Amazing Magical Sisters ...

I knit Mona a hat before I knew how to do the shaping properly. It was fine until it was washed, then it turned all flollopy and shapeless. She professed to love that hat. So much so that when it grew legs and walked away, she asked me to knit her another. I had enough of the yarn left, so I did ... this time employing proper hat-knitting techniques. It was a much better hat! But Mona was having none of it. She really did love the flollopy thing. I took back the well-knit hat to reclaim the yarn because I wasn't sure I had enough for a third knitting of The Hat ... but oops! In a flurry of sistering, we left it in the back of Mary's vehicle in a bag with something that got stinky. It turned out that I did have enough of the yarn to knit a third, though, and Mona loves it. And she makes everyone else see it how she sees it.

I've been collecting egg cartons and toilet paper rolls for Mary. The toilet paper rolls are little cøndom thingies for cutworm susceptible plants in her CSA garden, and the egg cartons are for eggs (how mundane!) from her chickens. I handed her a bag of both when I picked Cory up for his birthday sleep-over last week. You'd think I handed her a pot of gold and a brand new box of craysons! Her face lit up and she squashed the toilet paper rolls flat and cut them in thirds and announced, "That's what I'll do today! I'll plant those! ... and chirped about having just asked her CSA members to collect egg cartons. Now every time change the toilet paper roll or finish a carton of eggs or walk past the little pile of stuff to go out the door, I feel her radiating that joy.

It's cool that Mona loves a hat I knit for her and that Mary took delight in stuff I got to give her to reuse instead of just recycling or composting it. Those things are happy-making enough on their own, but they're merely symptoms of what's really going on. You see, I have magical sisters.

Mary has the power to transform the most unexpected things, a bag of toilet paper rolls for example, into great gifts ... to turn a simple collection of would-be waste into a bright, joyful thing.

Mona has the power to transform just about anything, a shapeless hat knit from kinda meh yarn for example, into a wonder of creation ... to turn mere knotted string into treasure far beyond what I see in it, having knit it.

How cool is that?

I see them do it all the time ... they create joy and magic and treasure and hand it back to people around them on a regular basis ... and they're my sisters.