Good morning and happy Saturday! I’m a day late sending the newsletter, but I have a very good reason for it. My oldest daughter had her first baby a week ago Friday, and I drove down to help. I’ll tell you the rather dramatic and beautiful story at the end of the newsletter, but first I want to tell you about the silk hankies and a new colorway in the shop.

Silk Hankies

After several years of not being able to source silk hankies, I was finally able to order some. Joseph and I had a blast dyeing these up. If you have never used silk hankies, they are so much fun to play with. You can spin them into lace-weight yarn, you can knit or crochet with them without spinning them, and you can use them for felting too.

I actually have a tutorial on my blog for how to spin them right here.

You can even knit or crochet with them without spinning for a beautiful gossamer fabric. Here’s a tutorial from The Chili Dog on Youtube for doing that. I’m actually going to be doing this myself for the first time tomorrow.

Also, here’s a great tutorial on Ashland Bay for using these in nuno felting.

Here are the colorways I have in stock right now:

You can find them all right here, including some undyed silk hankies if you would rather dye your own.

A New Colorway

I have a new colorway to share with you. My son Joseph created it, and it’s called Northern Lights. It shares some of the same colors with Beautiful Universe, but it’s lighter and brighter. We just have it on Sparkly Merino Sock so far, but I’m planning to dye more soon. I hope you love as much as I do. Here it is:

Baby!

Now I get to share the dramatic story of our grandson’s arrival. Last week, I mentioned that our oldest daughter might be in labor with her first baby, but we weren’t sure if it was the real thing yet. That was partly due to the fact that all my babies had been late, my siblings and I had been late, and my sister had delivered her two children late as well. I thought I would get around to packing to go down there once the baby’s due date had passed!

Nonetheless, the baby had other plans, and labor began a week early. She really was in labor last week but had two nights with real early contractions that slowed down during the day. She even went to her teaching job the day before the baby was born thinking maybe it wasn’t the real thing yet.

The plan had been for me to come down when she was in early labor, assuming not only that the baby would probably be late but that she would have a slow, long labor like most first babies. She and her husband live five hours south of us, and I would have left sooner, but DFW was in the midst of an ice storm. Based on what I was hearing on Thursday, I planned to leave after the ice melted on Friday morning. However, again the baby had other ideas.

Labor continued to progress, and shortly after midnight on Friday morning, my son-in-law called the midwife to see if she thought it was time to head to the birthing center. Based on my ever-chipper and generally very calm daughter, however, the midwife thought it wasn’t time yet when she spoke to her. They waited another couple hours and were just ready to leave for the birthing center when all the sudden it was time to push, so they stayed home, which is really good because home is a lot better than a car. The baby was born at home, and my son-in-law delivered him. He was small but healthy, and our daughter did great. I was on the phone with them right after he was born and left to head down there soon after.

Looking back, it would have been wise for me to wait until the ice melted, but I was in such a hurry to see my little grandson and help out that I left at about 5:30 in the morning for what turned out to be the scariest drive of my life. As soon as I got on the highway, I saw lots of accidents going the other direction. Apparently there was something called freezing fog that made every bridge very treacherous, and of course no one is used to driving in this here. Once you are on a frozen bridge, you can’t use your brakes. You just have to hope and pray that you’ll get to the other side without sliding off.

By the time I realized this was probably a really bad idea and that I should go home and wait until the temperature got above freezing, it was too late to turn back. The overpasses to get back home were closed, so there was really no choice but to keep driving. It took me two hours to drive very slowly across the Metroplex–a distance that would normally have taken 30 minutes. I think my guardian angel must have been guiding my path. While it was truly terrifying and I had no idea there were so many bridges before I had to drive over them frozen, none of the hundred plus accidents that occurred that morning happened on the road where I was. The whole trip took eight hours instead of the usual five, but once I got south of DFW it got a lot better, and about an hour later there was no more ice at all.

By the time I arrived, the midwives had been and gone, and all three were doing fine except that little Eddie and my daughter were struggling a bit to figure out nursing. I was able to help with that, and it was just so lovely to be there with them for the week. By the time I left, they were pros at nursing, and the baby had gained half a pound at his one-week checkup! He’s very sweet and peaceful, and we all thought we saw him smile on many occasions. This beautiful little boy is so well loved!

Here’s little Eddie sporting the baby cocoon I made for him:

Isn’t he precious? I have to tell you that being a grandma is incredibly wonderful!

I think that’s everything for this week. Next week if all goes well I’ll have a new pattern to share with you.

Oh, one more thing–there are just five more Eight Days of Easter kits available, so if you would like to get one for yourself or a friend, you might not want to wait too long. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make any more once these are gone.

Have a beautiful week!