What I did last week:
It’s a soft, squooshy scarf, knit from start to finish at various locations in and around Bethesda, Maryland. Finished on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, actually. It’s the Corrugator, and it’s a fun and satisfying knit. I used one 245 yard skein of Mountain Colors Merino Ribbon in Yellowstone.
I like it a lot, but it’s going to the Red Scarf Project. I can’t keep it, because it was Nursing Home Knitting, and it makes me sad. If I send it off to warm a young person, all the sad will float away, won’t it? If it gets to have a happy life filled with laughter, that will make it okay, won’t it?
I think so.My trip and my visit with my mom was good, but hard. She is doing well, getting stronger, and being pretty cheerful, considering. We spent a lot of time sitting and chatting and thinking about old times. I would come in the morning, stay till lunch, and return in the afternoon. At dinner time I went back to my little room at the strange but nice hotel, where I spent the evenings knitting and surfing the internet and watching bad TV
.I had a wonderful lunch with my dear friend V on Thursday. We sat there so long that the restaurant staff began prepping for the dinner service. If you’re near Potomac, you should have a meal at Bezu. It was delicious.
On Saturday, after a short but productive visit with my sister to Knit + Stitch = Bliss in Bethesda (sock yarn, that’s all), I drove off to the Eastern
Shore to spend a couple of nights with my friends K and R. We laughed ourselves silly, and K and I knit and talked knitting (my heavens, his sweaters are beautiful!), and we had some interesting meals. The Japanese place was grand, but the Waffle House in Middletown? Not so much unless you’re a fan of “Cops.” There was a police chase/Taser incident across the road that had everyone but us out of their seats. It was surreal.On Monday morning at the crack of dawn I loaded up and headed for home. The short visits with my dear friends, one on each end of the trip, helped make leaving my mom a little easier. Still, it was hard. Each time I see her it’s harder to leave. My drive felt slow and I was so tired — even Turnpike coffee didn’t seem to help. I was almost home, and still drowsy, when I saw the signs for Sayville, and remembered the yarn/spinning shop that I’d been meaning to visit.
I’ve been planning and saving and researching portable wheels for months. My Reeves is too big to take anywhere, and my Sweet Ashford is getting old and doesn’t enjoy the car much any more, so I have been wanting a wheel to take on the road. I even had it narrowed down to a couple of choices.
When I sat down to spin on this one it felt just right, so I debated for a minute or two, called and consulted Rho (“Am I crazy?”), and then made the decision.
A little Joy lifted my heavy heart just a bit. Enough. I feel like I got a new puppy. It’s so small and silly and sweet. And it makes yarn without being trained!
“You have the nerve to be gone for six whole days, and then, what? You bring a puppy into the house? I won’t be speaking to you any time soon, or at least not until I want my dinner.”
Not Plain Jane 