As I was working out (that means run/walk) on the treadmill last week I had a random thought. Who taught my mom to knit? I have never asked my mom who taught her to knit. It seems like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It seemed like this was a nugget of family history that I should know.
I know she taught me at home, and also sent me to the Cannon Falls Yarn Shop to take a class on knitting. It seems like one of the first things knitters share with people. “My auntie taught me to knit,” or “my grandma taught me to knit,” or “I taught my self to knit.” I have been knitting with my mom for 40 years and who taught her to knit…no idea.
Well that mystery needed to be solved.
The answer was simple to find, I asked my mom “who taught you to knit?” when we were knitting together on a Tuesday night last fall. (If you notice the window was open in the picture above, today it was -7 when I woke up.)
My mom’s eyes lit up as she shared the beginning of her knitting career. It was my grandmother who taught her to knit. And once my mom had learned the basics she immediately started knitting clothes for her doll. She taught herself to increase and decrease and to make skirts and vests. She also, on her own, incorporated stripes and borders to the skirts she made.
Wow! Her story makes me imagine her as a child with an afternoon surrounded by nothing but time, a doll who needed a new wardrobe, some yarn and needles. No cell phone to take a picture and post her progress, no YouTube to look up how to make an increase. Just a desire to create and the tools needed to do it. That sounds very relaxing.
knit1purl2chat 