Some Girls Prefer Carnations: The blanket

Saturday, February 12, 2011

The blanket

I don't remember the first time I made a blanket, specifically an afghan, for someone's wedding. The first one I remembered to photograph was for Amanda and Alex (2006), and it remains one of my favorites:

I know I made one for Mallary and Doc in 2004, but I don't think that that was my first wedding afghan, either. My latest wedding blanket is for my sister Holly and hubbie Kyle, who got married in September (this is only my second knitted afghan):

Why do I make afghans for people's weddings? It started out being something thoughtful and unique, but at Mallary and Doc's wedding I learned about a Native American tradition called the Blanket Ceremony. After the spiritual leader blesses the couple, relatives drape a blanket around the couple to represent their new ways of "happiness, fulfillment, and peace". My understanding is that this blanket is often white, but I have clearly chosen not to adopt that aspect of the ceremony. Nor do I insist that relatives envelope the couple in my afghan. I just create an afghan in the image of the couple and hope that it brings them happiness, fulfillment, and peace. I'm additionally hoping that finishing Holly and Kyle's blanket on my last hard chemo day brings some extra pizazz to their marriage.

On a related note, I was recently the recipient of a most touching mini-quilt. My friend Christine made it for me, and its pink carnation geometry seems to channel all of the positive thoughts that everyone is sending to my family and me. I hope you don't mind that I am showcasing it here, C, but it is just so lovely. I am going to hang it by my nightstand, possibly forever.

6 comments:

PiperBFebruary 12, 2011 at 12:58 PM
Your latest afghan is awesome! Sure to bless the newlyweds with all the pizazz they will ever need!
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AnonymousFebruary 13, 2011 at 2:35 PM
Really love Holly & Kyle's afghan! You do excellent work!!! My fav afghan was made by your Mama, a watermelon theme she made up because she knew how much I like watermelon things! Sooooo happy to hear you are through the last hard chemo! Just in time for beautiful Iowa weather!!! Luv Ya! ~Patti
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JacqueFebruary 13, 2011 at 6:42 PM
Really gorgeous work HK!!!
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AmandaFebruary 14, 2011 at 8:09 AM
Horray! We love our afghan and matching pillows, I am still in awe of your talent.
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DadFebruary 15, 2011 at 11:05 PM
wowzers!
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ChristineFebruary 17, 2011 at 9:30 PM
Delighted to see the carnation quilt in such beautiful company, but for the record I was at best a partial designer of it--the stitchery is all Cindy B's. I love your interpretation of its pink lines, and send more positive thoughts to channel. So glad you are through with the hard drugs. Onward and upward!
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Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Saturday, February 12, 2011

The blanket

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