Poke-Story

That nephew of mine, Little E: if he texts, it's usually a matter of some urgency often requiring rapid aunt participation of an interesting kind. Saturday's message got straight to the point:

Auntie Sian, can you knit me a pokeball hat, please and maybe a pikachu too. Thank you. E xx

There was even a Ravelry link attached; and in that I detected the hand of his mother, so I texted back:

That's a crochet pattern. But there are knitted ones too. I can do that. No problem. 

She returned:

He was worried you might not know what a pokeball hat is. But I said of course you'd know

And, not for the first time, I whispered a quiet word of thanks to the generous knitters who create and post their patterns to a place where an aunt can find them first thing on a Saturday morning, right around breakfast time.

Pattern: a free Ravelry download by SashaKnits (thank you!)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino (which is machine washable)

I printed out my poke- pattern, but it was Sunday night before I was able to sit down and order some poke-wool: red, black and white aran, with a larger-than-my-usual-size circular needle, which couldn't really be called poke(y) at all because it looked so fat. And then I waited for the wool to arrive.

A couple of days later, as I listened for the postman, came not a text message this time, but the very face of Little E himself. Face time! 

"Why aren't you at school?" I asked.

"I'm sick!" he said brightly and smiled his most winning smile, so what could I do but clear my schedule and settle down for a long poke-chat. 

"I'll phone you again later, Auntie Sian: you have a lot more pokemon to learn!" he finished, quite a bit later.

And, what do you know, by the time he called back the parcel of wool had arrived and we were able to open it together. Now, this was good and this was also bad. The red and the black came out of the parcel looking poke-perfect and Little E approved. But when the white appeared? Poke-panic! It wasn't white at all, it was cream.

"That's not right," Little E shook his head. "That white has yellow in it. You need white with....grey in it."

which was pretty deep, I thought, coming from a seven year old, and also unnervingly accurate. The white wasn't white, it was yellow.

"I have to go out now," I said. "But phone me again in a hour and I'll have poke-progress to report."

So he did. And I did. I ran to the Post Office (no: not actually, what a thought) and, on my way, I tried our local wool shop, keeping my fingers very tightly crossed since  I only resort to internet shopping because this place doesn't often have what I need. I was in luck. The poke-hat was back in business, with a new white, signed off by Little E, and a big needle for some swiss darning.

It didn't take very long. So I ran back to the Post Office (no, not really). He says he likes it. But I think it's going to take a bit of persuasion to get him to take a picture. He's gone all shy. Or maybe he's just too busy chasing pokemon. Hey, Little E, I want a go!