One project off the needles - a baby sweater (Child's Placket Neck Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts) for sweet little Lydia. And now, on to the new...
In addition to the sights, the smells, the sounds, and the tastes of autumn approaching, there's also the touch of autumn that I'm feeling these days. It's that of the knitting in my hands. I'm most definitely a seasonal knitter at this moment in my crafting life - feeling the draw of the needles and the yarn as the air shifts cooler and more warmth is needed. For a few weeks now, I've been taking inventory of fall hats and scarves and mittens - if outgrown knits can move 'down' a child, and thinking about Papa's annual hat, and who needs what and where to start. Then my thinking goes ahead a bit to the long cold winter approaching - making a checklist of wool socks and wool sweaters (pictured in progress below) which will be worn for months and months. My project list quickly grows with filling in the gaps. Not all of it will be possible to make myself, but a few little things will surely be completed, and for that, I am grateful. And honored, really.
The fall knitting not only keeps my family warm in the end, but it keeps me warm too, in the right now. The act of fall knitting is warmth itself to me. Holding wool in my hands, moving rhythmically with the needles, it keeps just the slightest of chills off my hands in the evenings. Soon, there will be fireside knitting to warm us up. But for now, in the evenings, I put on a sweater and let the knitting itself do the warming. In my favorite evening moments there are children reading, drawing, playing, jumping on laps and playing music all around me. And knitting on my lap. Always there in some way - always present - always a quiet click of needles passing the time. I think often of so very many women (and now, men) around the world doing just the same. I especially think of the generations of women before me - and their own quietly clicking needles, and running-about children - and that brings me tremendous connection and warmth too.
This autumn for the first time ever, I'm blessed with another knitter in my home and at my side, from time to time. He's trying - wanting so very much to learn without too much help from Mama. From the other end of the couch as I, I hear him repeating, "IN the woods goes the hunter, ROUND the tree goes the dog, OUT pops the rabbit, and OFF they run." And so he continues, and knits, and hands the needles over silently when he needs some help. And I hand them silently back when I'm done. It's a garter stitch scarf - in a beautiful soft, thick, green wool from Mexico that came to us via friends in California - well traveled and loved already. The scarf will be perfect, I just know. I keep telling him that. "There's a lot more to knitting than the scarf at the end," I say. But I think he already knows that.
