New Knitter

Last week we spent a few days with cousins down in Swansea.  I was swatching, and my seventeen year old nephew watched a while and said, "that's so cool . . . can I try?".  But of course.  Poke in here, wrap around, pull it forward, slip it off.  Poke in here, wrap around, pull it forward, slip it off.

We went into Newport the next day and I grabbed a hank of Cascade 220 and a pair of size 8's at 'Knitting Needles' on Thames Street.  We also toured the Vanderbilt's Breakers Summer Home - no pictures allowed, but I tried to mentally file away every textile I saw.  (My husband got in trouble with the staff for touching too much in a do-not-touch establishment.)

When we got home I gave my nephew a knitting lesson, and off he went.  This new knitter has epilepsy, the kind where his day is interrupted with petit mal seizures*, sometimes a bunch of them, sometimes a few of them.  Many of the things we take for granted are challenging or unsafe for him - riding a bicycle, swimming, climbing busy stairs in school, crossing a city street.  All the while he glides along with tremendous grace, humor, and popularity.  His medications give his hands tremors, and he presses on like a champion,  poke in ...here, wrap around, pull it ...forward, slip it off.

*brief spells of vacant stare and mild shaking - his needles safely stay put in his hands.

I do believe this is some of the best, most tenacious knitting I've seen.