The Light of Love
Nov. 13th, 2017 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI started the next part of my knitting last night. Knit, purl, purl, knit, and so on, only to realise that I'd made a mistake somewhere in the increasing. Fortunately I only started with four stitches and had gradually increased up to sixteen, so it wasn't too much of a burden to pull it out and start again. Part of the problem, I think, was that the knitting is on circular needles, as it will eventually have hundreds of stitches, but with just the four stitches the cord was getting tangled. Easily fixed, that: I dug out a pair of straight needles and knitted on them.
My grandmother taught me to knit on these straight needles. She called them her Shellonite needles. I've just googled that, and it was an Australian brand between the 1910s and 1940s. The needles are tortoise shell. (False, I hope. Actually: false, I expect, as the -ite ending makes me think it's something like Bakelite.) They are pretty and slippery and they knit beautifully. There used to be lots of them, a pair in every size, many bowed with age, and as they broke, she would snap them to size to use as cable needles.
My grandmother told me not to lick them as she knew a little girl who licked knitting needles and she DIED OF POISON. She and my mother both knew little girls who used someone else's pierced earrings who DIED OF HEPATITIS. My grandmother also knew a little girl who stuck her hand in a log where a snake was sleeping, and you'll never guess what happened to her. She DIED OF SNAKE BITE. Truly, my grandmother had a story for every occasion about a little girl who died tragically. Possibly, like Kenny from South Park, it was the same little girl every time. Perhaps, in a metaphorical sense, it was me. A harsh fate for someone who just wanted to lick a pretty, shiny knitting needle.
My grandmother taught me to knit on these straight needles. She called them her Shellonite needles. I've just googled that, and it was an Australian brand between the 1910s and 1940s. The needles are tortoise shell. (False, I hope. Actually: false, I expect, as the -ite ending makes me think it's something like Bakelite.) They are pretty and slippery and they knit beautifully. There used to be lots of them, a pair in every size, many bowed with age, and as they broke, she would snap them to size to use as cable needles.
My grandmother told me not to lick them as she knew a little girl who licked knitting needles and she DIED OF POISON. She and my mother both knew little girls who used someone else's pierced earrings who DIED OF HEPATITIS. My grandmother also knew a little girl who stuck her hand in a log where a snake was sleeping, and you'll never guess what happened to her. She DIED OF SNAKE BITE. Truly, my grandmother had a story for every occasion about a little girl who died tragically. Possibly, like Kenny from South Park, it was the same little girl every time. Perhaps, in a metaphorical sense, it was me. A harsh fate for someone who just wanted to lick a pretty, shiny knitting needle.