wrapped in love

Over the last few weeks I've spent every Wednesday evening teaching beginners to knit. The course is organised by the local community education service and my class consists of 16 knitters, 3 of whom are young American girls (aged 9) who have dragged their Moms along, too. One of the mothers has been heavily pregnant so once her husband came in her place. He's a dab hand at making twisted cords now, I think! Last week neither she nor her daughter made it, as baby was being induced. I'd asked everyone to make some swatches of garter stitch and of stocking stitch for homework and we spent the first part of the evening joining seams: oversewing, backstitch and matress stitch. Then the other 2 little girls hit on a brilliant idea. They begged the rest of us for the swatches that had just been seamed and proceeded to oversew these together to make a blanket for the new baby. Now imagine it: yarn of every colour, weight and texture. Thin swatches, uneven swatches, squares... garter stitch, stocking stitch, seams on the "right" side, seams on the "wrong" side... The girls took it home and one Mom crocheted a blue border round the edge. This week the new big sister came to the class (complaining that Dad was away, so she was on night duties for her new brother) and we presented her with the blanket for baby Keiran. She was speechless and then said "you all made it, everybody?". And we told her that yes we had. Now I do remember reading in Interweave Knits a couple of years ago about a knitting circle that used its gauge swatches to make blankets but as one of the members was Kaffe Fassett's sister, these were really artistic. But I don't think there's ever been a blankie quite like the one the class made. Just wish I had a photo to show!