Been Down To The Basement...Finally

I finally had the courage to open each of the four boxes of knitting books, leftover yarn, and UFOs I inherited from my aunt when we lost her to cancer a year and a half ago.

My Aunt Nancy, my mother's favorite sister, was the person I turned to when my Mom died when I was 14. I loved her very much.

She was also a knitter. I was so moved when my uncle offered me her knitting supplies. It was hard to pack them up, and the boxes of books and bits of yarn were somehow too daunting to open until this week. Suddenly, this evening, it was possible. I found some great memories. Check out the pamphlet on top: It was one of the oldest things in the box, and I'm positive she kept it because she knit that sampler afghan. I haven't seen the afghan in years; it pretty much got redecorated out of Aunt Nancy's family room. I thought there there were three colors of brown, brown, and gold, but according to the penciled notes by each square, there may have only been two: gold-brown and brown-gold. Every square in the book is labeled, in pencil, one or the other. I think she made the thing of sport weight yarn, DK at the heaviest. Some how this is hilarious and adorable to me, a "lasting record of your knitting skill" in brown-gold and gold-brown.

The other book has to be one of the last she bought. It was mail-ordered from her favorite shop, Woodland Woolworks in Carlton, Oregon. You can perhaps see the invoice sticking out; it's dated January 2004, about ten months before she got sick. We never talked about this book--we mostly talked about my knitting, not hers--but she loved to knit Arans. While I'm amused by the "Knitting Primer", this one just makes me sad. I don't think she ever had time to use it. In a better world, there would be at least one pattern neatly marked with tally marks, sweater size circled.

Of course we'll never have enough time to knit all the things we plan to, and of course I'm no exception. I hope that when my son, or my niece, or my future daughter-in-law comes to pack up my knitting supplies, there's someone in the family who will use my needles.