I'm joining Ginny and lots of other beautiful knitters and readers over at the Yarn Along.
I'm reading The Knitter's Gift a book given to me from the very generous Rain over at Rainblissed. I was so excited to receive this book all the way from Seattle. I sat down on the front fence - in Australia - to flick through and picked it up again that night snuggled in bed. The first story gave me tingles and the second made me cry - in a good way. I won't try to review it but I will briefly describe it and give you a little of the introduction. Written by Bernadette Murphy the author of Zen and the Art of Knitting this book is a selection of short stories by knitters with some patterns trickled throughout.
Bernadette says, Hand-knit speaks to relationship... It's no coincidence that a family may be characterized as 'close-knit...' Knitting makes manifest the love of a mother passed on to a child, or the concern of an older relative for her young cousin. John McCann's story, "The Big Sweater" recounts how, in the Irish tradition, knitted designs were embedded in sweaters, like a coat of arms, to identify the family from which the pattern originated. The knitting also had the darker purpose of allowing easy identification of a fisherman drowned at sea.
This story reminded me of my very own father's fishing jumper knitted by his mother- I hadn't thought of it in years and there it was clear as a bell in my mind's eye, the colour and the pattern.
She goes on to say; "All knitting, ultimately speaks to that abiding truth: Mortality is a fact of life and while we are here and moving and able, we'll knit all the love and the joy, all the awe and wonder we feel into each and every sweater, hat, mitten and sock we make. We are all linked by the stories we tell, by the myths we share, by the way we knit ourselves together."
And my knitting, a winter collar for Yogi from the said book. He looks proud of his new clothing complete with a gold bell.
