It's summer now (here in the northern hemisphere, anyway). I'm in the process of working out my next knit design and having a déjà vu moment.
As a teenager, many of my summer days were spent swimming in the pool that Dad put up in our back yard, sun-tanning (too much), thumbing through the pages of the fat, fall, fashion magazines that hit the newsstands during July and August, and imagining all the school clothes I would make. This was bliss.
While it's always been true that my great, great aunt Hattie figured prominently into my interests – it was her 1940's era sewing machine that I started out on, and her knitting needles too that I still use – as I focus on the details of this latest piece, I find myself remembering a sweet, knitted, eyelet shell that Marlene made for me back then. It wasn't like her. She didn't particularly like knitting or making things at all really. Yet it's this delicate piece of hers that inspires me now. I think she'd be shocked – and delighted.
I'm forever 14.