The Right Tool for the Job

What's that old adage about using the right tool for the job? Whatever it is, they had a point. I've taken on yet another unfinished project of Mom's. It's a half-done afghan that Mom was knitting for my sister. I'm planning to finish it, maybe in time for her birthday??? (Sis, if you're reading this, don't hold me to that!) Anyway, she was knitting in on size 9 needles. I've worked my way through a few sizes down to size 6… The variation in our gauge was so bad, that I've ripped back all that I had knit on it, and started with the 6 needles. We will see how it goes from here. I kept holding it up, stretching and shaking it, hoping that somehow, magically, our gauge would match perfectly. However, it turns out my knitted strips were a couple of inches wider than Mom's. Since I picked up knitting a strip where she had left off, it was looking a little, well, wonky…

Trying to finish someone else's knitting can be quite the challenge. Every knitter is unique, and their work is filled with the idiosyncrasies of their individual technique. So, it will never be a perfect match, but maybe it will be close enough to work. I'll never be able to fill Mom's shoes, but maybe I can be a little like her. Maybe I can do a few things that she would have. Maybe now and then I can do something good because it's the sort of thing that Mom would have done. She may have left some big shoes to fill, but more than that, she left a legacy. I hope that some of who she was is part of me. She taught me so much, both with words and by example.

Right now, I'm going to go back to knitting. Hopefully, I'll find the right needle size soon, before I have to rip out my work too many more times…