I have recently found myself in a surplus of “baby” yarn left over from baby showers and baby-doll-loving cousins. There are four balls of bulky white and blue yarns and a half of a skein of this very thin, soft yellow yarn. In the daze following the completion of the bubbly crocheted piece, I realized I had seen that particular shade of yellow somewhere before.
Yellow. (Yes, I did feel like Arthur Dent for a while.)
The weight of the yarn intrigued me as well. The baby blanket my grandmother had crocheted for me was yellow, but it wasn’t that fine of a yarn.
Then it hit me. It wasn’t my baby blanket, it wasn’t made by my grandmother and it wasn’t crocheted.
It was a baby blanket made by my great grandmother and it was knit. Though I’m not sure when it appeared there or for whom it was made, I found it safely tucked away in my mother’s linen closet one afternoon and became instantly enamored by it. She had made it in a tight gauge with squares; yellow borders around white stockinette spaces with sheep drawn in embroidery with black yarn.
Generally I don’t think that stockinette makes for a good blanket and embroidering a pattern onto it I like even less. You see both sides of a blanket, and there is no way to make the back side of an embroidered stockinette anything look pretty.
So why do I like this blanket?
Honestly, the fact that my great grandmother made it plays a big role. Also, no matter how hideously unlike the front the back may be, it is at least neat. The sheer cuteness of the little lambs doesn’t hurt, either.
Remembering that blanket, I went to my cup of many knitting needles and pulled out a pair of size 2 and just started knitting up a swatch of the yellow yarn.
It was a perfect match. I didn’t even have to look.
There is no way to describe how I felt, holding those knitting needles and that swatch in my hands. I had knitted with my mom before. I had crocheted with my grandma. My great grandmother left this world before I ever had the chance to do needlework with her but in that moment it was as if she were right there beside me clinking her needles together and crunching on an ice cube with me.
