An Ode to Nostalgia
A friend, from my first job out of college, sent me these pictures last week. She was going through her “old” knitting stuff and found this gem. The pattern is for a hat, knit flat then seamed up the back. It was a gift for her father.
I have so many memories wrapped into nearly two decades of knitting (and teaching my friends to knit, and designing projects). The two are intertwined to the point where my life and my craft have become one and the same. Knitting on through anguish and joy, grief and happiness, through all the stages of my adulthood. Projects that can transport me to different places and times of my life; seeing life through my own eyes all over again.
The basement yarn store, Rosie’s Yarn Cellar, where I purchased my first yarn and needles- I can feel in my mind walking down the steep stairs and being transported into that new world of knitting. I remember how nervous I was that cold January day, I was afraid the ladies in the shop would laugh at me and how I knew NOTHING about knitting (just that I wanted to learn).
Knitting on the train, the bus, the subway. In Physics lecture. Outside the office of the Geology Department: 4 of us just knitting and laughing and enjoying life.
I remember sitting in a cafe reading all afternoon knitting a pair of too chunky cabled mittens with thumbs that look like a closed bud.
The feeling of being overwhelmed by all the yarn, people, and scents the first time I attended MD Sheep and Wool.
All the items that I’ve knit for my family, lovingly preserved in photographs.
I’m reminded of friends I’ve made and lost touch with over the years. Knitting groups formed and dissolved and left, the never ending passage of time. With my yarn, my needles, my hook as my constant companion.
I look forward to all the new memories my yarn and I will make in the coming decades.
Miscellaneous Design Studio 