I can hear you asking the obvious question. “Rebecca, you weirdo, what have you been knitting?!” Knitting time over the last few weeks has been sparse at best. Our weeks looked something like: pack for sealift, travel to Ottawa and back, plan an ordination service, host family for the weekend, prep for a moving sale, then pack and clean a house still distressingly full of crap. When I got a few minutes to knit, I would usually sit down, knit half a row, and sort of zone out.
The little pink and green sheep sweaters are done except for buttons. I bought some, then washed them in my jeans, then lost one under a couch, so who knows what I’m going to do. But I’ve decided that being ABC (All But Closures) counts as Done Enough, so I started something new.
Well, for some definition of new. This is kind of special.
When my second daughter’s namesake passed away in December, her best friend (said daughter’s godmother) brought us all of Mother M’s knitting stuff. Mother M was a sporadic knitter and crocheter, and her collection included some truly vintage yarns – but in keeping with her granola inclinations, nearly everything was most definitely wool.
And one item in the collection was this gorgeous little kit, called the Sheep Shed Pullover, from Green Mountain Spinnery.
The kit included all the yarn, including the little bits of contrast color wrapped around a card, and a little button. The bag even had a crochet hook in it, ready to make the button loop.
Mother M had knit most of the back. Evidence suggested she got a little confused and gave up after knitting one side of the top of the back. I have no idea what little beloved child this sweater was intended for, but I decided to take up and finish this project, so that little M could have a sweater partially knit by Mother M.
The back I finished a couple weeks ago, and doing a row here and a row there, the front was nearly done by the time we left. Since I didn’t have to drive to Maryland, a sleeve was well started by the time we arrived.
On the right is the back, mostly knit by Mother M, slightly corrected and finished by me. The front is on the left.
This is most of a sleeve. It’s a drop-sleeve shoulder, but the sleeves are of an odd rectangular construction.
Over our week in Maryland, I finished the pieces. I ran out of yarn after a few rows of the attached pocket, so I had to borrow about an inch off the top of each sleeve. I could have re-knit the sleeves to be a more fitted shape, and so allowed them to be long enough, but decided that slightly stumpy arms might be cute.
Is it some sort of bloated bi-color ant? No! Add some embroidery, and voila:
A sheep.
After packing up on Thursday night, I stayed up way too late embroidering a sheep pocket and sewing the thing together. But I knew that would be the last time I’d be able to sit in once place long enough to do all that fiddly work, at least before afflicting myself with intense jet lag. So after two lazy daisy ears, three french knot roses, and some blanket stitch edging, baby M has another sheep-themed sweater.
Made by two mothers. One she won’t get to meet in this lifetime, but both are a part of who she is, and watch with joyful expectation as she discovers how to be herself.
Osborn Fiber Studio 