Knitting project stitches generations together

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This article was published 10/11/2020 (1760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 93-year-old Westwood woman has stitched together a colourful creation that tightened ties to her teenage great-granddaughter.

Fourteen-year-old Ava Kelman of Headingley had been admiring the patchwork sweater worn by singer-songwriter Harry Styles, and hoped to make something similar for herself.

She asked her grandma, Joy Marsh, to teach her how to knit. Instead, Marsh directed her to the family’s expert knitter — her own mother, Joyce Rose.

“I think the connection of the sweater between my mom and Ava is wonderful. I could have taught Ava how to knit but I also realized the pattern would be quite daunting for someone who is a beginner knitter,” said Marsh, a Crestview resident. “This project was perfect for my mom. She has been a long-time knitter and eagerly took on the task.”

Marsh supplied the yarn and Rose started stitching the sweater in early summer, working diligently at her apartment in Westwood.

“This sweater was a challenge. Knit in blocks and panels of four-inch squares, it had vague instructions, leaving the outcome, more or less, to the knitter,” Rose said.

“Knitting it for a very special great-granddaughter, who wanted this particular sweater — letting us put our heads together virtually on the construction — was such a treat.”

In addition to creating a one-of-a-kind gift for her great-granddaughter, Rose also discovered that the project helped to boost her spirits during the pandemic.

“As the sweater began taking shape — waking up each day to the planning, the ripping out and starting again, the placing of colours and changing my mind, scrapping some panels and scrapping some stitches — it was a good mental exercise and discipline,” she said.

“Sharing time with Ava and her mother and grandmother for fittings was manna for the soul, so to speak — masked and as distant as we could be under the circumstances.”

The nonagenarian learned to knit while she was growing up in Stonewall. Her Grade 7 teacher, Miss Myra Rutherford, taught both boys and girls the skill for one period per week on Friday afternoons.

“Actually, I did not really enjoy it until a baby was on the way — a winter baby, who would need sweaters and socks and warm clothes. So I began to knit and liked it,” she said.

“Now I have an ongoing knitting project that keeps me knitting most of the time. Every newborn in my large extended family receives a baby sweater. I have bags of wool.”

In another project, Rose knits sweaters for newborn babies outside her family too.

“I have a baby sweater project on the needles right now and will finish six before Christmas. After working in an office at Children’s Hospital many years ago, I know that there are children who spend time in the hospital and return to the north,” she said.

“These sweaters, each packaged in a Ziploc bag, will go to Children’s Hospital to help meet a need.”
As for Kelman, she is thrilled with the outcome of her great-grandmother’s efforts.

“It’s super-soft and looks like the cardigan Harry wore but also has parts that my great-grandmother made special,” said the teen.

“And I’m so grateful I have two amazing women in my life that love me so much that I can make an offhand comment and they make it my reality.”