I got a delightful email today from a woman who’d just knitted her version of my Strawberry Pie shawl for her nine-year-old granddaughter. I immediately thought of the sweater my mom had made for me when I was nine, and I wish I had a picture, any picture, anywhere, of it, but it’s long gone.
My grandfather once requested that my mom knit him a cardigan. Being very proper in his dress, and needing it not to look too casual, he specifically requested a very fine knit and something that he could wear easily at work–which happened to be the hallways of Congress (when he wasn’t wearing his suitcoat.)
Mom designed an allover diamond Aran, the kind of cabling that Barbara Walker would describe as right-twist and left-twist, quite understated. I vividly remember that subdued green wool yarn and that pattern as it slowly, slowly appeared on Mom’s needles: she used to knit it when she was waiting for me at my piano lessons. With six kids and little downtime, it took her a year to do. I reminded her of it once, a few years ago, and she exclaimed, “I used fingering weight and size 2s?! I must have been out of my mind!” Yes, Mom; I remember you teaching me what the term fingering weight meant. I wanted to do that someday. I remember. She had had to buy needlepoint yarn to get the look she’d wanted.
The ultimate act of motherly love is that, because I totally fell in love with that sweater while she was making it, when she finally finally finished it and told me it was my turn next for a sweater, when I said I wanted that same diamond pattern, she actually did it. She must have been screamingly bored out of her mind with repeating that same thing after so much time, but she did it. She let me pick out a rosey shade. With a zipper in front. This was radically fashionable at the time, and with a big family, we rarely went for the latest fad–but lookatmenow! She did mine in worsted weight (there are limits, after all) and I was thrilled.
You know how teenagers sometimes wish they could tell their parents how to dress before they’ll be willing to be seen in public with them? Yeah, well. In my case, I loved that sweater, with Grandpa’s diamonds altered just so just for me, and I refused to give it up. I outgrew it. Badly. I refused to stop wearing it. My mom saw me sneaking it on one day when the wrists barely went past my elbows, and that was that–it just kind of “disappeared” shortly after. I was not happy.
I asked Mom a few years ago whatever happened to it, and she didn’t remember; oh, she’d given it away, she was sure, but she would only have given it to someone who appreciated it, she assured me.
Grandpa, meantime, wore that sweater for thirty more years, until his death at 95. It was always his favorite. His daughter had created it just for him, and it was just the right weight for wearing year-round. It’s one reason why I like knitting in wool and baby alpaca; with good care, one’s work can last practically forever, without the aging tendencies inherent in a cotton yarn.
It just now occurred to me as I was writing this why my Embossed Diamonds pattern that frames these pages must have so immediately appealed to me as it appeared out of my needles the first time. A similar-shaped stitch pattern. Huh. The things we learn about ourselves when we write.
As for that grandma who wrote to me, I am delighted she liked my pattern–and I am thrilled for her young granddaughter, who doesn’t ever have to worry about wrist lengths.
(Meantime, since every good post needs a picture, I’m putting the back of the book on top of the Sky Drama shawl shown on the front cover.)