"Place the needle with the stitch in your left hand," I mumbled as I followed the directions in the book, placing the knitting needle in my left hand and continued to read. "Grab the empty needle in your right hand, and wind the yarn around your fingers like so...." I tried to do it like the picture but I dropped the needle trying to keep the yarn in place. I sighed and picked it back up.

"Doing any better tonight?" Josh asked, looking up from his book.

"I figured out the casting on," I said, holding up the needle in my left hand. I had ten loops on the hook.

"That's good."

"Yeah. Just can't get the holding everything at once thing down."

"Mmm." Josh said, going back to his book and I to mine. Celine had brought home a book catalog from school and we let her pick out a book to order, and I also ordered a learn-to-knit kit as well.

"Maybe if I concentrate on the needle and not holding everything correctly." I muttered as I picked up the dropped needle again. "Keep the right needle under the left needle and the yarn at the back....okay....pull yarn under and over the right needle and pull it softly between the two needles." I let out a happy "meep!" as the yarn slid between the needles and I heard a small 'click' as the metal needles met again.

The last step had me trying to get the hook under the other one without loosing the stitch in the process. After about a dozen tries and a few choice words muttered softly to the yarn (which made Josh chuckle a few times), I managed to get a stitch off the left needle and onto the right.

"WOO!" I bounced a bit in my excitement and shoved the needles under Josh's nose. "Look! I did it!"

"That's awesome Sam. Now maybe you can do the rest of them."

"Yeah," I said quietly, getting comfortable again and attempting to do the rest of the stitches. It took a few tries, but by the end of the row, it was starting to make sense. Spurred on by my excitement, I knit a second row before showing Josh again.

"Look! I have stitches off the needle and they're staying in place!"

"That's wonderful," Josh said, looking at the tangle of yarn on the needle. "What are you going to make with it?"

"I dunno. Just learning right now. Maybe a bookmark for your Christmas gift," I teased. Josh never put a bookmark in his book and always spent a few minutes every night finding his place again. 

"Mmk." he replied. We went back to our own things again for a few minutes. I got a third row in before he looked up at me again.

"Why do you want to learn this all of a sudden?"

"I've always wanted to learn," I said quietly. "I remember when I was about the twins' age, watching my great-grandmother knit a blanket for me," I smiled a little at the memory. "She was about ninety years old and was visiting my grandmother - the one that's gone now, and she couldn't get around without a cane, and I would steal the cane and pretend it was one of those horse heads on a stick toys. I was her favorite. I could get away with doing that. My cousins doing that? They got a slap on the back of their hand when she would catch them." I put the needles and yarn down and slipped out of bed. I went to the linen closet and brought in a pastel pink blanket that was large enough for a twin size bed. I handed it over to Josh as I sat down on my side.

"I want to leave something behind when I'm gone. You'll live on through your music. Music that millions of people love. I want to do what 'Nother Mama did with me. I want to leave my children and grandchildren and maybe even one day great-grandchildren with memories like I have."

"Your great-grandmother made this blanket?" he asked. I nodded. "But you never said-"

"I know. And I don't know why, but when I saw the kit in the catalog, I just felt like it was time to learn finally. It's making me feel closer to 'Nother Mama."

Josh put his book on the night stand and pulled me into a hug. My knitting slid off the bed as we both got lost in each other's presence before finally calling it a night.