Spun by Sorcery (33 page)

He had been overmatched from the start. He could have played the human card and backed away and nobody would have faulted him for it. But he fought by my side every step of the way and I loved him so much I thought my heart would split open like a piñata.

“What are you doing up?” I asked, hiding my emotions behind my spinning.

“I woke up and you weren’t there.” He struggled to stifle a yawn. “I like it better when you are.”

I love spinning but not even the pleasures of the wheel were any match for straight-up love.

“I like it better when I am, too,” I said, and moved into the warmth of his arms, chuckling softly at the hazy spray of sparks our touch ignited.

“Do you think we’ll still be striking sparks a year from now?” he asked as they faded into the moonlit room.

“I think we’ll still be striking sparks a hundred years from now.” I told him about my certainty that Samuel had pierced the veil and he held me tight as he listened to my regrets.

“Come on,” he said once my emotional storm had passed. “We both have a busy day ahead. Let’s get some sleep.”

I had almost forgotten that a group of gay knitters from Cincinnati was coming up for a design workshop in the morning. They would be joined in the afternoon by a ladies church group from Nashua for an advanced finishing class that promised to turn good knitters into great ones. Both groups were repeat attendees I had grown to know and love but it would still be a very long and very busy day.

Arms wrapped around each other, we headed slowly down the hallway to the bedroom.

“Are you still planning to go back to Salem tomorrow?” I asked.

“Paul’s taking me up to Montpelier around lunchtime. I’ll drive a one-way rental down there, pack up the Buick, settle the motel bill, then drive back.”

A big fat lump formed in my throat. “You hate my Buick but you’d drive it all the way home for me?”

“Guess I’m just a fool for love.”

Who needs chocolates and roses anyway? Sometimes true love shows up behind the wheel of a dented gray clunker with Vermont plates. My overheated emotions threatened to get the better of me so I quickly shifted gears.

“I’ll make you a lumberjack breakfast before you leave. You won’t need to stop for food until you’re on your way back.”

“Didn’t you say something about pancakes and bacon the other morning before things got crazy?”

It seemed like a lifetime ago. “Blueberry pancakes, a river of maple syrup, eggs over—” I stopped as a loud noise rattled through the cottage. “Did you hear that?”

“They could hear it in Montpelier.” He snapped instantly into cop mode. “Since when do they pick up the trash at two in the morning?”

“Maybe they’re playing catch-up,” I said. “Things haven’t exactly been normal around here lately.”

The rumble grew louder.

And a whole lot closer.

Luke tilted his head. “If I didn’t know better I’d say that sounded like the Buick.”

“That’s crazy,” I said.

Still, this was Sugar Maple where
crazy
was a relative term. It wouldn’t hurt to check.

We swung open the front door in time to catch a major display from Mother Nature. The sky erupted in flashes of lightning that slashed the firmament and lit up the landscape like the Fourth of July times ten.

“Damn,” Luke said as we stepped out onto the porch where the roar of an invisible engine almost drowned out conversation. “That really does sound like your car.”

“My car’s in Salem. Remember?”

He shot me a look. “Are you sure?”

Beads of sweat broke out on the back of my neck. “I was five minutes ago.”

Twin beams of light appeared near the curve in the road, heading straight for us at warp speed.

I froze in place but Luke quickly threw me to the ground, then threw himself on top of me.

The front porch shook as something huge and heavy crashed into the saplings at the edge of my driveway, then hit the ground with a monster thud.

“Guess you don’t have to rent a car in Montpelier,” I said to Luke as we stood up and brushed ourselves off.

“Guess not,” he said.

My Buick was back. Okay, so it was half in the rhododendron bushes and smoke was spewing from under the hood, but it was definitely back and so was Aerynn’s wheel and mountains of yarn trying to escape through the open windows.

It would have been an almost-perfect ending to the craziest few days of my life when an all-too-familiar voice rang out from the depths of my battered car.

“Don’t just stand there, missy. Help me out of here.”

Luke and I locked eyes. He looked as horrified as I felt.

“Elspeth?” we said in unison.

“And who else would it be?”

I could think of any one of a thousand people, living or dead, but I managed to hold my tongue as Luke and I pulled old Buttercup from the backseat of the car.

Her mob cap was askew. A skein of sequined cashmere was draped around her neck. Her plain white apron and voluminous black skirts were wrinkled and definitely worse for the wear.

Luke tried to check for injuries but she batted him away like he was a pesky fly.

“Hands to yourself,” she said, visibly recoiling from his touch. It isn’t easy to show disdain when you barely reach a human’s navel, but somehow the yellow-haired troll managed just fine.

“He was trying to help you,” I snapped, annoyed by her old-school prejudices. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Which probably wasn’t the most hospitable thing I could have said but Samuel’s friend didn’t exactly bring out the best in me.

“Samuel sent me,” she said, puffing up like a blowfish. “It was his last wish.”

I aimed an eye roll at Luke that made him grin. Even my cats could come up with a better story than that. “You’re telling me that Samuel’s last wish was for you to deliver my car.”

“No, missy,” she tossed over her well-padded shoulder as she stomped up the steps to our front door. “I’m telling you his last wish is for me to deliver your baby.”

Like Chloe and Janice, I’m a big fan of road trip knitting. Give me a long stretch of open highway, a circular needle, and a fat ball of yarn and I’m a happy knitter.

I’m also not alone. I surveyed some of my knitter friends and came up with the following unscientific findings.

We love socks! If you’re a sock knitter, you’re probably a road trip sock knitter as well.

Rho loves making socks on a magic loop (Lifestyle pattern and fleegle’s no-holes heel pattern with Judy’s Magic Cast-On and Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Cast-Off):

Marietta takes two pairs of socks-in-progress when she travels and knits them with sock-weight yarn on size 1s or 2s.

Cathy R believes that “the selection of a new sock pattern and appropriate yarn is very crucial for the retention of sanity over the long miles.” Jellidonut knits them two at a time on circular needles and loves it when people think she’s a magician! But Katminder says it all: “Socks socks socks!”

Surprisingly popular. I’m not a dishcloth knitter myself. I can’t imagine putting in all that effort only to use the end result to scrub out a pot. But that’s just me. (If someone else does the knitting, it’s a different story. Handknit dishcloths are environmentally friendly and beautiful.)

Sue3331 keeps a set of short needles and several balls of kitchen cotton in the car so she’s never without something to knit. Nicole Simmons and Jeanne Hickling do the same thing. Kathy Minder likes to whip up a dishcloth or two en route to a weekend visit with friends and relatives. She presents the finished knits as thank-you gifts.

There is a vocal contingent of knitters on our blog, Romancing the Yarn, who swear by hats as favorite road trip knitting projects.

Megan Boesen once made three Jayne hats while driving through South Dakota with her significant other’s family but then wondered why she couldn’t find any buffalo yarn! (The Jayne hat:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=19076.20
)

Julie S votes for hats—“just plain ole stockinette, knit in the round, hats.”

Lynne Welch likes to “knit uncomplicated things when I travel. I do a lot of hats (using doubled wool worsted and size 10 needles: cast on 72, k2p2 for 11 inches or so, k2tog around for several rows till I get down to 9 stitches, then cut yarn and draw through).”

I’m only surprised it didn’t rank higher in my unscientific survey. Scarves are long and repetitive. Once you master the stitch pattern you can keep on knitting for miles. A long and intricate scarf could take you from New York to Florida and back again. (And what’s more beautiful than yards of seed stitch? Perfect guy scarf!)

Ellen H loves to knit scarves on road trips but admits she loves reading even more. Kozmic says, “After a couple of semi-nasty accidents with dpns on road trips, I’ve gone back to knitting scarves using a circular needle.” Estella loves scarflets and small shawls while on the road. Jeanne Hickling travels with her Sunday Morning Shawl (which can be found on Ravelry at
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/Sunday-morning-shawl
).

And Sara Brockunier (a knitter after my own heart who can be found at
http://fabricnfiberfanatic.com
) loves seed stitch scarves.

This one surprised me. I think of baby knits as fiddly and intricate but my knit pals have me reconsidering my options.

Grandma Moo says, “Hats and small toys are my favorites except that I can’t do toys if I have to help with directions. We once missed an exit by 45 miles because of a bear’s nose.” Holly Abery-Wetstone is making all of her road projects baby sweaters and will stock them away until she needs a baby gift. Her current favorite is from Ravelry:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/seamless-baby-kimono
.

Susan Lantz loves Elizabeth Zimmerman’s famous (all garter stitch) Baby Surprise Jacket in Noro Silk Garden or Dream in Color Classy.

Sally at Rivendale Farms and Page Pennington agree that bags make for great road trip knitting. Page says, “Once the bottom is started, you just knit in the round until it is as big as you, then stop.”

Don’t forget to felt!

 

I love to make blankets for rescue animals awaiting adoption in shelters. That little bit of softness and warmth can make a big difference. (I also like to think that a colorful blanket might lure in a loving adoptive family for a deserving pet.) A few years ago I bought up a ton of Red Heart’s Light & Lofty from Smiley’s
http://www.smileysyarns.com
.

Light & Lofty is a machine-wash-and-dry acrylic that’s perfect for busy shelters, which need easy-care items that can withstand rough treatment. I use it double and crochet (yes, crochet!) it up with a monster size N plastic hook. Shelters can use anything from 12-by-12-inch squares to 36-by-36-inch squares. Rectangles are okay, too. Make a chain to your approximate width, *single crochet (sc) in the second chain from the hook (or do a half double crochet [hdc] in the third), chain 1, repeat from * across the row. Turn. If you’re working single crochet, chain 1, sc in second sc, *chain 1, sc in next sc, repeat from * until end of row. Continue in pattern. (If working half double crochet, chain 2, hdc in second hdc, *chain 2, hdc in next hdc, repeat from * until end of row.)

Keep going until you reach desired size or run out of yarn. Don’t worry if it’s midrow. Weave in all ends carefully. You want a fairly tight fabric so little paws and claws don’t get stuck. If your local shelter can’t use them, check Hugs for Homeless Animals (
http://www.h4ha.org/
) for shelters that would welcome your handiwork.

This little cap is a quick-to-knit, yet not boring-to-knit, tree ornament or egg cozy for the holidays. Techniques include cabling without a needle and wrapping a stitch.

 

Shibui Knits Merino Kid (55% kid mohair, 45% merino wool): 1 hank (218yd/100g) Chinese Red (color #1797) size 6 (4 mm) double-pointed needles; cable needle; tapestry needle

 

7½ inches from edge of cap (with cuff folded up) to tip of poof; 6½-inch circumference

 

5½ stitches and 7½ rows per inch in stockinette stitch with size 6 (4 mm) needles or size to give gauge; gauge is not crucial with this cap