Daily Newsie

One of the sounds that always makes me think of my mother is the clicking of knitting needles. She had these wonderful long needles, shiny and chilly to the touch, that would rub together so quickly I thought they would catch fire as she wound yarn into scarves, mittens, and sweaters. One of the saddest moments we had together was the day she discovered she could no longer knit — she kept asking me to count her stitches for her at the end of each row because she couldn’t remember how many she was supposed to have. After several countings and unravelings, she put the needles away and never brought them out again.

So I think she would be proud to see this, the end result of a month of knitting lessons:

It’s supposed to be a hat, as you can see in this shot:

(That’s Bearby, for those of you who haven’t met him. He’s getting up in years but has weathered the decades fairly well except for some minor balding. Oh, and his arm almost fell off.)

It was actually Beloved’s idea to take the class, which was offered through the local Community Education office. They have all sorts of interesting courses, including a ballroom-dancing one we may take in the spring. Beloved took a Spanish class last semester, and our knitting teacher is thinking of offering another class in the winter to teach us how to make mittens.

It’s been fun, honestly. My mother taught me how to knit when I was small, but I never knew how to “cast on,” purl, or actually make anything of value. This little hat won’t fit on my head — it was made with a certain nephew’s noggin in mind — but it still felt pretty cool to knit something. My next project is a full-sized hat for a friend of mine, and with any luck it’ll be finished by the time it snows in Kentucky. That is, if it ever gets around to snowing in Kentucky. (A hearty *jab jab* to the Pennsylvanians who’ve already seen snow this fall.)