Another Goodbye, Sharing a Knitting Legacy and Pins to Remember

This past week I had to say goodbye to another beloved person in my life. My Grampie passed away Weds. March 12 after a very brief illness with Cancer. He was 90 on Dec 27th. Two days later he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After burying his beloved wife of 67 years 5 weeks ago, he himself joined her. Best we can tell, only his last 3 days were difficult. Up until then he was relatively pain free. After watching Nana suffer for over 6 months, this was such a blessing.

If things really do happen in threes then I should be good for a while. Here's hoping.

When I went to Halifax for Grampie's memorial service we spent some time going through the house. Marly had written a wonderful tribute to her Grandmother and her craft and the legacy it left. I hadn't really thought of it that way. I just thought of the bags full of crappy acrylic that made up both my Nana's and my Grandmother's stash. It made me grateful that I had at least taken the old pattern books from the grandmother. In fact the memorial socks, as I call them, are from a pattern out of an old book I had gotten from my grandmother. Needless to say, when I had the chance to go through Nana's stash I was not about to pass it up due to my yarn snobbishness.

And that is only half of it. Nana's lovely sister, Evelyn had already take half of the yarn (Evelyn also has the best sense of humour. No wonder Nana loved her so!). There is a great supply of needles, especially circular needles. And I can't wait to go through those pattern books! I want to plan something special out of the yarn and patterns. Something I can wear and think of Nana. Maybe a nice shawl...

Mom had gone through Nana's jewelry. Nana was not a fancy woman. She believed in quality but not flash so she didn't have any big pieces or extremely valuable pieces. But she did have some beautiful pins. I picked out a few of my favorites. So now I really think a shawl is in order. I wore the dark pin with a shawl that Granny Tan had made for me to Grampie's funeral.

I'm a sentimental old fool so every time I pull these out, I'll think of my Nana. It will make me quite happy.