For My Gram...and For Me

 

Sometimes I need a quieter, more gentle project.

 

After months of intricate fair isle on tiny needles, my hands and my heart were yearning towards something simpler...something easier...something that I could work on while letting my mind go free.

 

For a long while I've had this yarn in my stash.  I purchased it as the Woodland Winter Mittens Kit, having fallen head over heels in love with both the colors and the mitten patterns. (I think I even got it on sale....I have a (not so) terrible habit of buying palette kits when they are on sale.....)  Much as I love the mittens, though, I eventually admitted that I'm just not a mitten-wearing sort of gal.

So then the question becomes, what do I do with this beautiful yarn when the colors go so very well with each other?  It seemed a shame to me to break the kit up....

 

The solution presented itself a year or so ago.  My beautiful basket of palette would be perfect for a Shetland Hap Shawl.

 

My first attempt ended in frustration and boredom.  Frustration because I thought I hadn't picked the right needle size, and boredom because the garter center can be rather tedious if you're not in just the right mood...and I'm rarely in the mood for garter stitch.  I wasn't even halfway through the center diamond when a flashier, more complicated project distracted me.  Back in the stash it all went, and I thought that was that.

 

Just after Christmas, though, it occurred to me that a Shetland Hap was exactly what was needed to provide the counterbalance to my husband's Christmas sweater.  (Which I will finish tomorrow...I'm so, so close.)  I pulled the yarn back out of the dresser that houses my stash, and got back to work. 

 

This time around it's true love.

 

Why am I dedicating this piece to my Gram?

 

She's been dealing with some health issues since Thanksgiving....problems which hopefully will find resolution today.  As you can imagine, she's been in my prayers and in my thoughts almost constantly since this began, and though I'm not one for 'prayer shawls' in their traditional usage, I do think that sometimes the work of my hands can help focus my thoughts and still my heart.

 

And so a Hap shawl...which combines the two elements of knitting that are the ONLY knitting my Gram has even done.  Didn't even occur to me until after I had started my Hap that I was mimicking her knitting.  The diamond center?  That is representative of the diamond shaped cotton dishcloths that Gram knits by the dozen.  The feather and fan border...well, my Gram knits the most beautiful feather and fan blankets.  In all of the world of knitting, those dishcloths and those blankets are the ONLY thing any of us have ever seen her knit.  Every time I pick up my needles I'm reminded of my Gram and I smile.

 

Which makes my Hap just about perfect right now, doesn't it.

 

Well...ok, no.  If it were red, than it would be perfect.