After 26 months of working on and off (mostly off), the Palette Fair Isle sweater is done!
I'm free! Free of worry about spilling a glass of wine or a cup of coffee into the basket in which the beast had taken up residence! Free of the guilt of not having completed it! Free from moving the huge bag of wool every time I vacuumed or mopped! Free! Free! Free!
It's been a battle of wills. Will it ever get done? Will it fit once it is done? Will I even want to look at this thing again?
I've taken this sweater on one cruise, many road trips, innumerable doctor's appointments, a variety of hospital visits and more trips to the ER than I care to count. During it's construction, wars have been started (unfortunately none ended), loooong presidential campaigns have been run, a tsunami hit Thailand and most recently the awful earthquake in Haiti. This sweater has kept me busy through hurricanes and tropical storms. It's been my solace when I needed something mindless. In short, this sweater has been the one thing that has been constant; never chiding, never nagging, always there: my quiet and often ignored companion.
I can identify the section I was working on when Baby Ava, Michael's granddaughter, was born. I know exactly the portion I was knitting the night Obama was elected. I can point out the too-tight knitting from the time Michael was in the hospital with MRSA.
In short, there's a lot of history in this sweater. While that may be interesting, there's one little inch and a half wide band on the left sleeve that means everything to me. It's the band I was knitting the day my mom was released from the hospital. She woke up and looked at me sitting there in the hospital room knitting. "You have hands just like my mother's." she said as she reached out and touched this bit of orange striped stitching.
A week later, I had picked up the sweater again and was working on it as I sat with my mom in her bedroom. Still in the same band, I looked at my hands and realized that I didn't know if her mother had knit or anything about her mother's hands. It was too late to ask. Later that afternoon, my mom passed away.
I think she would have really liked this sweater.
