Recycle

Before she died, Nadia was working on a cardigan for herself. It was a pattern I could never HOPE to finish for her, or ever hope to wear if I did as radically different in size and shape as we were. She had finished the large rectangular back panel, which I am going to keep as it is and add to as a blanket or similar, I think. But the side panel she was working on, I just sat and stared at for a long time.

Frogging someone else's work... so very final... so very sad.

I picked a shawl pattern. I worked the first six rows maybe twenty times without pulling out a single stitch she had worked in her lifetime.

I frogged and refrogged my first six rows, determined to get the hang of these blessed increases.

I felt that deep connection with this woman, this woman who faithfully knitted her love for every baby she ever met, this woman who tried time after patient time to teach me this art that she adored.

And bit by bit, I started to rework her stitches, her last gift to herself, into a gift for my family. A comforting, warm, imperfect, simple, no-frills wrap of wooly goodness.I know she would have approved.