Made With Love

When I was very young, my grandma crocheted an afghan for our family. It was meant for general use, but I laid claim to it early on. I was fascinated by how all those squares were each unique. I looked and looked for repeats, but there were none. My grandma was just too clever for that. I also liked how each square was individual on the inside but brought together by a unifying border of black yarn. That afghan made me feel connected to my grandma--thinking of her choosing odds and ends of yarn from her wooden bowl and sitting on her red plaid couch watching “Wheel of Fortune” while working on a gift for us. When I lost my grandma recently, that afghan of many colors came to my mind again for the first time in years. I wondered if it was still around somewhere so I could take solace from it, but it was just wishful thinking. It was long gone and that fact, added to fresh loss, felt really unbearable. Then I realized something wonderful: my grandmother hadn’t just given me a blanket, she had shared with me a love of creating things and the best way to remember her was to make myself a new afghan. Which I promptly did. In Patricia Polacco’s The Keeping Quilt, a family tells their story of love in every stitch of a beautiful blanket. I keep mine on the back of the couch and think of my grandma every day.

http://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Quilt-Patricia-Polacco/dp/0689844476

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/