I never did get around to publishing my New Year’s resolution post. It’s still sitting in my list, and I may or may not end up polishing it up to share. While I was thinking about my knitting plans for the new year, I spent some time digging through my stash closet, and I found a very old project whose time has finally come.
I had a great-grandmother named Birdie. I didn’t know her very well – she was already quite old by the time I was old enough to remember visiting her. Most of my memories of her are from visits to the nursing home where she spent the last years of her life, but I remember a tall woman, who although old and confused always offered us butter cookies from a blue tin. She was nice enough, as far as I knew her.
I don’t remember ever being aware of her knitting, but apparently she did. When I married Joe, my great-Uncle Homer (Birdie’s son) heard through the family grapevine that I was a knitter and sent me a package in the mail as a wedding gift.
In the package were these pieces of an afghan that Birdie knit before she died in the late 1980s. They had never been put together, and nobody left in the family had any idea how to finish the blanket, so they sat in storage for twenty years before Homer passed them on to me. I was thrilled when I opened the box at the time. I love the idea of completing the circle of a project started so long ago by my great-grandmother.
But. Back when I was newly married, I was a relatively new knitter. I wasn’t very confident in my skills in finishing, nor in fixing some of the small holes that were in the pieces when I received them, probably left by long-dead moths. I packed the pieces away and kept them in my stash waiting for the right time. I’m ready now.
I pulled them back out of their box a couple weeks ago and took another look. The first step was a nice Eucalan wash. This blankie was knit by an old lady in a nursing home, then left to marinate in storage for thirty years, and it certainly smelled like it. After that, it was time to start seaming. Only a couple of small balls of pink yarn came with the blanket pieces, so I decided to go with a simple mattress stitch seam.
From the front, it looks great, from the back, it’s not bad.
As I’ve worked with the blanket, it’s been clear to me that Birdie was no master knitter. There are lots of knots where she joined pieces of yarn together, and several places where dropped stitches were ignored and even one or two places where there are extra rows in the pattern.
But I don’t really care too much about those things. I’ve decided to respect Birdie’s work, to do a fine job of finishing it, to do what is necessary to keep it from falling apart. Finally this circle will be complete.
what a heartwarming story! You’ve completed the circle and now, you have a treasure. Enjoy the afghan.
A lovely story. I inherited lots of needles and some yarn when my knitting grandmother died and have recently been showing my mum how to block the afghans that she is knitting for each of her grandchildren. It is nice to keep it all in the family.
What a neat legacy! I’ve recently been approached by a lady who’s asked me to finish a baby sweater that her mom had started, but passed away before finishing. There’s more pressure to get this piece right than anything I’m making for myself, I’ll tell you.
That’s really neat. I think the motif of the blanket would make a nice scarf.
I’ve inherited some fabric stash, yarn, and WIP from my grandmother. As my confidence in my sewing and knitting has grown, I’ve been able to share some of the finished objects with my generation of cousins.
What a great project, what a grea heirlooom for your girls. I can’t wait to see the finished project!
That’s wonderful. I inheritsed my grandmother’s stach more than 10 years after her death. Along with the squeaky 1980s acrylic, I got a few unfinished projects, such as the left front of a cardigan with no pattern with it and no one in the family the same size and grandma anyway. I’ll be getting creative with it at some point (or giving it to a little girl as a shawl).
I managed to save some of mt mother’s things before Dad threw it out. Lots of acrylic and some old wool. Need to dig through that stuff again
That’s lovely, Shelly. Please show us the finished product.
i have some quilt blocks that have a similar story…they are from jason’s great aunt or grandmother…jason’s grandfather and uncle can’t really say who made them…they were sitting in a steamer trunk in an old house on their farm…i was given the blocks, i washed them, some of the pieces came apart (not surprising) and now i’m just sitting on them until i can figure out the right projects for them…there are 2 or 3 different kinds of block patterns…it’s always so nice to be able to connect to the past in such a personal way like that…