I Have Brought My Mother Over to the Dark Side....

MWAHAHAHA....

As those of you who have known me for a while know, I have a marvelous and hertofore somewhat knitting impaired mother. I do not hold this against her. She is a wiz at about a million things, most of which, quite frankly, I suck at, so if knitting was not her thing: if knitting was something she did one sweater's worth of per grandchild, and that reluctantly, and if crochet followed closely after, well, that was ok.

Over the past - oh, year or so, we have seen some creeping, however. There was a scarf... there were a bunch of yarmulkes crocheted for a friend's grandson's Bar Mitzvah. There were plans to do some yarmulkes for my niece's Bat Mitzvah, as well. This is all acrylic we are talking about here, or cheap acrylic/cotton blend - the sort of financial commitment you are prepared to make when knitting/crocheting is not a huge part of your life.

(And I stop here to say that sometimes RHSS is the very best yarn you could dream of for a particular project and then you knit with it for that reason, and make no apologies. I am hatching a plan currently to get some Bernat Hot Socks for Socker, so I can make some socks Feltdemort can't felt.)

However, the infection was spreading, unbeknownst to us all.

A few weeks ago she told me she was making me a present for my birthday and that I MUST tell her if I did not like it. She told me this several times, in fact, and then arrived the other day for the weekly visit with this in hand...

Ok, for whatever bizarre reason, blogger will not take my photo right now. However, trust me when I say it is a beautiful crocheted shawl made from Lion Suede. Gorgeous colors, a melange of purple, rust, gold and green...and so so soft...It has become my new Woobie. I wore it that day, in fact, and it perfectly finished off my outfit of Linen top and Black slacks with the jazzy vintage handbag from Little Aunt Mary and my cute black flats from Rainbow.

Some people are snotty about all Lion Brand products but they actually have some nice things, including chenilles. I can't stop touching this thing. I have been wearing it around the house for warmth. In between, I just look at it.

I did not, however, expect her to take me seriously when I told her to look in the yarn aisle at ACMoore when she went up to get her paintings framed the other day. She did. I had made inroads. And while she was there, she saw a pattern book from Coats and Clark that she liked, with a very nice crochet cardigan on the front, made in their yarn, Aztec. How do I know this? Because I got the phone call. THE phone call. The phone call every fiber-us daughter of a fiber-free mother waits for. Short form?

"I need to know what weight this yarn is."

Those were not her exact words, but what she wanted to know. She could not find the yarn called for and needed to substitute.

Ah, the joy! The discussion of the style of the jacket - assymetrical opening on a symetrical jacket with a slightly scooped neck and large buttons. Sitting at my screen and calling up the pattern booklet, Yarndex, and the websites of several companies I thought might have suitable yarn. Kvelling over the beauties of a piece that would change its look entirely with a simple change of buttons. Revelling in how much use one would get out of a light jacket that could be outerwear during transitional weather and innerwear during the winter months. And the realization, after pricing it out for her, that my mother felt perfectly fine about spending 40 dollars on the yarn for this.

That, my friends, is no longer a dabbler. My mother is good with her money. 40 dollars represented the jump to hyper-space.

No, it didn't, she told me. "I already did that with your shawl."

I am dying of the bliss.