Closely Knit Friends: The Poncho Pullover

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The knitting group was baffled by Roseanne. A first-time expectant mother, she was making a jazzy-looking rectangle in a self-patterning yarn called “Vanna’s Tapestry,” whose variegated hues—earth brown, leafy green, cranberry, birch-bark grey and white—were unusual for infant clothes.

“It’s an edgy baby blanket, right?” asked Maddy.

“I think it’s a car-seat cover,” Jane declared.

Roseanne smiled.

“Come on, tell us,” pleaded Grace.

“Why not be surprised?” Roseanne asked.

“Because we don’t want to knit duplicate stuff,” Irene, always practical, said. “If you’re doing a blanket, I’d rather knit the baby a sweater or a cap.”

Roseanne’s coyness drove them crazy. She was the first of them to become a mother. “Roseanne’s always been so sharing and giving. Pregnancy has changed her,” they decided.

Meanwhile they knitted their friend a layette, favoring primary colors and neutrals—because if Roseanne knew her baby’s gender, she also wasn’t telling.

***

Fast forward a month. On a late summer afternoon, the knitting group arrives at Roseanne’s to meet week-old Timmy. Bearing heaps of knitted gifts, they find Roseanne on the backyard deck, holding her sleeping infant. She’s wearing jeans and a stunning poncho—or is it a pullover?—of the variegated Vanna’s Tapestry yarn. The generous top makes her look as if she’s fully regained her figure.

“So why wouldn’t you tell us what you were knitting?” Irene asks.

“I’m not sure,” Roseanne says. “Maybe I felt a little guilty making something just for me, instead of for Timmy. I had the best time, you know. It knit up fast, and watching the yarn change colors was mesmerizing.”

Irene observes, “Luckily we knitted Timmy a layette.”

“Well, girlfriends,” Roseanne says. “I owe you big-time. I love this poncho-pullover so much, that I can’t wait to make a bunch more. Each of you gets one from me in another beautiful colorway of Vanna’s Tapestry, for your birthday.”

“Thanks, darling,” says Jane, embracing Roseanne. “That will make us even more closely knit!”

—

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A story by Selma Moss-Ward.

Selma Moss-Ward writes and knits in Rhode Island. You can find her work on our blog, as well as Lion Brand’s monthly newsletter, Pattern Journal, which you can subscribe to here.