Skip Navigation
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Free patterns, product alerts & special offers. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Retail Store New York City |
|
|
| Retail Store New Jersey |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Vanna's Sweepstakes |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
Customer Projects - Get Inspired
Would you like to share a project that you have made from our yarns or
our patterns? Hundreds of thousands of people who care
about your favorite craft will see your work. Any submissions,
particularly original ones are welcome, as long as the project was
made from Lion Brand Yarn.
Click to post it!
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What Grandmas Do...
Created By: Betsy Gordon
When I was in high school in the 50s, it was "the thing to do" to knit your boyfriend a pair of Argyle socks. It took me several years to acquire a boyfriend, but I did turn out the requisite pair of Argyles (teaching myself to knit from a book) before the relationship was over.
I didn't knit again until I was expecting my first baby. My mother did beautiful knitting, needlepoint, and crewel embroidery, as well as making professional-class clothing for me and my two sisters. However, I was in Toronto and my mother was in Massachusetts, so back to my knitting book I went for a refresher course. I made a sweet little set of a sweater and hat for baby Danny. Baby David and baby Sarah followed within ten years, and each one had a hand-knitted sweater to greet him or her. At that time, though, my favorite craft was crewel embroidery, so knitting was put aside indefinitely.
Time passed, and Danny's wife was expecting her first child. Suddenly I realized that Grandmas are supposed to knit for their grand-babies! My spotty experience with knitting over the past decades wasn't good enough: I needed much more skill. I bought three up-to-date books on knitting and started all over again. Baby Heather had a newborn-size sweater and hat when she arrived, and for her first birthday I ventured into knitting a little dress with yellow ducks around the hem.
From then on, I was rarely without a knitting project or two. Heather is now a teenager (I made her a tee last summer in one of the new crayon-bright soft and snuggly yarns), and has been joined by her brother William and two little boy cousins, Johnston and Hayes. By now, I am quite confident in designing patterns as well as knitting hats, sweaters, scarves, and mittens. My favorite design is a roll-neck pullover for Johnston, who lives in Boston. It's basically white, with a Canadian maple leaf on the back (because his mom was born in Toronto), blue stars on the front, and red stripes on the sleeves.
Knitting (like needlepoint and crewel) has kept my hands busy, agile, and flexible despite arthritis. It has stretched my limits by tempting me to try new stitches, new patterns, and to create my own designs. Knitting has been there for me when I was recuperating from surgeries and couldn't move around or do any of the "brainwork" I was accustomed to doing. And it has given me a precious sense of connectedness to earlier generations of women who knitted, as well as to the children who happily wear the products of my hands.
After all... knitting is just what Grandmas are supposed to do!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
