knitting and knitting and walking.

I have been knitting so much lately that my hair resembles handspun yarn. I thought that was so clever that I set it as my Facebook status. In case you are reading it for the second time.

I'm working on a felted Christmas stocking for the Wee One. Silly me, I've never felted wool before and so there are a few things I might have done wrong. Felting is actually called Fulling, and it means you accidentally shrink something woolen in the wash, on purpose. Because it's going to shrink, you knit it up to be ENORMOUS before you shrink it. Really a silly thing to do, but when it's all done, you have a nice felty fabric, which is sturdier than a knitted fabric.

First of all, I started out with not enough yarn. I am using a gorgeous blue that goes from light to dark as you knit, and a really squongy skein of handspun, handdyed, handfound yarn that Kenneth rescued from a busy street for me as I watched him from the sidewalk, hot cocoa and hotdogs in hand, baby in belly. It was all dirty and decorated with little bits of dried brown leaves, so I didn't recognize it as being a nice pretty bit of mauve yarn until beginning this stocking project. Well....I am almost out of yarn and I haven't turned the heel yet. So far it is an ankle warmer, which everybody ought to know won't hold any of Santa's treasures unless his elves affix some velcro to the toys. I'm racking...wait, is it wracking? I'm wracking my head to find a skein of 100 percent animal hair in a nice color that will go with forget-me-not/hydrangea bush scheme I've got going, and then I remember a sweater that I bought at the local thrift store for five bucks. It's huge and white and has the right kind of seams for unraveling into piles and piles of yarn. It's part sheep and part rabbit. So I finally went online to see if angora will felt along with wool, and sure enough it does. But then the nice lady in the website goes on to tell me that a smart felter only uses yarn from the same company, to ensure even felting. And that a smart felter uses needles way bigger than the ones I am using. Oops, and oops. So I guess we'll see how it turns out. But first, I have to unravel a sweater and learn how to dye a skein of yarn.

In other, more interesting news, Edith Emily Amargosa Pants is a certified WALKER! We took her to her Grammy's favorite doctor yesterday, even though he doesn't see children anymore. Grammy pulled some strings and got us an appointment. Secretly I think she just wanted to show off the grandbaby to the family physician. He was cut from Family Physician cloth, alright! If you could go deep inside your psyche, riffle through various archetypes and stereotypes, and find your first idea of "doctor", you'll find Dr. Peterson. He's white-haired, wry, witty, and before the exam he sits you in his wood paneled office to talk. Wooden shelves filled with carved wooden ducks, and a regal portrait of a dog with a dead duck in its mouth oversees business. The only thing missing was a pipe filled with cherry-vanilla tobacco, but you know the rules....California and smoking. Anyways, we were waiting in the room designated for such activities as browsing National Geographic, filling out paperwork, and waiting, and I was admiring the carpet, which was a lush green and brown plaid, and which Kenneth assures me has been there since before he was born. (Dr. Peterson delivered both Kenneth and his brother Joseph) Edie passed the time by standing up and taking one step, then another, then wobbling a bit as she decided whether to continue or to fall, then two more steps as both of us watched! The kid has excellent timing, whether it's heading for the birth canal just after her auntie arrives in town, or waiting until both of her parents are present and attentive to take four steps on her own.

Since then, she's crossed rooms with her newfound confidence. It is such a joy to see the light blink on behind her eyes as she realizes that she can do this thing that has for so long eluded her. It's as if she could do it all along, and she just had to realize it.

Of course, I can't find my video camera battery charger, so another milestone gets recorded in words, and on the pages of her journal instead. We did take a couple of short movies on the camera.