After my Dad passed away quite suddenly in 2000, my Mum began a diary as a way to keep a track of time and she also began to knit again. She knitted simple garter stitch squares with some wool she had stashed. It upset me at times to see how hard she concentrated on these simple squares after her skilled hands had produced lovely fair isle and lace knitting. But she explained that this was one way that she could produce something constructive to show for the time she spent thinking and grieving. She worked them in the square and diagonally, and invented her own take on modular knitting before we even knew the term existed. She exercised her imagination and gradually, I could see a small part of her coming alive again. Looking back I was doing the same with cross-stitching. I have samplers on the walls of our home, and when I study them hanging there, I can remember exactly what part I was sewing on when Dad was called back into hospital, when we sat at his bedside and during the sad ti...
Exploring and sharing the creative fabric of my life