Grandma's Mittens

My sympathies recently go to my Great Grandma G. I have been enjoying the busy Christmas season and was asked to make a special order by a couple people, Mittens for children. I am always in love of a challenge but this challenge has me reminiscing over the yearly gift from my Great Grandma.  When I got the traces of the hand both me and the person buying them enjoyed the effort it had taken to get them. It was clear those children were not interested in “making turkeys”. When I talked to my mother a little later I immediately apologized.

A finished pair I made for a client

I remember being older, my mother saying in a trip to Grandma’s nursing home on one of our many trips to the Cape, them saying alright time to do the trace. I remember placing my hand on the paper on the table and them tracing my hand, inside my hand someone writing my name and my color of choice. (It was usually a list of colors and she always seemed to find the perfect multi colored yarn for me.) Then them doing it for my brother. I was apologizing for all the earlier times though. How many times and for how many of my cousins had they started tracing our hands only to have us walk away before they were done.

Mittens for sale on my Etsy page GrandmasTools

So this Christmas I may not be getting a gift of all new mittens from my Great Grandma G but I am passing on her love to children I may never meet. Every time I knit it pass on all my ancestors love, and warmth. They may be looking at me thinking “you are going about that all wrong,” but I like to think they will be proud at the hand knit socks for my dad, aunt, and brother or the mittens for my aunt, brother, dad and Grandpa. (Don’t worry nothing has been spoiled, they either know already because they asked or don’t read my blog.) Let the love we share this Holiday season be found in our loved ones as much as it is in the memories of what they have given us.

My Great Grandparents at my Christening.  From left to right Grandpa and Grandma G, Grandma E and Grandma B.