and then put your needle through the first two loops again. See? You just do that all the way to the end and pull the lose yarn through."
It feels awkward, but I slowly bind off all of the open loops. With the exception of needing to trim the loose yarn at the end, it is done. I swing it around my neck a few times and model it for them before running inside to see how it looks in the mirror in my room. I tilt my head as I gaze at my reflection. I love it. Sure, I'll probably have little use for a scarf in Florida, but the fact that I had made it myself is enough for me. Next, I decide I want to make a shawl for Kate.
When I come back out, Ryan stops me in the kitchen. He's making bowls of ice cream for Kate and himself and asks if I want one as well. Not one to turn down ice cream, I hang out with him while he makes mine, asking for extra whipped cream. He raises a brow at me, which somehow makes me feel warm and silly for asking. I grab my bowl and Kate's before hurrying outside. I fumble Kate's bowl as I set it on the table beside her, blushing since Ryan is right behind me and sees it. I try to avoid his eyes as I sit down but can sense his gaze on me. I glance up at him just as he's putting a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth. His eyes hold mine in an almost sensual way. I feel my breath catch as he slowly drags the spoon from his lips.
My eyes snap back down to my bowl before I close them. Then I hear him chuckle. That man. Turning to focus my attention on Kate, I ignore him, hoping he will get the hint. How am I going to work with him? Deciding that whatever he may or may not be doing is most likely all in my head, I feel calmer. When I finish my dish, I collect all of them and take them to the kitchen. When I come back out, I see Ryan has left without even saying goodbye. I brush aside how that makes me feel because it seems silly, like an overreaction.
Twisting my hair up into a knot, I watch Kate knit. "Kate, could you teach me how to make a prayer shawl?"
"Of course. You could just make one like your scarf. The only difference is adding more stitches at the start."
"But the way my scarf came out looks different than yours."
"I'm purling every other row."
"Is that different than knitting?"
"Here, let me finish this row, and I'll show you."
I move over to sit by Kate as she completes her row. Kate explains that with knitting I take the point of my needle and put it upwards into the first loop. To purl the stitch, Kate instead positions her needle to enter the stitch pointing downward. She even passes her knitting to me so I can try a couple stitches. It seems easy enough and makes the stitches on one side of the shawl look smaller and closer together, whereas how I knit before, the stitches look almost ribbed. Kate pulls her basket of supplies and lets me pick out some yarn. I choose a multi-colored skein shaded in various saturations of taupe.
On my scarf, Kate had me cast on twenty-five loops. For the shawl, I need sixty. Kate tells me to knit the first five rows just as I had with my scarf, that it will create a nice border. I get right to work. It’s different having so many stitches on my needle. I still count each of those first five rows, not wanting to add or drop any and have Kate unravel it. When I finish my fifth row, Kate again works me through how to purl. It feels awkward. I'd become accustomed to holding my hand one way, but now I have to hold my right hand a breath higher and point down instead of up.
I drop a couple of stitches and need Kate's help to fix it. We sit in comfortable silence as we knit. I’m concentrating so intently on the shawl that when Kate tells me she is going inside to bed it startles me. I decide to do the same once I finish the row I’m working on. Kate mumbles something about having