Day 28 – April 28 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – A Kind of Magic

Day 28 – April 28 – NaShoStoMo Challenge – A Kind of Magic

I fondly remember watching my grandmother crochet while she watched TV – a travel program we watched during morning tea. With the yarn on her lap, her hands moved at an incredible speed and lacy cloth formed by magic between her fingers. She barely looked down, but kept her eyes on the screen or even talked to me while her hands did their own thing. At five years old I couldn’t understand how she could just move her hands and the yarn could spin by magic between her fingers. One day I asked her to show me how she did her magic.

That she showed me the ‘secret’ didn’t take away any of the pleasure of watching her. Rather, I wanted to try it out myself. She explained that I will need a bigger needle to start off with, but that she will teach me soon. My grandfather was now secretly charged with going into town to go and buy a crochet hook suitable for a beginner. My grandmother, meanwhile, picked out a ball of yarn in my favourite colour – purple – from her stash in their room and with a huge smile they showed me the surprise gift one afternoon. The hook was made from bright yellow plastic and suited well to my small hand. I learned how to hold the yarn and make chain stitches. Soon I learned how to make trebles and do filet crochet. Then followed working in the round and getting to work with a smaller hook and finer yarn. One month I was even treated with a crochet magazine, and I started to work from ‘grown up’ patterns.

A few years after that, and not long after my grandfather’s death, my grandmother passed away. When we had to start clearing out the cupboards, my mother pointed me towards my grandmother’s cupboards where her yarn stash was kept. “You’re the one that does all the crafting around here,” she said. “You should have her needlework things.” I stared at the cupboards in disbelief. Me? I sat down and opened the first pair of doors. They smelled of my grandma and I had to fight back the tears.

All her yarn was still there, along with a couple of half-finished doilies and sweaters. From one cupboard came a whole stack of crochet magazines. I couldn’t believe she was never coming back, even though I had lived through her whole illness.

Then, from one cupboard came three bags which I had forgotten about completely. I had been five or six when she had showed them to me. “One day, when you’re grown up, this will be yours,” she said, pointing to one. Now, almost ten years later, I pulled the blanket from the bag. My name, written on a slip of paper, was still pinned on it. The granny squares all had purple in them and I immediately remembered where I had seen the yarn before. It was the same yarn she used to teach me how to crochet with.