Weekend excursions

Recently, I got to play matchmaker and normally I would not post about it (talk about unnecessary pressure), but something happened that tickled me and I just have to tell y'all about it.

First a little background info: The Hubs and I were taking his best friend Michael to meet one of my friends, a knitter. Michael is practically a mirror copy of my hubby and therefore extremely good about letting me natter on about knitting and it's nuances. He's very nice that way and as a side note he's very stylish. Anyway, I had already prepared the boys that there would be a possibly long visit to a yarn shop sometime during the trip.

Fast forward to mere minutes before the arrival of My friend the knitter: Michael pipes up that if he gets some yarn, would I knit him a scarf. His neck was awfully chilly this winter. I agree, because really what is better for a knitter than having her hand knits requested?

Fast forward to the yarn shop: Having knit several items for the hubby, I have an idea of what kind of yarn Michael should get, but I also know the most important rule of knitting for others. That rule is: The knitter, you, must listen to wearer's input. If they don't give you any drag it out with wild horses if necessary. We started with an easy question like 'what color?' (red) and moved to harder ones like 'how soft?' (very, but without all the fuzz). Michael was very good about touching lots of yarn to get a feel for them. I swear I almost feel in love for him when he started "grazing" on his own. He's fingers stopped dead when he reached the merino/silk blend, 'cause like I said, he's stylish. He had no problem snapping up two skeins to purchase. I took this as a good sign, especially when the girl he was set up with is a knitter.


Fast forward to hanging out a the host's house: Beers are passed around and there is talk of setting up the Nintendo 64 and kickin' it old school. However, Michael has been set up with not one, not two, but three pattern books and is faithfully browsing them for his scarf. I took this as another good sign. Then Michael picked out his pattern. It has cables. Lots and lots of cables.

In Japanese.

Great. I hope he didn't want that scarf in the next year.