This is my youngest sister. I taught Peekapoe how to knit a few years ago and she made a striped garterstitch scarf in Lamb's Pride bulky on size 15 needles that was approximately forty-seven feet long and twelve or eighteen inches wide. It took her forever to finish and she was a little put off knitting after that. Kind of burned out, you could say, though the scarf certainly does keep her warm as she bikes all over Salt Lake City in the wintertime from the University to the West Side on her roadbike--she looks like she's wrapped up to her eyebrows in a small rug. (Sadly, her and her boyfriend's roadbikes were both recently stolen while locked up outside the city library. I don't know how long it will take for her to recover from this loss.) Less than a month ago, Peekapoe decided that she wanted a little felted card and cash wallet and she came to me with her request. But she wanted to make it herself. I was so excited I could hardly stand it, although I didn't want to put her off, so I played it cool, if you know what I mean. I dragged out all of my stash and she combed through it, eventually falling in love with a gray yarn and a goldenrod yarn. I knit a little gauge swatch, decided on 40 stitches, and taught her again how to cast on. After that she was off, remembering how to knit like it was riding a bicycle, something one never forgets. She was even knit the thing on double-points and enjoyed the striped spiral more than knitting back and forth in garterstitch. She finished the next day and brought the tube back to my house where I taught her how to do a three-needle bind off. We felted the wallet in my bathroom sink, and then she stood in front of the full-length mirror saying, "I'll pay for that in cash," and pulling the damp wallet out of her pocket with a flourish. It was gratifying to see Peekapoe enjoying the craft and her finished project so much. She quit her job at the University of Utah print arts department this summer and is fighting wilderness fires instead. This is a picture of her immediately after she came back from her first fire, on the phone telling her boyfriend that she was home. She's out on a fire call right now, and while I know safety is always first and foremost in the minds of her crew, I can't help but worry a little bit. Her boyfriend is on her crew now too (he's done this for four years--she joined because she missed him in the summer too much), so at least they're together. They go out for sixteen days at a time, and I can't wait to see her again. They want to hire her back at the print department in the fall, and I sort of prefer it when the biggest threat her employment presents is a smashed finger.
5 comments:
I wish I were a bit more of the adventurous type, but I'd have to plan my adventurousness, and that defeats the purpose, now, doesn't it? :)
dammit. I miss her, too. You forgot to mention that the title is a song which she made up as a small child and still uses in her print-making. I think you got the phrase right--I never seem to, at least to her satisfaction. One must maintain one's standards. And, yes, the two of you look more alike the older you get.
Ann Ominous
This is off the subject of knitting... do you know what it takes to get hired on for wilderness fires? I have a son who is interested in it.
Suzette @ The Wool Cabin
"Yields silliness when preceeded by its own quotation" yields silliness when preceeded by its own quotation.
I've been hearing more about wildfires out there. I hope your sis and her boyfriend are doing okay.
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