Cruising - Team Rogers: December 2022

I learned to crochet as a child; sitting across from my left handed mom. She peered at my work and tried to give me encouragement from a vantage point that helped her right brain processing give me backwards guidance. In spite of her patience, it took years before I could make anything worth keeping.

My mom crocheted every day. When we were little, she made many of our clothes, both sewn and knit/crocheted. My favorite was a granny square vest that I wore for my school picture. As mom got older, she began making baby blankets. She had an ongoing series of them in different stages of complete; always there was a boy's and a girl's in progress. It was her thing. She made them, wrapped them in plastic bags then stacked them in great piles with a dryer sheet tucked between the folds. Whenever a new baby came along in our circle, we would purchase them from her to give as gifts. More often than not, she wouldn't take our money.

Mom had a vast assortment of yarn that she organized by color schemes. Each was stored together in a carefully labeled bin; green, blue, yellow, etc. She loved to mix variegated yarn with matching solids. Her favorite stitch was granny square but she branched out to the ribbed ripple pattern, making heirloom full sized afghans for us all. Many of my friends were lucky to be gifted one of the hundreds of blankets she made.

My mom turned 83 this year. She packed up all her yarn and asked me to take it home, saying she was finished crocheting. She complained about arthritis in her wrists that made her work painful. Amongst the bins of yarn she sent me home with, I found a few projects which she started but had abandoned along the way. She told me to throw them out but I decided to complete them instead. While working with her final projects, I learned that my mom was struggling with following the very patterns she had worked with effortlessly her entire lifetime. Her once natural skill was gone. Instead of tearing out her stitches, I completed each project and gifted them to people in my life who were facing challenges. It felt extra special to say that the gift was made by me and my mom.

I've used my mother's yarn to make several blankets over the last year. They are comfort lap blankets, smaller than an afghan but long and narrow; they are meant to be a virtual hug carrying my love, thoughts, warmth and support. Like my mom, I crochet often. I make time in the morning and evening while watching tv and I crochet in the car on long road trips. I love the feel of my mother's yarn running through my fingers and the rhythmic twist of my hand and wrist as I add row after row.

My mother passed this legacy on to me. I've made sweaters and booties, Christmas trees and holiday light strings, snowmen, stockings, pumpkins, gloves, cardigans...the list goes on. I love to practice new stitches and share patterns back and forth with my daughter who also crochets. Her work is like her Nonnie's, it's perfect. It brings me great joy to carry on this fiber art that I share with my mother and daughter. It's an extra bonus to give my work to the special people in my life.

I've got a lot of yarn to work with. It will take years to get through my mom's impressive stash. As I carry on my mother's legacy of generosity and compassion, I know I am blessed with a labor of love.