home again

Outside in this glorious august night, the neighbor sprinklers are spritzing. Le Ann and I went for Pagliacci's on a whim today, and yesterday I visited three!!! of the Seattle knitting stores (plus Sephora, C&B, Pottery Barn). Weaving Works, I think, is my new favorite. Acorn Street was long on novelty and good needles, books, but short on really interesting yarn, or maybe I was just yarned out after leaving WW (long on needles, books, fleece, yarns, project table). I like anywhere they don't start looking at me funny when I don't buy much after two hours. I promise, soon! when I've worked my way through the mini-stash (five projects seems like a lot, but at least I have projects in mind for each of the things I bought).

Needlepoint Joint in Ogden, though, will become my fantasy in the same way that B dreams of Chuck-a-Rama's two kinds of gravy whenever we leave Utah.

I bought my first Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (at center in green, for the Fiber Trends Lacy Leaf Socks), my first Regia (actually Heidi bought it so I can make her a pair of self-patterning Fair Isle-style and now I'm thinking it might actually be harder than it looks to make twins), some Adrienne Vittadini Cara linen in a lovely silvery wheat /bronze color (the same color as my high school graduation dress, as it turns out).

I still have some Cascade 220 for a pair of worsted socks, some pink Fixation for their free pattern socks, and some fuschia Fortissima Socka (what was I thinking?) for the lacy socks in IWK summer or the Fiber Trends raindrop lace socks (pattern courtesy of NPJ).

Like my food greedies at a buffet, my stash seems to make no sense and looks odd when all put together. I don't think the Cara will be easy to knit, but I want to do a dresser scarf for the guest room with it (maybe with beads?), and even if it just sits, I couldn't let it go--not when each $9 ball was marked down to $4. If I'd had some good sense and a bigger budget, I could've made out like crazy with their sale, but I still haven't ordered from Knit Picks, and they just keep adding yarns! Also, the great woman at NPJ who helped me pick out circs for socking very generously gave me several free patterns for felted pumpkins, and they had a glittery beaded/felted pumpkin kit I might just have to send away for. Can't believe, though, that I didn't make it to Knit Craft. Man, it's so easy for me to forget what I want to do and give away my time to others.

I'm also learning: if there is a pattern that you love and you see, snatch it up. I got frugal in my last several trips, and here's what I stupidly missed (because post-MS also comes with listmaking):

• the Harriet bag from Two Old Bags (online--still could get this one)
• that great cardigan from Oat Couture (Mount Vernon knit shop)
• that sinewy, "carved out" beaded green scarf on earthfaire.com (don't know what it was called or who it was by, or I might be able to find it again)
• the Himalayan silk vest/poncho thing

There are so many things I want to knit. Tonight I frogged back a few rows of Faina's scarf. I keep telling myself it was because I really do have enough yarn to make one more pattern repeat plus the last 50 rows of decreasing, plus the fringe (which is really quite questionable, actually), but I suspect it was actually more than frugality: I am loathe to have this project done. I have loved it so, the yumptious maroon marino and cashmere has been a comfort, even in the dead of summer (I keep thinking of Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother telling her, "cashmere wears well and is serviceable in all but the warmest days of summer"--eeek, how many times did I read those damn books!), and the pattern has been an orderly meditation of yarnovers (my, I like lace). I knit it all day on the way home from Utah, and still I am addicted to it. Every time I picked it up, I was addicted to it. I'm sure I will feel the same even about the next project (Heidi's socks) , but this is the project that was my first splurge of yarn, the first pattern I really wanted to make.

Le Ann had good wisdom today, from her latest sermon, on the things that clog our hearts (metaphorical hearts, not like French fries, etc.): anger, greed, jealousy, guilt. The antidote to greed is to give. The antidote to jealousy is to celebrate. She didn't remember the other two antidotes, but it doesn't matter because these two are my demons. I've been trying to recall lately when they arise that these two things are simply evidence of a deep but confounded want, or a frustrated wish, and that the wish and want are holy. It's the personality that twists them, and the urgency that is really fear. She also said that greed and jealousy are also our way of not trusting that the universe will take care of us. Hmmm.