Frayed Edge

Blanket of many colors

What knitting means to me can be summarized in a short story about my grandmother and a blanket. I told a very short version of this story in a reply to one of my favorite bloggers and it got me thinking.

My grandmother was a knitter. And a cross word puzzle junkie I might add.( Her vocabulary was endless). When I was 15 my family moved to Missouri to be closer to her. At that age, I didn't really grasp how special it was to have such a great grandmother just down the street. I didn't take advantage of her wisdom. However, the few memories I have of her make me warm and bring pleasant feelings. I remember going to church with her out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road, mowing her lawn and drinkning instant Lipton iced tea afterwards, the small cute glasses with images of boys and girls dancing on them. I remember her rose bushes, the cotton field just across the street and her tool shed filled with all kinds of treasures. I remember her hydrangea bushes but I also remember her knitting blankets for my cousins. Unfortunately, she didn't get around to making a blanket for me. She passed away on Thanksgiving night in 1997.

I wish I could tell her I now know how to knit and often wish I could ask her questions when I get stuck during a project. Or just to pick up the phone to talk about life in general when I get stuck during a rough time.

Shortly after her death my father gave me a blanket. It was a blanket my grandmother had knitted years ago to put on the back of her sofa. I remembered seeing the blanket many many times lying on the back of her sofa in her living room. (Although as a child I didn't look at it closely nor did I care whether is was handmade or store bought.) But when it was given to me, I began to relize its value. I cherished that blanket, I put it away for safe keeping and only looked at it occasionally. Then last year I began knitting (which is another story I'll get to later).

I took it out of storage and began using it occasionally. No one had ever knitted anything for me before, (or since). I realized it must have taken a lot of time to make such a blanket. It was nice to cuddle with to keep warm. I began looking at the stitches closely. They are wonderful, just beautiful. Everything is so perfect on that blanket; spacing, tention, patterns, sizing. Each square is a different pattern. Cables, bobbles, diamonds, ribbing, basket weave and numerous others. Maybe there is a different stitch and pattern to represent each new pattern or step in my life. Maybe this is a way she can be with me as grow.

I feel like a piece of her, or her soul, is in that blanket. I wonder what she was thinking while she made each stitch. Although I can't hug her or knit with her now that she is gone, somehow I feel closer to her when I look at that blanket. I can hold or knit with my blanket when I long for family or need to feel a sense of belonging. I find it ironic that a craft I had no interest in 18 months ago has helped me to grow closer to someone I lost years ago.

If one lesson can be learned from all of this, it is to cherish my friends and loved ones each day. as I swim in my Sea of Scarves I hope that the gifts that I present my family with this Christmas will bring a fraction of the warmth and comfort my blanket has brought me.

posted by D @ 1:11 PM