A Delightful Dilemna

I'm knitting again. A tiny lacy dress of many pastel shades. The twins will be here soon.
A boy and a girl; Claire and Reid. Vanessa has asked her father Stephen, my first- born, to ask me to knit for the babies. I had been thinking about it but I wasn't sure if this Queen's University graduate, world-traveller, sometime inhabitant of Korea and Australia and Seattle, Washington and currently Kitchener, Ontario would be particularly interested in my old fashioned enterprise..

"Ah yes." said Stephen. "She is really is. She already has a keepsake box"

My daughter Heather, has things I knitted for Vanessa. Mary, Vanessa's mother, passed them on to Heather when Robyn was born. Robyn is almost sixteen. Heather was keeping them for Robyn but Vanessa says she would like them. So now they will be on the move again.

A lacy pattern takes longer than plain knitting. If it's going to be a keepsake it needs to be special. Who knows how many babies will wear it. Modern yarn never fades or shrinks, moths don't eat it and little ones grow so fast they don't wear it long enough to wear out.

I have to find something special for the boy baby.

My baby knitting books are almost as old as myself. I found them in the Goodwill years ago. My own were left behind. Someone else had kept these ones for forty years. Infant boys and girls were not dressed differently long ago. Clothing for tiny bodies had the same purpose. I had a thoroughly modern French Phildar book when I was knitting for my grandchildren. It is currently missing. Damn.

The needles for a lacy pattern are not much above a wire gauge. They are long. One fits under my right arm and the yarn winds around the fingers of my right hand. It provides for even tension and economy of movement. The index finger on my hand has sprouted a lump on either side of the first joint but it doesn't interfere with the knitting. The needle in my left hand is the only one that moves. The needles are bent. I really need to replace them.

I wanted yarn with a silky fleck. I need to look at modern patterns and new needles. But knitting shops are sparse on the ground. I like a shop that only has yarn and needles and patterns and beautiful finished garments hanging above one's head everywhere. I like walls covered with boxes of yarns of different thickness and multiple blends and colours than cant even be imagined. I like a table and a chair for leisurely turning pages of all the familiar pattern books and new ones besides. Such a shop is quiet because soft yarn everywhere absorbs sound and there's a feeling of reverence. Such a shopkeeper is a knitter. I like she who isn't averse to sharing experience without acting like a High Priestess. I learned to knit at the same time as I learned to write. It's not that big a deal for goodness’ sake.

The tiny little lacy dress is nicely taking shape. I bought enough yarn in Wal-Mart to make outfits for both infants. But the multiple shade is knitting up more girly than white so I have to find a wool shop for the right pattern book and yarn for Reid. And I must have straight needles.

Twelve rows form the pattern - each having 143 stitches. I can't stop in the middle. I need to finish the twelfth row. I don't mind except that I'm always drawn to start a new pattern. I don't watch the clock so sometimes I am going to bed closer to four in the morning than three. I don't mind that either. But I must have straight needles.

Should I go out now and seek out a shop or will I finish the back of the dress? The front is done. The back is half done. If I go and find a knitting shop I may not get home for hours.

What to do? What to do? The Baby Shower is in a couple of weeks. The work must be completed. If I had started a month ago, I could have knitted two feather and shell pattern shawls with two-ply yarn. I don't even know if there is such a thing as two-ply yarn any more.