Color

I have been knitting a baby blanket since June. It used to be for a particular baby, but she kept growing while I kept knitting, and now it is for a different baby who can't be born until I finish it. I am estimating 2011 at the moment but it could be longer. I like the pattern, but failed to notice that it is knit on needles with the girth of toothpicks. The other problem is the color--or lack thereof. It is a lovely cream, and as December turned to January, I couldn't stand the absence of color in my world a minute longer.

In a fit of color deprivation, I logged on to Virtual Yarns and ordered the yarn needed to knit the lovely Alice Starmore baby bonnet featured on the cover of Piecework magazine last month. I had to hunt around for the colors, which are arranged by categories of nature--plants, birds, water, etc. The prices were in pounds, so I knew it wasn't local, but I was unprepared for the package that arrived less than a week later.

It was wrapped in brown paper with a faint stripe like packages of yore, before bar codes became popular. It had a Royal Mail of Scotland sticker and a customs sticker signed by M. MacLeod of the Isle of Lewis. It made my husband nervous, as do all packages that bear customs labels and finish our address off with "United States of America." I was unable to reassure him as I still haven't done the pound to dollar conversion, but I have to say, it has been worth every shilling, ha'penny, etc. I went right to work on winding the skeins (Mara, Golden Plover, Kittiwake, Poppy, Red Rattle, Whin, Witchflower, Sundew, Summer Tide) and a few days later finished the bonnet. I found out that Alice Starmore achieves her effects by using several hues of a color that are gradually added and subtracted from the pattern. The process is addicting with both "one more row" and "one more color" keeping me going.

It was the perfect antidote to the cream knitting project that never ends, and the perfect project for the middle of winter. And whoever will end up wearing this bonnet can go ahead and be born--I'm ready for you!