Downsizing

My parents have decided it's time to sell their 3-bedroom house and move to a smaller apartment. This move involves clearing out quite a bit of Stuff.

Most of the furniture has been taken care of, as well as the yardwork related items (we now own a hammock and a snowblower, among other things). And now they're getting down to the real knitty-gritty of moving -- sorting through the momentos of a lifetime, deciding which to keep.

Through the years people have been quite fond of giving my parents handmade gifts. Quite, quite fond, as a matter of fact. I'm not sure what it is about Mom and Dad that radiates "hey, if you make stuff why not give us a sample?" Dad is a retired pastor; perhaps people like to give their pastor handmade gifts? (And, if so, does that indicate love or passive-aggressive thoughts about religion? There have been those items that make one pause and wonder ... most of those have quietly disappeared in previous moves, though.)

This afghan didn't make the cut to go to the new apartment, so I rescued it from the Goodwill bag:



It was woven on a Weavette. Each square has a finished size of 3.25 inches; there are 192 squares. Those grey squares are green in real life.

The guy who wove it (no clue what his name is -- Mom and Dad remember, but he wasn't a close friend of the family) finished it off with cross stitch and a crocheted border:



At least I assume he finished it off himself. Maybe he farmed that part out. Who knows? But, isn't it a triumph of the imagination? How many people with palm-sized looms would decide to weave up a couple hundred squares, put them together into a throw, and then give it to someone with whom they don't have a close personal relationship?

How did he design it? I can picture coloring in squares on graph paper, but who knows. Perhaps there are Weavette patterns floating around in books (this was before the Internet, so I know he didn't simply download it).

By the way, Mom and Dad's house sold within a week, so they'll be moving later this month. In the meantime, they've learned that Dad has a rapidly growing cancer, so he will also be starting radiation treatments this month. Sigh. This was already earmarked as The Most Stressful Month of 2007 on our calendars due to the huge number of Important Things We Must Do this month, which means we can't be there to help them. On the bright side, if we all make it through all of this, the rest of the year should be a piece of cake in comparison.