For my grandma

When I was a kid I used to spend summers, and sometimes longer, with my grandparents. This was usually really cool because it felt like I was really on vacation with all the grandparent spoilage included. And my grandparents aren't that old. They were probably only in thier 50's when I was there. so it was great. My grandpa would even play barbies with me, and my grandma and I watched The Young and The Restless every single afternoon on tv. Buffy their dog hated the high pitched part of the music credits and howled every day. It was good fun.
In the midst of these many summers my grandma tried to teach me many crafty things. She is the master crafter of all time and space. She does it all. I surmise today that she was trying to find something we had in common, that I would latch onto and she could bond with me on. She taught me cross stitch, latch hook, crochet, and sewing, that I can remember. (why she didn't think knitting i will never know!). The only one that took was the sewing. I have pictures of me and her sewing when I was a kid with straight lanky blonde hair, it was a blue heart shaped pillow with my mom's initials on it. I was so proud of that! I think grandma did the actual machine part, but I still thought I was pretty awesome.
Today I still sew. A few years ago I bought myself a cheap sewing machine and relearned everything. I remembered that I have a natural talent for throwing pieces of fabric together and making things without a pattern. I think my grandma gave me that. I can usually look at a fabric and know what it needs to be.
I recently discovered that a part of that has moved into my knitting, see "this yarn talks a lot" post. That's my grandma. She gave me fiber whispering.
The fact that I have learned to knit is a great joy for me and for her. She has always knitted, but now I do too. I never appreciated the huge 2 color purple afghan that she knitted for me until 2 years ago. Now it is my comfort afghan. I can't believe she made me that.
I am a relatively newbie knitter, just over 2 or so years now, so every xmas I try to knit her something. Last year I "designed" my own cabled scarves. They weren't all that great at all. They curled on the edges and were kinda skinny. But she called me and sounded so proud that I had learned cables. I am old, and my grandma still makes me feel so happy with her praise! She learned that I am knitting socks, so for my birthday this year she dug out a 30 or 40 year old argyle sock pattern that she used to use and sent it to me. I can't say I will ever use it, but it sure is nice to have a piece of her knitting with me.
I sure hope to be able to knit her many xmas presents for many years to come. Maybe she'll get an afghan.