I finished this scarf at the weekend, just in time for the weather to start to turn cooler. It’s made from Windy Valley Pure Qiviut, which is possibly most divine yarn ever produced.

If you haven’t already come across it, Qiviut is the soft underhair of the arctic muskox. It is reputed to be eight times warmer than wool and softer than cashmere. I was lucky enough to receive a ball of it a couple of Christmases ago and it really is sublime. It is also scarily expensive!

It’s the kind of yarn that doesn’t come one’s way very often, the sort that really, really needs to be touched to be believed. If clouds were warm and dry, or if candy floss was not sticky, this is how the yarn would feel. It is so soft that it feels like nothing in your hands, as though someone has merely breathed warm air between your fingers. I tried to capture the soft haze of it in the picture below:

I started the scarf last winter, got half way, got distracted by another project, and picked it up again a couple of weeks ago. I had knitted both borders, left one on some spare yarn and was in the process of knitting the lace centre panel. When I picked it up again I realised that I couldn’t remember what the pattern was, but the lace was simple enough to figure out from what I’d already knitted, so I just carried on anyway.

When I came to write this post I realised that I still couldn’t remember the pattern. I spent ages trawling through lace scarf patterns on Ravelry before remembering that that is exactly what I’d done in the first place, and that in the end I’d used a couple of stitch patterns from Knitted Lace of Estonia  by Nancy Bush.

The border is a 10-stitch pattern, starting from the outside edge and working in to the middle. Because I wanted to use every scrap of yarn, I knitted both borders first and then worked on the centre.

The centre panel is called ‘ladybug’ lace. It is a 6-stitch pattern; I worked 10 repeats plus a 3-stitch garter stich edging on each side.

The scarf is not large – it’s more of a neckwarmer really, but such a warm and soft neckwarmer that I can’t wait for the weather to be cold enough to wear it!

Steve has already requested a manly version for Christmas, so I’m going to try and find a non-lacey lace-weight pattern for him.

I spent the last week with a very dear friend who lives in upstate New York. When we were discussing my visit, Steve asked me what our plans were. I answered, only half jokingly, that we planned to spend about 18 hours a day chatting, and that we would probably chat in a variety of places. ‘That’s not a plan!’ he said,  ‘what will you actually be doing?’

Anthea and I have been friends for twenty years. We met when we and our husbands were posted to Cleveland for a couple of years (I know!). As well as both having babies and having been plucked out of our home environments, we discovered that we share all sorts of interests, views and values. Plus she has a wicked sense of humour. We Skype regularly and in recent years have tried to visit each other once a year.

So, I arrived on Monday afternoon and it turned out that various people had also been asking her what we were going to do during our week. It seemed that people were a little … bemused might be the best word, about our distinct lack of plans or apparent enthusiasm for doing very much. We spent one afternoon walking to a coffee shop, having coffee and walking back, another one trying on clothes and hats in a vintage shop and yet another pottering round little local shops and going to the library.

We found it very funny indeed that so many people seemed to think that we were ‘doing it wrong‘.

When we reflected on this, it seemed to us that people expected us to do all sorts of things: to visit the city, to go to exhibitions and a show and to shop. All of which would of course have been lovely, had we chosen to do them. And if those activities are a kind of tick-list by which a successful trip is judged, then it is true that we did indeed fail miserably.

However, we realised that we are in fact very good indeed at our visits, but not in terms of what we do. What we are brilliant at is giving each other and ourselves the gift of time. We luxuriate in hours and hours of time. Time spent listening to each others’ stories; time spent belly laughing (and sometimes crying); time spent hanging out watching films, trying on clothes, cooking, going for walks – just time being together. We have so much to talk about, in so much detail, that we never, ever, run out of things to say.

As mothers and as workers our lives are so busy, hectic and fast-paced, that allowing ourselves to stop ‘doing’ and instead just to ‘be’ together truly feels like a luxurious gift of rich and precious time. I am very lucky to have her for a friend.