Postcards from the (St, st) Edge

Hello Y'all,
Greetings from Camp Aunt Jackie. I scooted up to Jersey for a couple of days to have lunch with my mom before she has surgery next week. I've got a couple of dozen nieces and nephews up here whom I've only hung out with a few times scattered over the years. But in 2005, my sister Rose brought her family to Austin and while they were visiting I taught her oldest to knit.

Well, on this trip up, GiGi reminded me about that lesson and dug out her needles and asked for a new lesson. Her younger brother and sister also wanted to learn. So we headed out to the local gigantic craft store and picked up the sort of yarn that kind of makes my skin crawl (alas, no Hill Country Weavers-type store that I know of nearby). Then we all plunked down for an afternoon of knitting while the two year-old kept trying to get into my knitting bag, no doubt in search of the scissors. (I distracted him by showing him how to click-click-click my counter.)

It was a lot of fun, and all three got the hang of it pretty quick. This reminded me of so many stories I've heard from so many knitters I've interviewed for this blog and the other knitting blog I write. At some point, somebody taught you to knit and, as it turns out, often enough it's an aunt that does the honors. Up here, I'm not Spike, I'm Aunt Jackie. And so I hope at least one of them sticks with it and gets hooked the way I am. Then one day, decades hence, they'll be granting an interview about their award-winning designs, and recall, "My Aunt Jackie taught me when I was a kid."

Here are some pictures from our adventure: