Just in case I lose it!

 

This is my favourite pattern book with my signature baby clothes in it. Just in case I lose it! 

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys 

It's on the way!

 

So, as promised to my granddaughter, Jess, I have started my red layette for her coming baby.

It is my favourite pattern, done in blackberry stitch. The yarn is bamboo and I love the soft feel. It feels like butter! 

Jess has requested a matching beanie with pom pom and a pair of booties, all of which I have done before.

To complete the layette, I will making my favourite baby shawl in the same colour.

It feels good to actually be knitting again after a few months of empty hands... now the new project is on its' way! 

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

Getting ready to start

 

As you probably know, my husband Chris has been ill and in hospital. I simply haven't had time to start on my knitteds for my upcoming great-grand children.

Since Chris has come home, I have been able to start preparing, choosing wools and organising a place to keep all my crochet and knitting things...

I managed to find a knitting bag that looks like it will be big enough to keep all the things together at Temu. It was only $20AUD which was a bargain.

During the last few days, I have bought red wine coloured yarn made from bamboo and I am just waiting for it to be delivered.

It is due in a few days and I am excited and getting ready to start..

 Keep clicking and stitching,

 Glenys

Guess who's going to be busy?

                                                 

I know it's been a while since I posted, but all my projects were done and I went "off the boil" -until now.

With 3 more great-grandchildren on the way, it has given me a new zeal for knitting and crocheting.

Each grandchild who is expecting already has received both a shawl and a cardigan for their coming baby.

It's early days yet, so I have no idea what the genders will be, but I can start knitting with pastel gender neutral colours... 

I will be working on my favourite blackberry stitch cardigans and then I will do another baby blanket each in the correct colour.

To say I am chomping at the bit to cast on the first baby's cardigan would be an understatement.

I guess I will have plenty of babies gifts to keep me busy! 

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

Knitting is good for the soul

Miriam Gold was born on November 30, 1930, in the Romanian city of Bacău. Her first memories weren’t of words or people, but of wool—warm, comforting, the scent of lanolin and lavender. She was just three years old the first time her grandmother, Buba Esther, placed yarn in her tiny hands and said, “We tell stories in loops, not letters.”

Miriam believed her.

While other children in the courtyard played with balls or dolls, Miriam sat beside her Buba, needles clicking like clock hands, forming stitches of time. Her favorite color was blue. Her second favorite was sunset-orange. Her fingers moved quickly, and her eyes never missed a dropped stitch.

“You knit like you’ve done it in another life,” her grandmother often said.

Miriam didn’t know about past lives, but she believed in patterns, in warmth, in memory.

2. The Blanket of Names

When she was seven, Miriam began her first real project: a blanket made of squares, each one a color for someone she loved.

Royal blue for her father, Elias, a schoolteacher who smelled like ink and pipe tobacco. Raspberry red for her mother, Rifka, who hummed lullabies even while baking. Pale green for her baby brother Yitzhak, who laughed when the light hit the spoon just right.

Each stitch was a story. Each row a memory.

Buba added her own: mustard yellow, the color of sunflowers from the old village in Moldova; coal-gray for the husband she'd lost in the Great War.

“We knit what we remember,” she’d say, “because memory unravels.”

Miriam nodded. She didn’t understand all of it—but she knew this: threads told truth.

3. A City of Shadows – 1940

By the time Miriam turned ten, the world outside her yarn was changing. Laws came. Neighbors disappeared. Her father came home one day with bruises on his face and silence in his mouth.

Jews were no longer allowed in certain schools. Shops were vandalized. The bakery that sold her favorite walnut strudel was boarded up.

One morning, she asked her grandmother, “Can threads protect us?”

Buba said, “Not from hate. But they can remind us we were whole once.”

So Miriam kept knitting. Scarves for children who no longer smiled. Hats for neighbors who had been stripped of dignity. A sleeve here, a repair there—tiny acts of defiance against unraveling.

4. The Yarn Smuggler

In 1941, when the ghetto was formed, their world shrank to a few streets and a few meals a week. But somehow, Buba kept getting yarn.

No one ever asked how.

Some said she had friends in the resistance. Others believed she traded heirlooms. Miriam never asked. She only watched, as her grandmother’s hands trembled more but refused to rest.

They shared a blanket with another family, and Miriam’s half was stitched with words in Hebrew: Zachor. Remember.

She began secretly knitting wristbands for the children—tiny pieces of thread with their initials, favorite colors, or little patterns like leaves or stars.

“Why?” a boy once asked her.

“So someone will know you were here,” Miriam said.

5. The Night of Burning Books

In the winter of 1942, the Nazis ordered the destruction of all Jewish books, sacred and secular. A pile was made in the square. People were forced to watch.

Miriam stood behind a wire fence and clutched a small ball of wool in her pocket. It was all she had left of her father’s old sweater.

As the flames rose, Buba whispered, “When they burn books, they burn people next.”

That night, Miriam didn’t sleep. She picked up her needles and began a new project: a scarf in two colors—ashes and snow. She didn't know what it would become, only that it needed to be made.

6. Threads in the Cattle Car

In early 1944, the Gold family was deported.

They were herded into a cattle car—forty people, no food, little air, children crying, old men praying.

Miriam held her knitting bag like it was a baby. In it were scraps: blue, gray, green, yellow. The beginnings of a shawl. And a pair of needles, sharpened thin to look like hairpins.

For two days, she didn’t move. She just counted stitches in her head. Forward loop. Purl. Slip stitch.

A woman beside her noticed. “Why bother?” she asked. “We are not going anywhere good.”

Miriam replied, “Then I’ll carry something good there.”

7. Auschwitz – The Land of Nothing

The gates of Auschwitz were made of iron lies.

Miriam was separated from her grandmother within minutes. Then from her mother. She never saw her brother again.

Children were kept in a special barrack. Cold. Crowded. Colorless.

But at night, beneath the straw, Miriam pulled out her knitting. Not to wear, but to remember.

She made small squares—hidden in the lining of her uniform. Each night, she added one stitch. One loop. One breath.

A girl beside her named Zofia asked, “What is that?”

Miriam said, “My family. They live here now.”

Zofia asked, “Are you afraid?”

“Yes,” Miriam said. “But this helps.”

8. The Patchwork Underground

By April, a group of girls in the children’s barracks were secretly helping Miriam. They stole threads—cut from hems, found on corpses, plucked from old sacks. A red string from a fallen glove. A blue thread from a curtain used as a rag.

Each color was a person. A story.

They called themselves the Patchwork Underground.

At night, they huddled close and stitched in the dark.

“We can’t escape,” Zofia whispered, “but our thread can.”

9. The Final Stitch

In the summer of 1944, selections increased. Rumors of liberation came. So did rumors of extermination.

One night, a guard discovered a scrap of the knitting. It had a tiny embroidered name: Yitzhak.

He grabbed Miriam. “What is this?”

“A memory,” she said.

He slapped her. Took the cloth. She didn’t cry.

That night, she made one last square with the last of the red thread. She stitched one word in trembling Hebrew: Tikvah—hope.

The next day, Miriam Gold was sent to the gas chamber.

She was thirteen years old.

10. After the Smoke

When Auschwitz was liberated, a Russian nurse found something wedged beneath a loose board in the children’s barrack. A tiny bundle of cloth, threadbare but colorful.

It was a patchwork of twenty-one squares. Some had names. Others just initials. A few were simply colors.

Folded inside was a note in Romanian, written in childish script:

“My name is Miriam Gold. I am thirteen. I knit to remember.

If this is found, please know we were here. We had names. We had homes. We had hearts.” - from a FB article by Defined History

Just another reminder that knitting is good for the soul...

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

Brings back memories

 

 

So I have been uploading family photos for my adult children and grandchildren and whilst posting, I came across this picture of my firstborn and he is wearing a jacket I knitted for him.

I recall I used Paton feathersoft 3 ply yarn and although I remember I used tortoise shell needles, I can't remember the size...

Other cardigans were done in my favourite blackberry stitch, but I did some in fisherman's rib cable which is what this one is.. but I couldn't find a photo of one on any of my babies...

I am glad I found this picture, it sure does bring back memories..

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

For a friend

 

Recently I made my favourite shawl pattern for a friend.

She wasn't planning on finding out the gender of her baby, so she asked me if I could make the shawl in white, pink and blue.

It was fun to do and she was very pleased with it..

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

To all who celebrate Easter

 

Today is Good Friday and I have been reflecting on the courage Jesus had to endure the humiliation, torture and crucifixion in order to pay for sins that we committed.

But a lot can happen in a few days, and Jesus overcame sin and death by rising from the dead on the third day.

For those who believe He did this for us- taking our place and bearing the punishment for sin so that we can have right standing with God- He offers eternal life. There is joy in knowing that Sunday is coming.

I am having family here for Resurrection Sunday and I am preparing a roast lamb dinner, vanilla slices, apple roses pastries. 

With the four of us unable to actually get to church, we will be taking communion to remember and honour Christ... For us, home is church... not ideal, but our hearts are in it, and for Him.

My fibromyalgia and angina are bad, so I am resting up today and tomorrow. I will be using all my spoons on Sunday. But I am nevertheless looking forward to thanking our Saviour and rejoicing on the holiest of days for us Christians.

Preparing this lunch will be a sacrifice for me, but nothing compared to the one Christ faced to redeem us and pave the way to eternity with Him.

If you are interested in becoming a Christian, here is the link...  Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

So who taught you to knit?

 

I have been knitting and crocheting since I was about 8 years old. 

I am eternally grateful to my paternal grandmother who taught not only myself but my twin sister to knit and crochet.

She had the patience of a saint as I found out trying to teach my daughters and their daughters. They lost patience and threw in the towel far too early. However, I have since found out that one of my granddaughters now crochets. 

She made a mess of her blanket she was crocheting and she brought it to me to mend. It was a sweet time with lots of laughs.

As you know, I aways have crocheted and knitted projects at home and it makes me joyful. I love being creative.

When I was a younger woman when my children were in school, my neighbour and I would spend many an afternoon knitting. She was very clever with knitting...

Even today you will often find me knitting or crocheting with my twin and we laugh and relax.

We both are grateful to Nana... and I hope I have passed the art on like she did.

So who taught you to knit?

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys

My newest project

With the cooler Autumn evenings, there's nothing quite like starting another project. 

This time I am knitting a blackberry stitch pink cardigan for my 2 year old great granddaughter.

I have dragged out my bamboo circular knitting needles- size 4mm to knit her cardigan in 8 ply acrylic yarn.

Again I will be using my favourite pattern, using the largest size. 

Keep clicking and stitching,

Glenys