I don't know why I thought this was a good idea

I posted a few weeks back about deciding to reknit a hot water bottle cover that I had been using.  My aunt, who died in 2008, knit it many, many years before she died.  It was getting holes, I had tried to mend the holes but they were getting too numerous.

So what was my good idea?  I decided to frog the whole thing and reverse engineer the stitch and put it back together again. 

Because of the holes, and frayed yarn it came apart in many, many little balls. 

Did that deter me?

No, it did not. 

So I started and after knitting about 8 inches I realized my gauge was way off,


so I go some smaller needles and cast on again.  Sometimes the little balls allowed me to knit a few rows.  Often the little balls displayed a very frayed piece of yarn so I would break it and rejoin.  This has been going on for several nights.  It is good tv watching because it is a simple k2, p2 basket s stitch, but still there are going to be a LOT of ends to sew in. 

I knew going in that I would only have enough rescued yarn for one side of the cover.  I will use some stash for the other side. 

Why. Am. I. Doing. This?

Why can't I just admit that sometimes things just wear out, and are no longer useful.  Sometimes I just need to let things go.  (hmmm. I don't think this post is about knitting, or hot water bottle covers anymore.)

I could blame it on my thrifty mother who taught me to repair frayed cuffs and collars on my blouses.  I could.  But that isn't it.

I could blame it on my tendency to be cheap and not want to spend money.  I could. But I won't.

I could blame my Scottish/Irish heritage to not let things go to waste. 

I look around my house at the three rugs that I made oh so many years ago that are tattered at the edges thanks to a cat of ours.  Well, that and age.  My father died in 1973 and the rug he had started in 1971 I finished in the late 70s.  I made the blue rug sometime after that and the brown one in 1984.  Those rugs don't owe me anything. 

Except in each hooked strand of those rugs are so many memories.  My father, my aunt, my sister, my son, my daughter, the cat. 

When I am rejoining yet another short piece of yarn on the hotwater bottle cover I think about how that yarn went through my aunt's hands.  Her DNA is in that yarn. 

And I just want to hold onto it for some time more.  I want to remember sleeping in her double bed with our feet on that hotwater bottle cover, giggling and reading Little Women. 

I just want to hold on. 

I can't fix everything that is tattered in my life.  I can't hold on to every memory.  But this month it seems it is what I need to do.

Just. Hold. On.