Audreysdóttir

Audrey, my partner's mum, taught me how to knit just over 10 years ago. She showed me the basic knit and purl and then spent the weekend monitoring my progress and correcting my many mistakes. She sent me back home with a couple of balls of beautiful Icelandic wool that were too itchy for her. I think I ended up making a scarf from them (the only thing I could manage for the first few years of knitting) that was also too itchy for me.  

Audrey was a talented knitter and made all her own clothes. She also had a beautiful garden and was a fantastic cook. Every time I saw her, I asked questions about all of the things she did because I wanted to learn more from her. When cancer took her from us in 2008, I still had so many questions.

Knitting is a skill I appreciate daily and can't imagine having to live without. I had no say in the matter when it came to living without Audrey so I have worked to develop my knitting in an attempt to honor her skills.

I visited Iceland last year and it is a knitter's paradise. Unlike all other products, there is no limit to how much wool you can bring back through Icelandic customs. Those first wasted balls of Icelandic wool were in the back of my mind when I started searching out colors for my latest sweater. 

Audrey loved poppies so I started to think up a design that could incorporate them. I wanted to avoid anything too realistic and went for something more abstract. Simple concentric circles around the yoke and the wrists did the trick. 

And so the pattern's name, Audreysdóttir. Because, while Icelandic surnames are mostly patronymic - you are the son or dóttir of your father - this pattern is Audrey's legacy in wool.

All photographs taken by Audreysson in the community garden in Tempelhof park in Berlin, one of my favorite places in the world.