Here’s a photo of the four Kidsilk Haze Nelly shawls bagged up and ready to block for Christmas 2006. I want to talk about how different each color felt while knitting.
I’m not talking the physical sensation of the yarn passing through my fingers so much as the emotional feel of each color. I don’t know whether I was responding to the color itself, or if thoughts of the different recipients was the big switch each time. I just know that every time I started knitting with a new color, there was a period of adjustment.
The first one I made was the white one that’s labeled “cream.” It was the color that gave me the most trouble, but then it was the first time I ever knitted with Kidsilk Haze. Getting used to knitting with such fine yarn was one thing. Realizing that I needed different needles was another. I had such a death grip on the first needles that my hands cramped. I had to hold them tight as the needles felt slippery enough to just slide right out of the stitches.
When I used bamboo needles, I was able to relax my grip and knit with far more ease, especially once I realized, “I’m knitting with cobwebs.” That thought set me right on track. Not to say I didn’t encounter trials along the way. I learned that ripping back with Kidsilk Haze is something you just can’t hurry. Sometimes each stitch was a separate issue and a triumph when successfully disentangled.
I was making it for Grace, a young woman who was embarking on a second chance at life by going to college at age 38. She was excited and nervous and relieved. I’d heard about the Red Scarf Project where you knit a red scarf for a foster kid heading off to college, because these kids don’t have “people” to do that for them. She was a divorced orphan on her way to college, so that fit nicely, but she loves silk and the color white, so she didn’t get a red one. I put into it all the love and support I felt for her, even when I cussed at the ripping back. The creamy white seemed pure and new and innocent, a fresh start, untrampled snow. Something like that.
Next came the gray one labeled “smoke” for my daughter Jill. It seemed much thicker than the cream yarn, much easier to knit. But I was experienced by now, so that might have been a factor. The gray matched her black coat and the gray fleece hat she had, so I thought she’d like it.
She’s my best friend and the best daughter on the planet. I might be prejudiced, but still. What a great young woman she is. She knows her own mind, knows what she likes, plans ahead and creates what she wants, which includes learning to run a thriving eBay business, rearrange furnace pipes, electric and plumbing skills, machine embroidery–anything she sets her mind to. Love that gal. I’d like to be her when I grow up. Knitting hers went much more easily. The gray felt just right somehow–maybe because she has a much-loved cat that color?
Third was the black one labeled “wicked” which makes me smile because it was for my husband’s 85-year-old aunt. She’s a tiny thing with a great, loving heart and she worked for years as a hostess in a restaurant so she loves to dress with drama or something unique in her outfit. With her dark hair and dark eyes, this color was perfect and dramatic. The yarn seemed very thick and incredibly hairy. I had to sit in a strong light to see the stitches. I was torn between knitting her a black one or a red one, but black won. Bold, classic, always right, just like a little black dress.
I’d planned to make only three shawls, but couldn’t resist making a blue one for myself. I knew I’d be giving the others away and in a year or two wouldn’t remember ever knitting these at all. This is a memento for me and also, why not have one myself? I’m a person and just as lovable, right? Never mind that I almost never dress up. That could change at some point. I could wear this somewhere, sometime.
It was the easiest and fastest of all the shawls, in a color that had a good weight much like the smoke color, and less hairy than the wicked color. It matches my main staple of dress—blue jeans. By now I had the pattern long-since memorized, of course. I still had to count off each and every stitch in my head as I knit to keep from misknitting anything. I don’t think I had to rip back at all on the last couple, much to my relief.
I don’t know how interesting this is to anyone but me. I guess the colors had their own qualities, sure enough. It was intriquing how different they felt while knitting–and I’m sure the recipients counted for some of the difference. I know I feel a bit differently when I sew for someone I like versus someone I regard as a pain. Ha.