Just like a scent can take me back to my parents beautiful garden of my childhood and a song can reveal hidden memories of a past relationship, looking at something I've knit in the past can transport me to another time and another place. This beautiful Sally Melville shawl is called The Big Bang Wrap and the pattern is in the book "The Color Experience." I was lucky to take a class from Sally Melville on knitting with color but that is for another post.
When I did my first walk through of "The Color Experience" I immediately stopped at The Big Bang Wrap. I knew I had to knit it. I loved everything about it; the herringbone pattern, the beautiful tweed yarn, the fabulous colors. There was a time when Knitting Universe the website for Knitters magazine kitted patterns from their books and magazine (they don't seem to do that now.) I bought the kit and tucked it away for a rainy day.
My rainy day came January of 2008. While we were in Atlanta at my sister's for Christmas, the unthinkable happened. We were getting ready to go to bed the night before we were going to come home (Dick, my Mom and me.) Dick said that Mom was calling for me. When I got in her bedroom she was having a stroke. After a couple days in the hospital, we all headed home. Mom stayed with us until the first of April. During her convalescence, I knitted The Big Bang Wrap. I would sit with her and talk and knit. I would stay up late into the night making sure everything was ok with her and knit. I would watch television with her and knit. She would do her therapies and I would knit. I had this feeling that the better Big Bang went the better my Mom would get. I loved knitting Big Bang and became kind of obsessed with its perfection. Mom recovered fabulously. In April she decided it was time for her to go back to her house after her doctor had cleared her to drive (and Big Bang was completed). I usually block and steam a project months or years after I finish it. The pleasure is in the knitting. But I steamed Big Bang and it was beautiful. Until Big Bang I thought shawls were for Grannies. But Big Bang was for me and I wore it with pride reminiscing about the hours Mom and I spent together during her recovery. We talked about everything and I learned stories I wouldn't have heard about Mom. Did Big Bang aid in Mom's recovery? I think so. Whenever I wear Big Bang or my eyes just fall on it, I am transported back to the four months when Big Bang held me together while Mom was getting better. I love that wrap.