Organic Growth

F knitted this in 1986.  That makes it archaeological in cat lives.  She was at Otago University at the time and made it out of ‘oddments’ of DK knitting wool scavenged from her mother’s and grandmothers’  knitting left-overs.

She says it was never designed (it shows doesn’t it?) but just grew ‘organically’.  In those days organic growth referred to your garden, and in particular to gardening without the application of chemical sprays and fertilizers.  In 1986 the design’s development would have been described as ‘haphazard’.  There are a lot of things growing ‘organically’ in the 2020’s that could equally well be described as haphazard, unplanned, hit’n’miss, kick-off and hope, …. .organic growth just sounds more wholesome and less like you’ve no idea where this is going.

F has been wearing this thing fairly consistently all the years that I have known her (since 2008), and it looked worn out in 2008.  Not one to throw away clothes that still have plenty of wear in them, irrespective of their fashion content or lifestyle statement, she keeps repairing it.

Note the small caterpillars of repair crawling around the bottom edge.

Lockdown does funny things to people.  This week she washed it and decided that two patches of the jersey, made with the same original yarn are particularly thin.  They haven’t worn; they are consistently thin suggesting that the original yarn wasn’t of the most substantial manufacture.

Using short strands left over from a recent (more formally executed) use of ‘oddments’ to make a jersey for her nephew, F has spent the last 2 evenings embroidering over every stitch in the thin parts.  Now even the patches have patches; patches even more haphazard than the original.  She missed a chance to make something special there.

(Note: F is from NZ – ‘jersey’ means pullover there.  To everyone else Jersey is an island in the English Channel / La Manche. )