Knitter uses her gift as a gift to others
1. Make the bed
2. Wash the dishes
3. Knit
The Orem woman still manages to stay busy, though. When she's not fluffing pillows or fighting her husband for dish towel privileges, her knitting needles are clicking away, steadily pumping out brightly colored afghans. She's turned out more than 400 of the blankets, which she donates to people in need, during the 10 years since she lost her sight.
"Making these blankets keeps me sane," she said. "It gives me something worthwhile to do."
There were already seven finished blue-and-white quilt squares stacked on the coffee table by early afternoon Tuesday, but Burningham shrugged it off.
"I got a late start today," she said, blushing modestly.
She usually averages about 80 squares a week, which is enough to make two blankets.
Burningham handles the knitting needles deftly, counting the loops of yarn with her fingers: five stitches one way, five stitches the other. She can tell by running her hand across the resulting knots of yarn when she's made a mistake.
Burningham had to give up fine stitchery when her sight started to fade, but, with the encouragement of a neighbor, she learned to manage the knitting needles in the dark. Burningham taught her friend, a ward Relief Society president for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to crochet the knitted squares together by talking her through the steps.
"Now I just can't stop," Burningham said. "I don't know what I would do if somebody told me not to do it anymore."
The afghans started to pile up. Then the whole Cherry Hill Third Ward got involved.
Nancy Braithwaite, who coordinates the ward's humanitarian work, picks up a basket of quilt squares from Burningham once a week and takes it to church. There's never a shortage of volunteers to stitch the pieces together, she said.
"Everybody enjoys it," she said. "We all know her and just love her. We appreciate her for what she does."
Each year, around Christmastime, ward members help distribute the blankets to care homes, widows and cancer patients.
"I remember last year, one man couldn't figure out why we were giving him something so beautiful," Braithwaite said. "He just cried and cried because he was so thrilled — that's the response we get from most people."
E-mail: estuart@desnews.com
Recent comments
God bless this dear woman. We could all learn from her. Instead of...
Carol | March 1, 2008 at 10:06 p.m.
