The Wonky Afghan

GG and I knit and crocheted together.  It’s one of those memory moments. You know, the ones that flow together so that you don’t know what year it was, what visit that you were together.  You just remember being there, in the moment, sharing time and growing as a person.  Most people have memories of hanging out in their grandmother's kitchen.  My memories are when GG and I knit.

You remember the memory moments ... it’s where you talked about boys, then guys.  You talked about your dreams, your worries. You talked about your future, her past.You talked about her life stories, her memories, her wisdom.  You told her secrets.  She gave advise.  My GG did this while we knit.  

Every visit as an adult we would sit together and she would start out with a “hey, let me show you this” and proceed with her hook or needles and a new pattern stitch.  I would follow along with my own yarn and tools.  We continued to talk as we worked a complete square.  No attention to gauge, no need to, it was simply to learn stitches and exchange techniques. By the end of the visit there would be several squares, some looking identical, made by the two of us.

One return visit, GG was pretty excited to show me an afghan she had just finished.  It was some of those squares sewn together.  The “wonky afghan”. We made more squares, and she continued to add to it. It was not planned and she used what ever we made. 

The afghan is not square.  It doesn’t even have straight edges.  The colors are not in the same family, the stitches are not the same size, the yarns are not compatible (although most of it is acrylic). It is made by two different set of hands at different times in both of our lives. She continued to add squares until it was the perfect size for the back of her couch. It stayed there for years, and is now in my house.

She told me she liked to look at it.  I imagine her sitting in her chair across from the couch, remembering the times we were working “on the needles” together.  That’s what I do now.  I can remember how excited she was to show me how beautifully a stitch would make a repeat lace pattern. 

How to sew together without a needle.  A new cast on. How to make a butterfly…

I’m happy that the wonky afghan is one of the things I have from GG.  Something that’s a part of the universe, a part of her, a part of me with her, and a reminder of the memory moments.

Me and GG on the couch with the Wonky Afghan