My mother has been knitting for many years. I remember from my childhood that my grandmother used to knit. But if my grandmother knitted socks or mittens, my mother went further: she experimented with patterns, shapes, and threads. She learned to knit in a club in our village. For a long time, she did not mention it. She dropped the needles and forgot about them. But suddenly, she returned to knitting, probably when I was already a teenager.
My grandmother taught me to knit. The first thing we created together with her was socks. I remember that it was like something from the world of fiction: four sticks, threads, and from all this, something real comes out... a sock. I didn't always manage to knit myself because of a lack of patience, but I liked to sit and watch my mother and grandmother do it.
Sometimes, I want to knit, but what stops me is that I have to buy needles and threads. So, in my free time, I would instead occupy myself with other types of needlework: sometimes embroider, and sometimes I work with beads.
A few years before the start of the war, I came to study in Slovyansk. It was the first time I left home and started living independently. That's when I wanted to knit. Maybe it was the desire to feel at home.
My first finished product was a short scarf. I created a trial version, but I was delighted. And then another joyful feeling - I knitted socks for my neighbor, which she wore almost daily. I realized then that this is my way of caring for someone
.Although my mother always knitted me many cool things, I only wore them sometimes. They seemed heavy to me. One day, my mother almost got angry when I declined a hat she wanted to make me.
On the eve of a full-scale invasion in one of the social networks, I saw an exciting cardigan, threw it off to my mother, and asked her to knit it. She bought thread and came to make it for me.
When I evacuated from Kyiv, I took a cardigan with me. Why? It is not practical to wear at all, with lots of tiny holes, and it takes up a lot of space, but I could not leave it. My mother knitted this thing in front of me day and night.
During the evacuation in Lviv, I wore a cardigan only once. It was a hot day; people were hiding from the sun, and I was the opposite. I walked down the street with thoughts that, on the one hand, I was wearing a beautiful thing that the person closest to me had made. But I don't know when I will see her again. But will I see at all?
I remember that as a teenager, people paid attention to what my mother had made for me wherever I went. When I said that she did it for me, not for someone else or sale, but for me, I felt incredible joy. Did I realize I sometimes used knitting to connect with her as a child? I think not.
But everything has changed. Memory is not a suitcase; it stores important things better and finds a place for them. And I am grateful to her for this warmth.
The story was recorded by Peter Smirnov, according to Diana Kolodyazhnaya.
English translation by Oksana Bukanova.
The Atelier of Stories Project is part of the program Vidnova Fellowship, an individually designed program for civil society actors from Ukraine, that enables them to continue their work and to network with other European and Ukrainian partner organizations.www.instagram.com/vidnovafellowship/#vidnovafellowship#vidnovaeurope #vidnovaukraine#TheAtelier_of_Stories HelloCraft.UA#handmade#warmstories