My mother was a knitter. I have a vague recollection of losing a sweater my mother made me when I was about five years old. She was really angry at me but I just shrugged it off. That was the last time I remember anything handmade in our house until I was seventeen. Then my older sister got pregnant and my mother became a knitting fool. Lots of hats and sweaters. Different colors and styles. That was when she taught me to knit. My knitting phase was short since I have no memory of it. Or didn’t until I decided to pick up the sticks once again this past April.
I was Stumbling (which you can read about here when I Stumbled Upon a knitting blog. The knitter had up a pair of socks she had made. Not just an ordinary pair but a gorgeous, colorful, textured pair of socks that made me gasp. I wanna do that. And I wanna do it now!
So I went to a lys (local yarn shop for you guys not in the know) and told the gent there that I was a beginning knitter and needed supplies. He sold me two skeins of a lovely red yarn and a set of needles and I was off. I came home and looked up, on YouTube, “how to cast on“. A bunch of videos come up. I clicked one, watched and said no. Another…nope not that cast on either. Three was my lucky number. I watched the woman’s nubile hands cast on and I imitated her. I KNEW how to do this! One, two, three and I had 36 stitches on. Next was how to knit and purl. I found videos and found that knitting is like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget. I was thrilled to be able to do this.
Knitting has brought me a Zen like calm and thoughts of my mother who has been gone these past twenty years. I see how it probably brought her calm in a life that was riddled with disquiet and hardship. It made me understand the woman that I never got to know because she died before I got to know her as anyone other than my mother.
I started this blog to tell you about the joy I’ve found this year with knitting but it turned out to be a kind of memorial for a mother who I never got along with when she was alive but now am starting to feel a kinship with long after her death. Thanks for the knitting lessons, Mom. Those and all the others you taught me.
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This makes me choke up. How sweet and what a great and touching connection to be able to still have with your mother even though she is gone.
You do realize that with each stitch, each inch of yarn, each hat, bootie, scarf, mitten, and sweater you make, you perpetuate the legacy that she left behind in you, right? You might not have known the woman your mother was, but you have become her in spirit and in soul.
Beautiful post!
Hey! I was vaguely mentioned in this post! Technically, when you think about it. I was the recipient of those clothes your mother knitted!
With that said I'd like to thank you. I think between you and Mom (who was directly mentioned in the post - unlike myself *coughcough*), you've told me enough about her, the bad and the good that helps me remember. And it makes me realize that, yup... she was one of us crazy ladies. Thought I'd let you know, I sort of feel a kinship with her too. Which is weird, as I was very young when she passed. Mom actually looks at me sometimes and points out when I'm being like her. 9 times out of ten when I'm getting on her nerves...
I wish I could have known her better too. But I'm glad I get to have you and Mom around. Pretty lucky. I mean, you're especially handy when I visit NYC. ;)
<3!
What a wonderful story.
It's funny how we become our mothers as we get older. I didn't know until a year ago that my own mother knitted and that she loved to sew things from worn-out clothes. I do that!
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