A knitting wizard!

A few months ago, I helped my friend, Mrs. Kaneko, clean out her mother-in-law's house and I brought home many kimono and obi and YARN! Thanks to many of you, most of the kimono and obi resulted in donations for the Red Cross of Japan. But the yarn? Well, I do knit, but did I want to knit with all the many different colors and types and thicknesses of yarn? Mrs. Kaneko's mother-in-law had made some beautiful things in her younger days but as she became more and more confused in her later years she would just buy yarn and sort of lose it in her closets. Thus there were bags and bags of odd skeins of yarn.

I couldn't bear to throw it all out so I brought home about half the yarn and let it sit in MY closet for a month or two. One day, I showed the yarn to one of my students, Mrs. Ide. Did she want any of this odd assortment? Yes, she did! And she happily took the whole haul off of my hands, leaving my closet with a little more free space. That was the last I thought about Mrs. Kaneko's mother-in-law's yarn.

Yesterday Mrs. Ide came to English with a big bag.

"I had a very good time this summer. I've been knitting since July." (Only since July!!!)

Look at all she brought!


A sweater, three vests, a knitted skirt, three pairs of socks, three hats, a scarf and a blanket! Thirteen pieces since July! And she gave them ALL away to me and the other friend in the English class! Everything was made from the left-over yarn and Mrs. Ide mixed and combined yarn to blend colors. Isn't she amazingly creative and prolific?! Today I am wearing the very warm sweater that she gave me and I hope to take a vest and socks over to Mrs. Kaneko this afternoon. Oh, and the cat blanket has found a home on my sofa for the winter!

Well! I sure profited from that exchange! Mrs. Ide did all the work and kept only one piece for herself... She claims that she likes doing the knitting more than she cares about keeping the items. It takes me two months to make one vest for Tetsu, and the other friend admitted that she has been working on a sweater for three years and it is still not done.

I sent Mrs. Ide home with more leftover yarn that I happened to have and told her to make something for HERSELF!