New York Minknit

My grandparents in the early 1970s, in front of their house.

A few months ago, when my grandmother and I were celebrating our birthdays together–we share both the same zodiac sign in both the Western and Eastern astrology lore (thus leading to distrubingly similar personalities, known to our loved ones as a special ability to complain and nag)–I was threatening to knit her a hat.

At the time, my grandmother was all “No! Why would I want a hat? I know how to knit [At this point, my grandmother went on a long speech about her knitting prowess and her ability to knit multi-colored flowers around yokes or something. Apparently age does not dimish one’s pride in having managed to vanquish fair isle.] and I have a million hats!” So, I said, fine, and proceeded to cross her off my list of potential knitting victims.

Then, this week, I was having dinner with the grandmother, and she said that she bought me a skein of yarn so I could knit her a hat, one “with ear flaps! Like the one you made your sister!” (She means this scarf-helmet, without the scarf.)

I said, “Grandmother, what about your own knitting ability?* What about your claim that you have millions of hats?”

She said, “But I want to try a hat that you made! And test out your skills! And see if it’s wearable!”

(*My grandmother’s hobby of choice is actually gardening, not knitting. A couple of years ago, she grew this huge squash that she was really into. You would go over to her house, and she would say, “Come into my garage! Look at my giant squash!” )

So I said okay. The funny thing is that back when I was thinking about knitting her something for her birthday, I was thinking to myself, “Hmm…what does my grandmother like?” And the conclusion I came to was that my grandmother likes things that are (a) brown (the color of everything in her wardrobe) (b) furry and (c) plastic (the woman laminated her carpet). Here is the yarn my grandmother bought for her hat:

If you refer to the photo at the top of this post, you will see that my grandmother is wearing a hat that is brown, furry, and made of some kind of synthetic material. She has a love of dead-teddy-bear garments that will never end.