The woman behind the yarn
My mother is sixty-one, and she has been quietly making things her whole life. This little shop is just the newest of them. Before you take something home, I wanted you to know whose hands it came from.
A childhood always in motion
She was born in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, the middle of three — an older sister ahead of her, a younger brother behind. Her father's government job moved the family every couple of years, so she grew up in a blur of new towns and new schools, forever the new girl working out where she fit.
- ✿always, always the new kid
- ✿learned to make friends fast
- ✿the middle child, keeping the peace
“Study first,” her mother would tell her. “The housework can wait.”
A mother ahead of her time
That mother — my Nani — was an extraordinarily warm woman, and quietly radical for her day. While most girls were handed brooms, she pushed her daughter toward books instead. My Nana was her match: deeply knowledgeable, unfailingly polite, and devoted to all of them. Both are gone now. What they believed in stayed.
Always, always a student
And study she did — not for a career, simply because she was curious and couldn't help herself. She has loved reading since she was small. These days you'll find her with a good book, or bent happily over a sudoku.
- ✿B.A. in economics
- ✿then a master's
- ✿a commerce degree after that
- ✿two whole years of fashion design
- ✿today: a good book + a daily sudoku
A full, quiet life
At twenty-three she married my father. They met and, by every account, fell for each other almost at once. I came along a few years later. The life they've built is a modest one — and one of the fullest and happiest I know. She does her yoga; she makes sure Dad does his exercise too. At least twice a year, they pack a bag and go somewhere new together.
And now — the yarn
The crochet is the newest chapter, and the most purely her own. She makes each piece slowly, by hand, for no reason other than the joy of it. Each is made only once. And when one finds its home, it does one more quiet thing: it helps pay for the next adventure — this winter, Manipur, with Dad.
If something here finds its way to you, you'll know exactly whose evenings went into it.
see what she's made