a lapful of alpaca

My Low Tide shawl is just zipping along. I'm past the halfway point already. Anticipating the garter ridges as the border approaches helps break the monotony of the ever-longer rows of stockinette stitch. Truthfully, the yarn is so soft and fuzz-buttery, I could knit a queen-sized blanket of garter stitch with it. (Maybe.)

Right before dinner this evening I tried getting a few more interesting WIP shots on the back deck. Since the shawl is currently all scrunched up on the circular needle, I set it in front of a Gerber Daisy I recently brought back to life - it's much happier now in a bigger pot with more water - but alas, what you see is a pile of knitting hulking awkwardly over some pretty pink flowers with all of my garden crap in the background.

Yes, I mean crap in the literal sense. That's a bag of bat guano there to the left of the daisies. I love gardening. Nowhere else in life can you create such beauty with a pile of...you know...in fact, the poop is pretty much essential. So I guess the guano in the background is appropriate after all!

Anyway, I brought my knitting to a play date and then a soccer game this afternoon, and fielded all sorts of questions like what am I making, what's the yarn, that sort of thing.  I talked about wool and knitting and prayer shawls with the grandmother of one of my daughter's friends at the soccer game. I learned that an Iraq vet I know had back surgery after his first deployment and spent his month of recovery crocheting hats for everyone in his unit because it gets cold at night in the desert. He's also a farmer, so then the subject wandered to chickens and compost and lake weed and the benefits of cover crops like clover and buckwheat. Full circle.

What does it say that I've reached a point in my life where talking about wool and compost materials with a lapful of soft, warm alpaca on a steamy summer afternoon doesn't feel unusual at all?