Looking for the perfect thank you

The other day, I ran out of gas (You'd swear I had teenagers again.) I managed to catch my very busy realtor sister in law at home, and she brought me gas so I could make it to work on time. I wanted to get her a little something to let her know just how much that meant. I spent the last 2 weeks trying to figure out what to get for her.

Not once did I ever think about knitting her something.

Sigh. She does not knit, she does very little in the way of hand made, and when she has, it has been made in a workshop she took. She likes the results, just doesn't enjoy the doing. I realized this yesterday as I drove in to work. She is the perfect candidate for something knitted. How could it have taken me 2 weeks to arrive at the obvious?

I picked up yarn yesterday, my much loved Lang Silk Dream. For a special project, there just isn't anything nicer than this. I've chosen colour 39 since she often wears that kind of soft warm tone.

The gift will be wrist warmers, simple, ribbed, possibly the Maine Morning Mitts from Clara Parkes Knitter's Book of Yarn, but I'd like to show a wee bit of open work to the knit part of the ribs across the back of the hand.

Or maybe some beads. There is a nice bead store in town, and I think I'll stop to see what I can find that will coordinate with this yarn. If I find nice beads, the beads will take place of the lacey bits.

Maybe it will be a shorter wrist warmer with a ruffly bit at the wrist, recalling, but not copying Mrs. Beeton's Wristwarmers.

This part of a project is always an adventure. A quick little yarny adventure where I can travel without a map, with only the vaguest notion of where I am going. Go west young man they used to say.

Knitting is often like that. Sometimes you end up heading east instead of west and sometimes you get lost. Sometimes you begin and end looking a lot like a puppy chasing its tail, but sometimes the traveling and the search will lead you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.