Last January, I was lucky enough to visit the 9/11 Memorial when Lisa and I went to New York City.

If you are headed to NYC, I strongly recommend you make reservations to see the memorial. Until you can get there, I hope these videos give you a tiny bit of the feeling of being there.
Video of the fountain
The black stone where all the names are listed was warm from the sun and made me think about warmth and life and then the water falls and you can’t see where it lands. Like the people that were never recovered. Some of the falls were frozen and there was mist coming out of the water. This made me think of the loss and how cold and final death is. It was incredibly moving and poetic.
Video of the mist
It was sobering to stand there and think of the First Responders that went running in to help strangers as they were running out. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families and friends that lost loved ones.
…and to all those brave men and women in public service and the military that each day put their lives on the line for others. Thank you.

A couple of weeks ago, my childhood best friend had a beautiful baby boy.

Now, I’ve been busy working on the book projects after the finger cutting debacle on July 4th, so I haven’t had as much time to work on baby stuff as I’d like…and by now, you know that I’m a little high strung. So, as I was planning to meet my dear friend’s baby last Saturday and I hadn’t knit anything, my stress level was rising. I ask you, HOW was I going to show up to welcome my oldest friend’s new baby without any knitted love?
Answer: I wasn’t. So, Friday night after work, I cast on a baby hat…and then I stayed up til 1:42am to make sure it was close enough to done that I could finish it Saturday before leaving town.

So, sweet Baby C got a pretty knit hat to celebrate his safe arrival. The yarn is Mirasol Yarn – Hacho and the pattern is Easy Peasy Newborn Sock Hat by Keri McKiernan

I am grateful to his parents for opening their home to me and letting me snuggle their cute baby for hours.

He is precious and I love him bunches!!!

Ps. Check out more finished objects at Tami’s Amis.

The other article I knit for the book used Malabrigo Arroyo in the colorway Azules.

The yarn was pretty and the pattern was attractive and tidy, but it didn’t move me the way the other yarn/pattern combination did…mostly because it was a hair more stressful. The reason for this can be illustrated with a picture of the leftover yarn for each.


After knitting the first half of the piece, I realized it took 1.75 ounces. Great! I had 3.5 total so that should be perfect. The problem is that while I was working on the brown item, I realized that weighing yarn on a cheap kitchen scale is not the same as weighing yarn on a nice yarny scale. What if it is slightly off?!? I thought this to myself a krajillion times as I knit and the ball got smaller. I should have requested more yarn after finishing the first bit.
Last Saturday, I was hanging out, chatting with a friend and was making progress and probably should have left at a reasonable 10 or 11 pm, but I was SO CLOSE to the end. Would I have enough yarn to finish the second half? I had to know.

I did have enough! and I left her place at 12:30 am. It was a gorgeous night.