knitwear Model.)

It is soft, and gorgeous and perfect, much like visiting your in-laws is,  in my case.

Mañana, Knitters.

Yesterday our internet was getting fixed, or changed or whatever it is that the guy and Joe were up to (there was much talk of firewalls and routers and I sort of checked out after that) and thus unplugged,  I commenced with the semi-annual Tossing of the Stash.

My stash is not an insignificant beast.  It’s also probably not as big as you imagine it to be, and I used to think that it wasn’t as big as I wanted it to be, but over the years I’ve come to think that it’s just about right.  Most of it is upstairs, in what we affectionately call “The Stashroom.” (The rest is downstairs* we’ll talk about that later.)

The Stashroom is a wee room upstairs at the end of the hall. It’s very small – if it had proper furniture in it, it would hold perhaps a single bed and a little bedside table – with no room left over for a dresser or anything. It’s tiny. It was likely built as a box room in this old house, and a few years ago I took it over for the purposes of containing and supporting the (upstairs) stash. (I took a few pictures of it way back when I first pulled it together.)** All my patterns and books are in there, and all the small quantities of yarn, and the spinning stash.  (Mostly.) It’s pretty orderly, but every time I need something, I go in and stir through the lot of it, and because I am a normal human being, I don’t always tidy up after myself – or I do tidy up after myself, but not very well.  I do things like buy sock yarn and toss it in the stash, not caring what cubby it goes in… or I go through the stash hunting for something and getting things out of order. I use pattern books and don’t put them back in the right place (I have kinda a knitterly version of the Dewey Decimal system going on for my books – and it is so much less neurotic than it sounded right there. I have hundreds of knitting books, magazines and patterns.  There has to be some way of finding things.) Essentially, the highly structured organizational system I have comes undone over the course of a half year, and I go in and put it back together, to try and prevent chaos from taking over the entire thing.

Tossing the Stash has benefits beyond tidying up – because I assure you that while I rather adore being able to go into that room and know exactly, precisely where to put my hand on a half skein of blue DK from seven years ago (which I had to do on Sunday and it only took a minute) that’s not enough to get me to deep clean and organize a room in the house twice a year. (If that were the case, the cupboard under the television certainly would not have any VHS tapes in it, which it totally does.) When I Toss the Stash – I do a whole bunch of stuff. I take everything off the shelves and out of the cubbies, and I give all of those a good wipe. Then I decide if the way I’m organizing things still makes sense, or if I really do need one whole cubby for self-striping yarn

(I do) or if it would make more sense to keep the conservative sock yarn away from the wilder stuff – so that I can see at a glance if it’s possible to make Joe anything. (That makes sense too.) Then I start putting everything back in, culling the herd as I go. That chunky mint-green brushed mohair?  Yeah. I’m not going to use that. Ever. I blame the 80’s for its existence at all. That sock yarn that I bought four skeins of – but then figured out that it’s so splitty that it makes Zsa Zsa Gabor look like she loves commitment? Gone. How about the skein that’s the really weird shade of pink that I would never buy but somehow own? I don’t even wonder how it got in there, I just help it find a forever home. Any particular reason I own three copies of The Knitters Handbook? Heck no. I think I keep rebuying it because I love it so much, but now two friends have copies too.  I’ve even started letting go of some of the magazines. It’s hard for me, because somewhere in the centre of my being is a bit that believes that I am probably the only person in the whole world who has copies of Family Circle Easy Knitting all the way from 2000-2005, but I’ve never used them, they’re taking up a lot of room, and someone else is going to have to have responsibility for curating that particular collection.  They’re out of here.

Everything gets a quick dust off, vacuum and inspection before it goes back in. This is Toronto, the moth capital of the world (I made that up, but for sure there are a lot) and this house is more than 130 years old. That means I have to think about the potential for mice and carpet beetles, both of which can live in the walls – along with moths. (Have I ever told you that many houses here in Toronto have wool as insulation in the walls – or plaster and lathe with horsehair are the walls? DELICIOUS.) All those beasts like privacy – dark, quiet, undisturbed places, and so pulling the stash out and putting it back in again means disturbing those places, and I will at least spot something bad before it’s really bad.  (I also mostly keep my yarn in ziplocks. All those beasts can chew through them, but at least it keeps dust off, and would slow them down.)

At the end of the whole thing, I have a more streamlined stash, and a safer stash, and a tidier stash, and I can find things really easily.  Things are sorted neatly into cubbies, beads are with the bead stash, buttons are in the button stash and I know just where my pincushion is, and there are no T-pins stuck in it. (They are in their proper spot with the blocking stuff.)  I look at that little room in its organized glory, and I love it. It’s not perfect, and it’s not a beautiful studio space with twinkle lights and a good place to keep an ironing board (dare to dream) but it is the corner of this tiny house that holds the yarn, and it will do neatly.

It’s like having a yarn store that’s open 24 hours a day, is filled with only things I like (or liked at one time – I can’t explain the mint green brushed mohair) where everything is free.  Space was made, spiritually and physically, the yarn and I had a good visit, and it was fun. *** Absolutely the only downside is that having a really good look at all your yarn makes you want to knit it all – and it’s no cure for startitis, I tell you that.

*I keep sweater quantities, “extra” sock yarn (sorted by colour) weaving and spinning tools and basic worsted weight wool in lots of colours downstairs in my office. It’s a pretty big cupboard. I’ll show you sometime.

**Actually, looking back at those pictures, I can see that despite dedicated culling, the stash is larger than it was in 2010. Making a mental note to get a grip.

***Sort of.  It was still cleaning, so… you know.

Good news. Spring is on its way. I know, if you live around here it might be hard to believe, what with the dingy snow malingering in the yard and the safe planting date being two months away, but it is totally coming, and I can prove it.

I have Startitis. I want to knit all the things. All of them. The same thing happens every spring, so I know it must be coming. Right now I have no less than four active projects, and I feel like it is not even remotely enough.  My stash is a beguiling force that keeps calling to me, though it’s hard to hear, what with all the noise that buying new yarn makes. I thought I just wanted to knit a lot right now, but that’s not it. If it were, then I’d be content with the four projects I’ve got rotating through my day, and those, my knitterly friends, are not cutting it. I want to start things. New things. Gorgeous things.

This is the latest to hit the needles – Capture, knit with one strand of Woolfolk Får, and another of Shibui Silk Cloud. (It’s taking two skeins of the Får, and one of the Silk Cloud.) I am desperately in love with it – it’s so soft that I’ve forced about eight non-knitters to touch it.

I haven’t even bothered to put away the yarn that I bought in Texas, and that is because my startitis is a delusion that says that I’m going to use it up so quickly that there’s no point in putting it away. I look at it, I contemplate taking it to the stash room and making it a spot, and then something comes over me, and I think – heck no. I’ll just take a minute and make a shawl/socks/cowl later. No point in carrying it upstairs.

There are five skeins of yarn for a cowl, four skeins of sock yarn, and two balls of laceweight cashmere. I added it up – that’s 2858m of yarn, and I’m not putting it away because I’m going to start it later, and it won’t count because it will be finished quickly.

Oh, Spring. It must be right around the corner.

Monday: I flew home from a pretty wonderful retreat in Texas with Hill Country Weavers. It was run by some pretty awesome people, and some of my favourite colleagues were there, and my students were uniformly charming and clever, and I had a super big accident in the marketplace involving Woolfolk and MustStash Yarns. I’m not sorry.  I knit all the way home on the flight, and finished the third of three projects in three days. (They were all small. More about that later.)  I didn’t take very many pictures, but here’s a few snaps to show you what all went on. Rapid fire.

1. Julie Weisenberger, Ann Budd, Clara Parkes and I all showed up to do a podcast with Stacy from MustStash Yarns and Dianne from Suburban Stitcher.

Because the four of us rock it a little old school, we didn’t know it was video. This should explain why we’re dressed in the most boring clothes of all time, and my hair is funny. (Well, we can pretend my hair is funny for that reason.)

2. It was hot in Texas, or… I thought it was hot in Texas, but it turns out that it’s all perspective. While Clara (she’s from Maine) and I were the only people at the pool –

I saw a Texan knitter wearing gloves, and dinner was moved indoors because of the “cold”.  (Every single time someone mentioned how chilly it was I giggled out loud.)

3. I am so charmed by cactus that I can’t even talk about it. It was everywhere. Just… growing. Outside. Like a real plant instead of something you coddle on your desk.

4. The marketplace let knitters run a tab.  (Smart, and dangerous.)

Tuesday:  I thought I was jet-lagged, but it turns out I was just lagging. I tidied up, didn’t unpack, made some attempt to bring order to my universe, and went out to a meeting to plan the training rides for the Bike Rally and get organized for a big meeting the next day. I also fixed my Co-Lead’s knitting – Cameron got a little mixed up with purling, but he’s doing really well – churning out a ribbed toque that he can wear so that he can say “yes” when people ask him if he made it.

As I walked home I reflected on the actual meaning of the word “cold.”

Wednesday: I looked longingly at my knitting, went back and forth with Cameron about nine-hundred and eighty seven times to come up with a schedule for Team Leads to sweep all the years rides, and went to a big Team Leader meeting. I knit on the streetcar.

Thursday: Ken’s 50th Birthday – and a nod to Samantha’s 22nd. (She was away when it was her day, we’re all playing catch up.)  We had a big family dinner here, and I put 50 candles on Ken’s cake and almost burned the house down. (Not really, but it was totally amazing how much heat that thing put out.)

Sam got a hat I knit her for her birthday (she’s on a roll, having lost two Wurms in a row. This one was a simple slouchy hat to keep her ears warm. No pattern, I just faked it.)

While I was on my way home from Texas, I knit a little cowl that was in the gift bags everyone got. A simple, fast knit – done in a day.  Everything Nice by Suzanne Middlebrooks, knit out of two half skeins of Shibui Silk Cloud.

I didn’t know who I’d knit it for, so that evening I put it up for grabs. It was instantly claimed by our young friend Keanu

after he checked to see how it looked on him.

Sam made sure he didn’t get carried away. There’s only one top knitwear model in these parts.

Friday: I’m making pizza for Luis.

You?

Last night, I set my alarm for 4:15am, and then went back and changed it to 4:30 because the extra 15 minutes gave me a sliver of a will to live, and I thought that rushing a little in the morning would be better. I have no way to explain to you why I did this, because I recognize that I’m not a morning person and while I am capable of rushing in the morning, I’m not really capable of doing it without weeping softly as I do it, and that’s exactly what I did this morning. The car came for me at 5:15, and I was on my way to the airport in the beginnings of a massive storm, peering into the darkness, and wondering how long it would hold off, if my flight would be delayed, if I would meet Clara on time in Denver to join up for the flight to Austin, and if I have any of the right clothes for Austin (I don’t. You can take a gal out of the winter, but you can’t take the winter out of the gal.)

Now I’m at the airport, wondering sort of absently why there are so many people here (storm) drinking (another) cup of coffee, wondering why I keep booking flights that in my soul I feel are a human rights violation, and casting on for a hat. Sam’s lost hers again, and while I feel like there should be consequences for this many lost hats, I don’t feel like those consequences should include frostbite, so… another hat it is. (She’s not getting another Wurm though. Too much knitting for a hat-loser.  I suggested she whip out the needles herself if she was getting particular, and all of a sudden she was a paragon of flexibility. She’ll get what I knit, and she’ll like it.)

So I was sitting here, feeling exactly zero positive things – this is how much I am not a morning person, and I was glumly pulling out the hat stuff, and casting on, and then I had to rip it out because apparently I can’t to a lick of math before at least 8am, and this lady walks by, and she says “Are you KNITTING?!” (You could actually hear the interrobang,  if you’re wondering.)  I look up, sort of prepared to cheerfully make my way through another conversation about the archaic and bizarre nature of my occupation, and how she didn’t think anyone did that anymore, and how she heard knitting was making a comeback, or how I must have a lot of patience, or any of the other stereotypical and untrue stuff that people say to me in airports… and I sigh a little, gird myself and say “Yup.”

This lady’s face lights up like a Christmas tree, and she says “It looks so fun! All I’m going to do on my flight is watch a stupid movie.”

“I’m going to watch a stupid movie and make a hat.” I tell her, suddenly feeling much better. Productive, even. Like my day has a purpose, even though I’m in a stinking airport at dawn.

“Lucky duck” she says, and off she goes.

I bet she’s a morning person. (Thanks, lady.)

I, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, knitter, yarn buyer, writer and generally hopeful person, do solemnly swear that I am going to do something (vague, and probably ultimately unhelpful) about my relationship with Habu.

Over the weekend I knit the snot out of that Sea Tangles thing, and it’s coming along nicely. (Please understand that I am here using the word “nicely” to mean that it is not done, which I wasn’t expecting it to be, but am still sort of surprised about, despite more than 4 decades of experience.)  At the booth when I bought the yarn, I looked at the pattern, looked at the yarn, asked how many cones it took, and bought that many. Three.

Now I am 2/3rds of the way done the front (or maybe it is the back, they are the same. I’ll give it a designation later) and there’s a little problem with the yarn. Yeah. See that? One full cone is gone. That means I won’t have enough. Not by any kind of a long shot, and so I started trying to figure out where I could have gone wrong.  Turns out (after about 36 seconds of investigation which I should have done at the booth, hold your comments please) the pattern does take three cones.  It clearly states it takes three 1oz cones.  I have three cones.  I did something clever though, now that I am not in the booth,  and read the labels on those cones, and what I have are three half ounce cones.  I have exactly half as much yarn as I should, and you can blame this metric knitters tenuous relationship with ounces if you like, but it was an idiot move.  I’ve ordered more, and I was hoping that it would arrive before I needed it, but it turns out that’s a joke too, since I leave for Texas on Wednesday, and there’s no chance it will come by then.

Of course, this probably isn’t the big deal I think it is, since there’s zero chance I’ll finish all of this before I get back from Texas, and undoubtedly the yarn will be waiting for me then, but I really wish I could understand what it is about my dysfunctional relationship with Habu that means I can’t ever, ever get it right? Is it because the yarn is weird? Is it because I’m in some sort of fugue state in the booth? Is it the cones? Is it because no reasonable person in the whole world (who didn’t read the label) could possibly tell how many metres of )(*&^%ing stainless steel thread are on a )(*&^%$ing cone?

The upshot of it all is that this afternoon finds me in the stash room, choosing what I’ll knit in Texas because the Habu sweater and I are going to enjoy a little time away from each other. One of us is a jerk, and we both need to think over our relationship.

In other news, there are still spots available for the April Strung Along Retreat. The November one is full and running a wait list, and the June one has very few spots left. If you were hoping to attend a retreat with spinning in it – this one is likely your only chance for the year.  (To answer a question that keeps getting asked in our inbox: NO. You don’t have to be an expert spinner. This class is appropriate for people who have only met a wheel once or twice, Judith is very – very good with beginners, and we can lend you a wheel and give you a chance to practice. People don’t come to classes because they know what they’re doing. They come to learn. If you knew it all, you wouldn’t be there.) Answers to most other questions can be found on the Retreat page, or you can send an email along to strungalongATyarnharlotDOTca.  (Note the .ca  – it’s hard for us to answer your email when it goes to .com)

Now, if anyone needs me, I’ll be in the stash, getting cozy with some some nice, predictable sock yarn that isn’t on a cone.

I have this idea of myself – the way I would look, if my outsides reflected my insides.  I’d be taller and my hair would be straight (or at least predictable) and my feet would be big enough to wear more shoes without so much of a hunt, and while I’m at it, they would be less wide and peasantish. There’s a scar or two I’d do away with, and I’d be more… lithe, more graceful. I’d never, ever fall going UP stairs.  That’s what I would look like.

Now, I’m neither silly, nor young, so I don’t believe for a minute that any of this is going to change.  I’m undoubtedly going to spend the rest of my life dancing at nipple level to my friends, hemming every pair of pants I’ll ever buy, hoping for the best with my hair, and sighing as I try on yet another pair of dress boots that are both too big, and too narrow for my dumpy wee feet.  I absolutely understand all of this – and it can’t explain what happens to me when I walk by the Habu Booth at Madrona.

They have all these samples hanging up. They look like this, and like this and like this. They are interesting, elegant shapes, and knit from paper, and silk and stainless steel, and they are so beautiful to me that no matter what my intentions were – no matter how firm my resolve to stomp straight past that booth this time, I end up drawn in there, standing below the samples, running silk through my hands, pulling the stainless steel thread into wild shapes, and imagining myself sweeping along, wearing all those lovely things paired with elegant wide pants that don’t make me look squat, or a long sophisticated skirt that I don’t own, together with wonderful shoes that would never fit my feet. It takes what’s really a surprisingly long time for me to remember than that I’m actually the woman from the first paragraph, realize I’m thinking that these sweaters will make me someone I have no hope of ever being (namely tall) and eventually I buy more stainless (or paper, or silk) for yet another scarf, and sadly moon off to the button booth where I buy enough pewter clasps for imaginary sweaters to make myself feel better.  (I have lots now.)

This time though, one of the samples was Sea Tangles.  Do you see how it looks? It’s… elegantly ratty. It fits right in with that way that I think I’d like to be – that New York artsy, post-apolcalyptic, I was almost cast in the Matrix, kind of look. Better than that, it’s sheer – I’d wear it over other clothes, clothes I own already, and I wouldn’t need to be tall – or even tall-ish, I don’t think.  If I made that, I thought…

I’d never fall up the stairs.  I’ve started. I can’t wait to find out if you can wear a stainless steel and wool sweater through security at the airport.

(PS. I also got the paper and silk/steel for some scarves. I am weak.)

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.

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.

Her excitement was palpable.

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.

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.)

1. I am leaving for Madrona tomorrow.  After a wicked sprint this last weekend, everything for the workshops and classes and (almost) the Teacher Talent Show for Charity (You’re coming, right?) I am pretty much packed and ready.

2. That’s a lie. Everything for work is packed and ready, but I haven’t packed clothes or anything personal, like knitting or… anything.

3. I am sitting here at my desk, surrounded by piles of paper and post-it notes and the little baby sweater I was so sure would be done on Friday is sitting here too, and still isn’t anywhere near done.

Progress has, in fact, slowed to a crawl – which is what happens when you don’t really knit on something – or in this case, don’t knit on it for hours a day. I keep picking it up to do a row here and there, but the gauge is 32 stitches to 10cm, and that’s not a quick knit anyway you slice it, and I don’t know what I was thinking when I thought it was.  I am a lunatic. (Note to self. Pack buttons.)

4. I’m doing a book signing at Madrona – Saturday between 5-6.  Swing by and say hello if you’re around. I’d love to see you, and you can even bring a book if you like. (I don’t think there are any for sale in the Marketplace, so maybe plan ahead if you’ve got your heart set.)

5. Debbi and I busted a move, and the Strung Along April Retreat is open! We don’t have tons of spots, but there’s quite a few, and we’d love it if you came.  If you want, there’s more information on the retreat page.  The theme is Colour and Texture, and Judith MacKenzie will be there to teach spinning, and it should be really amazing. We’re excited, and can’t wait to share everything we’ve got planned.

6. Earlier today I was booking my shuttle to and from Madrona, and I was giving the very nice lady my flight information, and I told her I was arriving on Wednesday the 10th, and leaving on Monday the 14th. There was a pause, and then she said “You mean, Monday the 15th?” I scanned the flight information, found the date and read it out loud to her.  “Nope, it’s definitely the 15th. I’m looking right at it.”  I paused here to read it aloud to her (although I’m super unclear on how that would be proof, since she can’t see it)  “Flight XXXX, leaving Monday, the 15th of March. It’s the 15th for sure.”

There was this long silence, and she said “March?” and I said “That’s right.” Another pause… “Your textile conference is a month long?”  I boggled at the thought of that, and was just about to say something about how great a month long textile retreat would be, when It hit me like a ton of bricks.  My flight was wrong. I got off the phone just about hysterical, and called the airline and it’s all fine and I’m not staying in Seattle for a month, and there were absolutely flights free on Monday (this Monday) and the change was fine, and after I had it all sorted, I wondered what happened.  “Man, I can’t believe I did that” I said to the airline lady. “Wishful thinking?” She said.  “Maybe… ” I said, and then I imagined a month just for knitting and was momentarily disappointed.

7. I am super glad I discovered this today, instead of at the crack of dawn on Monday morning at the airport.

8. I am not a morning person.