Yesterday morning I had to make a trip to the market. While I was waiting at the deli case for my roast beef, I noticed a beautiful knitted bonnet on a little girl in the charge of an elderly woman (her grandmother, I imagine though I don’t know for sure). The yarn was a variegated brown/gold/pumpkin and looked quite nice on the little girl who had brown hair and blue-grey eyes. I asked the woman if she had knit the bonnet.
“Yes,” she said as we started to move away from the counter,” She comes to me every morning bare headed. I had to have something to put on her.” She seemed more than willing to talk about the hat, but never once did her eyes do anything but focus straight in front of her. I explained that I thought it was very attractive, nicely made and that it looked good on the little girl. “Well, it was yarn I had around. I couldn’t afford to go and get something else. But I had to have something to put on her when we went out.”
The little girl was smiling shyly up at me now, but I had the feeling I was making her grandmother (?) uncomfortable so I went on my way. It really was a lovely bonnet though…
We have moved the gerbils into their new, glass mansion. It’s quite a bit larger than the acrylic tank, the glass is way clearer than the acrylic was and the air circulation is much better. The little guys were busy all night exploring, moving things around, digging and, in general, making the space theirs.
See - there really are three of them!
And they’ve grown so fast! They’re nearly adult size now but when we brought them home three weeks ago they were still pretty tiny. Crackle and Pop (the two taupe babies) have dark masks, ears and tails - much darker than the rest of their coats. I’ve been thinking of them as Siamese gerbils :) Snap is silver, and while her coat, overall, is a bit darker than it was, she doesn’t have the “points” that her sisters do.
Oh yeah…
Baby hat
Hope your weekends are peaceful, productive and happy!
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awww, so, so cute (hat is nice too)- i’m sure the wee rodents will enjoy the spacious new condo-
interesting response from the lady with the little girl- if anyone ever comments on anything i have made, i practically put that poor soul in a stranglehold while i natter endlessly about the item-
of course, now i have something new and beautiful made for me by a dear friend, so i will probably be stopping strangers to ‘show and tell’-
stay happy-
Very cute. :) I like it too.
You definitely hit on something with the Grandmother (?) and little girl. Obviously much more going on there than meets the eye. Hopefully you cheered up the lady just a bit by complimenting the hat. You just never know what triumphs & tragedies lurk in other people’s lives....
It really does sound like something else was going on with the Grandmother. Hopefully just having someone to talk to, even for a moment, was a bright spot in her day.
Adorable hat, by the way :-)
Barb - To tell you the truth, since the store isn’t in a great part of the city and since she doesn’t know me from Adam’s off ox, I was afraid I was frightening her. I sure hope not :(
Bron - I’d like to think you’re right because that’s what I had in mind. You know, encouraging hand knits and so forth. Of course I’ll never know!
Kathy - I really do hope so. Mostly I wanted her to know that someone recognized her work and thought it was nice.
Thanks about the hat :)
Good thing I didn’t meet someone like that. She probably would have maced me. I NEVER see knitters around here so I’d have jumped at the opportunity. I mean never, lived here ~8 years altogether and met one (1) other knitter and not very many crocheters.
I’m on hat #5 from the Hats On! book. It’s like popcorn; I can’t seem to go fast enough. MEM’s cast on really speeds up the cast on for me.
That little hat is cute. Combining yarns just didn’t occur to me when I pass over the patterns for bulky yarns I don’t have. Now I can do something with all that sock yarn, besides socks , I mean.
Have you named the critters’ new home? How about the Cereal Bowl? :-D
Hope you keep having sunshine.
Aarlene - I enjoy meeting other knitters, but it sure doesn’t happen very often and I don’t know, aside of the lady who taught me (God rest her) that I ever met another crocheter - in person, that is :)
You know, I never thought of naming the Gerbil’s estate but the minute I read what you wrote, I thought “The Crystal Palace”. Whaddya think? Pretentious enough?
