Knit Wits and Sew-n-Sews

I happened across this article recently. Prompted me to get out the camera and take a picture of

my Aunt Mildred's sewing box. I use it regularly...it's the one I keep in the condo for the quick fixes, but more significantly, I felt it should be in the city for after all, my Beloved Aunt Mildred had lived in New York City all of her life. To take the basket to the county would have been an insult. She could mend when needed to, but I don't think we would have found her sewing an entire garment. That's what Fifth Avenue was for.

I treasure the box and everything in it. Each time I use it to sew on a button, or whatever, I think of her doing the same. I can see her hands and feel her love some 40 years after she passed.

In the country, I have my grandmother's thimble. She gave it to me one summer while I was on  a break from college while we were sitting in her back yard in New Jersey. My Grandfather had died 3 years earlier and she was telling me how much she missed him. We sat there for hours, I learning to darn a sock with her  wooden darning ball that she told me had been her mother's and she breaking out into a combination cry and laugh from time to time. Both of us loving the moment.

I have always used this thimble.  Next to Aunt Mildred's Pearls, it's one of the treasures I would miss so bad if anything ever happened to it. I am sure it cost no more than a nickle at Woolworth's back in the day, and she would think it silly of me to put so much emphasis on such an ordinary item. In addition to routine everyday sewing, I have hand quilted several bed covers with it, including this one which has been a 5 year work-in -progress project.

I have my Aunt Jean's knitting needles and enormous stash of needlepoint projects-in-waiting to help ease the days when I miss her so much as well. They take center stage in my new craft room.

I would never be able to tally the jumpers, rompers, prom dresses, scarves, sweaters, socks  that I have made over the years. I made a sisters wedding dress, hand sewing the beading onto the lace, long before we could buy sequenced lace right off the bolt.

Two lines in the Marie Murray's Article speak directly to my heart:

  "knitting has retained the imprint of devotion, nurturing and pure love."

and

"Sewing and knitting are mentally restorative, they “redeem odd corners of disposable time”, they empower those who undertake them, they reward the maker and the recipients of the end product. Knitting and sewing are relaxing, portable and creative and link people together anew."

Empowerment and pure love. That's what it's all about.

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