Off the top of my head

Classic me: no sooner did I finish rasping out to my mum between throat lozenges yesterday the heartwarming story of the shawl I finally finished - the moral being that I learned I have to stop externalizing stress in my knitting so I can actually cast off stitches and move on through my list - than I was struck by the fact that the weekend is imminent and my friend with breast cancer could be starting chemo in just one week.  Forget the Cardi KAL and the sock sweater, I gotta knit some chemo caps!

It's not as bad as my usual panic though.  Obviously I was mulling this problem over in my head since she told me she's not well, because when I got home I effortlessly typed up the instructions for a design I worked out on the bus, and then I started looking for a critical pattern book.

Here's the plan: I'm going to use some Twisted Fiber Art Playful - an impossibly soft, springy superwash merino - to make a sleep cap with enough brim detail to be wearable for show if she really does lose her hair and she needs something in the fall.  (I didn't know till I designed my first cloche and people started writing me about it that your head gets cold at night with no hair; honestly, the depth of things we can take for granted is quite amazing.)

Then I'm going to get out my undyed organic cotton to - well, I have to say 'interpret' rather than 'make' because that yarn is about double the size of what's called for - the cover hat for Laura Irwin's Boutique Knits.

I'm quite nervous about this project.  Well, both of them, though the sleep cap literally might never see the light of day.  My friend is just super chic, not in a dressy-uppy way but more of a European-artist way (like Ady, she could wear a carry bag from an old-lady dress shop and it would look like an indy designer spent weeks crafting it) and if I make her something I want her to know I've honoured that.

Probably I was externalizing the stress of that nervousness when I realized at 10 last night that my copy of Boutique Knits was no longer on the shelf beside my desk.  That shelf got so crowded recently I had to prune out anything that wasn't specifically for reference and I moved a bunch of books elsewhere.  That's got to happen again by the way - did you know about the soon-to-be-released Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook? Drool.

Anyway I also couldn't find Boutique Knits on the shelf in the basement I moved stuff to.  Or on the shelf in the storage room where the vintage knitting and sewing brochures are.  Or in my yarn cupboard where I keep a small bucket of magazines.  Or back on the reference shelf or in the basket with the original overflow of the reference shelf.

GAH.

Finally when I had given up I remembered I put it on a shelf in the living room, with two other pattern books I know I will knit something from eventually.

Criminy, aren't I lucky that having too many books and not enough space is my biggest personal problem this week?

I hope you all have a beautiful, in-the-moment weekend and that you'll pop back in on Monday to see how the cap project is coming along.  Ideally, I'll have a picture to share, even if it's only of some random squirrel!