The blanket.

It’s been all over New England, this knitted blanket. It was cast on in Vermont, furrowed brow trying to figure out how to not drop a stitch. It was knit at three separate cottages on Cape Cod, knit while watching the stars come out in Truro. Knit next to a winter fire in Wellfleet. Knit on a balcony overlooking the harbor on a spring evening. It’s been on Mayo Beach on a cool May day. It’s been on Head of the Meadow Beach, with feet cool in the sand on a hot August morning. It’s been on a quiet little bayside strip of sand, worked stitch by stitch while the kids ran in the water. It’s been to the Connecticut and Rhode Island shores, worked while we drove down, and again by the light from my iPhone on the way home. It’s been knit while we had autumn hot dog roasts in the backyard, head hunched over trying to figure out where I was supposed to be on the row. I’d bring it in the sun room after the night was over to air out the campfire smell. I brought it to friends’ houses over the winter, and knit next to the fire while we talked and sang and reminisced after supper. I worked hard for every stitch, not knowing how to knit, really, hoping it would work out in the end, calling and texting my sisters to see why it didn’t look right at certain points, trying to remember which way was purling and which was knitting. I remember my sister Katie telling me that when you knit something over time, it brings back all the memories you made while you were creating it, where you were, what you were doing. She was right, and that’s one of my favorite things about this project. It’s not perfect, of course, but the color is, reminding us of the sand and sea and a happy year of memories. It was the first thing I ever started knitting, the only thing I wanted to make. I just wanted to knit an afghan. Just. Little did I know that DK weight yarn is not the best choice when you want an afghan soon. It was finally finished almost a year after it was begun. But it was worth it in the end, and this blanket that’s traveled hither and yon is quite loved here at home.

Raveled here.

(Quite loved by a certain young man in particular…)