Grey clouds splashed across the cold January sky obscuring any chance of warmth the ground may seek to find. It was as if all hope had been sucked out of Anna as she looked drearily out her living room window at the snow. It was at times like this that she missed her Baba’ the most. As a little girl Anna would sit next to her grandmother watching her knit on long, dreary winter days. She remembered how hypnotic it was to listen to the magical clicking sound of the needles. Anna was always amazed at the fact that something as simple as two needles and a skein of yarn would eventually produce something warm and wonderful for the lucky recipient.
Her mother, Julia knew how to knit too but hadn’t picked up her sticks and a ball of yarn since Anna was a little girl. She can still remember her warm hand knit mittens that her mother had so lovingly knit for her. She can still smell the musky scent of the wool and see the colorful Fair Isle patterns as if it was just yesterday. No one else ever had a pair of mittens like Anna at school so it was always easy for her to tell which ones belonged to her. She was so proud of those mittens that were so magically knitted for her. Anna smiled as she reminisced about the mittens of her childhood.
When Anna’s mother was a child she had no interest to share in her mothers love of knitting. It wasn’t until Julia became pregnant with her first child, Anna that she asked Baba’ to teach her. The very first thing she knitted for the unborn child she so eagerly awaited to meet was a simple garter stitched blanket. She had to frog it a few times due to the magically appearing wholes from stitches she had dropped or she would come to find that an extra stitch had joined the group on it’s travels back and forth across the needles. Granted, it wasn’t anything fancy or awe inspiring but it was still beautiful and well loved. Unknown to Anna, her mother still has this first precious knitted item tucked away along side the baby sweater Baba’ had knitted for Anna, all for safekeeping.
It wasn’t till Anna turned 35 that she had decided that she wanted to learn to hand knit but Baba’ wasn’t there to teach her and Anna’s mother lived to far away to teach her at the time. So, Anna bought some needles, a skein of yarn and a beginning knitters book and began teaching herself. She started off easy with a man’s simple scarf and then moved on to an easy pair of mittens done on two needles and then to a simple poncho that she knitted in the round on circular needles.
That was two years ago when her first skein of yarn took shape. Now as she works on a blanket for her niece she thinks about how it all started with her grandmother’s first skein of yarn that simply morphed into new colors and textures over the years. Then like tying on a new skein Julia shared in the joy of knitting along side her mother. Which eventually lead to Anna tying on to the skein that came to join all three women together. So you see, the skein never ends it just simply transforms with each creative stitch into new colors and textures. And if you are lucky someone you love will tie onto that skein forever expanding its possibilities.
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