Knitting Family Ties

My grandmother has been a knitter for as long as I can remember. I have tons of pictures of me from grade school in Christmas sweater vests, knitted gloves, and one of a kind scarves. When I registered for the Handmade honors group I was excited to tell my Grandmother that I would be joining her in her craft. She has tried many times to teach me the basics of knitting, but I simply never had the patience or the perseverance to learn the craft. If you look on the top shelf of my closet at home you’ll find an array of 4 inch pieces of knitted projects that I started and never finished.

Now that I am required to knit (and learning to love it) my Grandmother and I have begun knitting a blanket together. It is a simple/complex afghan pattern (depending on who you ask) that we are helping each other with. She lives in New Milford, New Jersey and we have a strict mailing schedule to stick to that keeps us on track. She started the blanket and mailed it to me for the first time this weekend. We each knit for a week and then send it on its way. The pattern is hard for me because I am still learning, and I have a feeling that she wants to correct any mistakes that I make and am unable to fix myself. But we have decided to leave the mistakes that the other one makes because those give the blanket character. The tiny mistakes in our blanket represent the imperfections within my family. To others that may seem to stand out, but for me, and my Grandmother, we just take them in stride. We love them and learn from them and by the end of the blanket, they will be a part of what makes the blanket perfect.

The arthritis in my Grandmother’s fingers is slowly making it hard for her to continue knitting, but the new found fire in my heart will hopefully carry on her tradition. Each stitch that I make in the afghan ties us closer together as a family. We share a common blanket, which will carry on our story. I may not knit for the rest of my life, but that blanket will have always come from our collaboration