Near the end of the holidays my mum mentioned Grams old knitting box to me. My grandmother hasn’t knit for many years and assured me that she was not about to take it up again. She couldn’t remember what might be in her knitting stash other that “yarn and needles, probably.” but I was welcome to it. So up to the attic I went to discover this:
Norah's Knitting '97 This box has been packed away for more than 12 years
That is everything that was left of my grandmothers knitting when she moved out of her house in ’97 and into her apartment. It hasn’t been opened since.
First peek inside
The first thing on the top was a canvas knitting bag with “I <3 to knit” on it. I can’t imagine Gram carrying this around but it looks pretty used. It’s wearing through on the bottom, especially where the needle pockets were.
The "I love to knit bag"
Moving right along there was what appeared to be an unfinished adult sweater in green. Based on the unused yarn around it, the yarn is Patons Beehive Shetland Chunky in a forest green colour.
The sweater- if you look closely you can see the cables down the center.
At this point I decided my attic was too dusty to be unpacking knitting not to mention complete lack of light for pictures so I hauled it all down to my bedroom to get a better look. Next out came a bunch of needles…
There were remarkably few mismatched pairs of straights, just one extra 4mm and one 3.5mm.
The scissors had a intricate flower pattern on the handle and appear (to my most untrained eye) to be silver. Mum took them and is trying to trace where (or who) they came from.
Next, and most interesting for me were the patterns and pattern books. Most of them were in pretty good shape dating from the 60′s to the early 80′s This makes sense as my mother and her siblings were born in the 60′s and Gram likely knit for them when they were kids. It would explain the baby/children patterns:
Baby Patterns!
There also were some “how to knit/crochet” books and a fantastic stitch dictionary:
Crochet Stitches, Knitting Techniques, Knitting Stitches and a How to Knit book from Patons
All the patterns and books.
The only thing left to do is graft together the second sleeve and possibly knit up a collar.
I wondered why it was not finished… until I turned it over.
Oh.
That explains it. Fifty odd ends to weave in? No thanks! Maybe one day I will work up some insanity ambition and finish it.
And last but certainly not least there was yarn.
81.75 balls (50g/ball) of yarn. That's approximately 6090.375 meters of yarn!
Most of it is acrylic which I usually dislike but it’s not terrible, particularly for from acrylic 20+ years ago. I’m going to test some of it out as blanket squares and see if I can comfortably work with it. If all that fails there are a lot of people at my old high schools knitting club that would love it.
Well I’ve given the contents of the box a more pleasant home in my closet. It didn’t belong in a dusty box in the attic. I think it’s really really neat that I will knit things with the same needles and the same patterns that belonged to my Gram. Thanks Gram!
Oh my! I would love to find a box like this on my attic :D Where, there are some balls of yarn after my granny, but she still uses it from time to time, and they are mostly small balls, you know, leftovers. But still I use it from time to time. I wish wool was cheaper :D I would buy a few balls of every colour, put it in a nice big basket and just look at it :D
Best wishes