This isn’t a sweater. It’s a saga!

A beautiful, sad, wrenching tale of loss, love, perceived abandonment and, reconciliation. It is appropriate that this insubstantial jumper shifts in the breeze but does not blow away.

My step-daughter fell in love with this pattern when she came all the way from Germany, to Australia, to visit her Father who had been diagnosed with Small Cell Lung Cancer.

She was a creature full of grace and I taught her to knit and her father, an Artist, loved that she and I filled our wee space with learning and making.

She returned home. The knitting of this jumper commenced and progressed. As did her father’s cancer.

He died here at home, with me and our dog, Reg. In the precious time before, he and I lay together in bed, holding hands, murmuring words of love, from such a deep place, they barely broke the surface. When he slept, I would pick up the jumper and knit. In his sleep, his hand would find the fabric of the jumper, that soft warm cloud, and caress it.

When he died, I could not, and can still not, bear to knit the unfinished jumper.

But it was important to me, critically so, to fulfil my promise to Matilda. Softrope, the yarn maker, had left the business (indeed the first garland may be knitted wth the last yarn she ever dyed).

I scoured the internet and finally, found that LOLAruby had some stashed. This gorgeous woman let go of this gorgeous yarn so I could knit for a promise.

This has not been an easy knit. At one point it was so painful I had to put it aside, even though I was very close to the end.

I invest an enormous amount in my knitting.

I look at the image of it to here, floating in the air, and feel Michael and Reg moving gently on the breeze with me.