Marking the Time
A few months ago, I wrote an article highlighting the benefits of the slowness of knitting.
One particular aspect of that article has been in the forefront of my mind in the last few weeks. I’ve copied it below:
Consider Your Project A Temporary Life Companion
You and your project may be “together” during some significant life events. Many knitters can point to individual projects and identify what was happening in their lives as they were making the items. “That’s the blanket I made when I was pregnant with my first.” “That’s the shawl I made when Mom had surgery and I stayed with her for a month.” “That’s the blanket I made the year after we moved.” “That’s the sweater I made after Dad died.”
Not every item has such significant stories, but all of them accompany a portion of our lives. We can choose to pay attention to even the less significant life events as we make slow progress on a project. We can be mindful of the portion of time marked by the span of the project and curate those memories and experiences.
Doing so infuses those projects with even more significance than if we simply construct them mindlessly. This may be a new challenge for some knitters, this kind of reflective, autobiographical, mindful knitting, but I encourage you to try it. I think you’ll find it enhances your enjoyment in what you knit, especially if the item stays near you. When you use it or see it, you’ll have further opportunities to remember and reflect on that period of your life. Even if that period is a hard one, you have a tangible reminder that you not only endured it, but you created during it.
Knitting (as well as other kinds of hand crafts) has this strange and wonderful ability to capture and mark time and significant events.
Let me give you some examples that are a little different than the ones mentioned above. I might call those Big Life Events.
Did you ever receive a knitted or crocheted gift from someone on some special occasion? Aren’t the memory of the occasion and the person attached to the item in some way?
Have you ever bought a skein (or several) of yarn while on a trip as a souvenir or memento of your travels? If you’ve knit with it, doesn’t it bring your journey to mind?
Have you ever had a project you typically worked on during a particular activity? Like listening to class lectures or podcasts, watching a favorite Netflix series, waiting during sports practices, or riding public transportation during your regular commute? If you pick up that finished project, doesn’t it bring to mind the time you spent in those activities?
If you happen to be a bit of a kinesthetic learner, or tend toward ADHD, you may find this sort of phenomenon to be even more pronounced.
Side note on the ADHD comment, I just saw this seriously interesting study in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature on how a short period of time spent crocheting measurably improved communication between different parts of the brain, improved reaction times, and increased general alertness. Exciting stuff!
One of my own quirks, which I think comes along with that kinesthetic learning, is that the tactile memories imbued in whatever I’m making include not just the event, but the emotions of the event. It’s not just “this is the yarn I picked up when I finally got to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival for the first time after dreaming of going for 20 years, what a great time.” I feel echoes of the giddy excitement of walking up the hill to the entrance barn and the joy of sharing it with someone who was equal parts excited for me to realize a dream and bewildered that this sort of event could even BE.
I realized this quirk existed one day when I picked up a long-neglected project and was overwhelmed with feelings of sadness within a few minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I have my moods, but this was weird. After a while I remembered that I’d been watching a really sad movie the last time I’d worked on that project. Months beforehand. Super weird. Thankfully, it seems to be possible to override those types of tactile memories!
I recently finished the knitting portion of the Amaryllis cardigan. That project is bookended at the beginning by a ridiculously fun memory of Greg’s international FaceTime call and our cooperative international shopping adventure at an Italian yarn shop.
I finished knitting it in a hospital room.
We lost a dear family member last week, and while the memory of that bookend to the sweater is very different in tone from the beginning, it is still precious. That particular garment will always carry both joy and deep sorrow, and I can’t help but be thankful for the tangible reminder of each, and the love that makes me feel them both so deeply.
Greg would describe himself as a new knitter, but I think he is convinced of the benefit of having some knitting around to occupy your hands in times of waiting and watching. I wasn’t the only one with yarn and needles in my hands in the hospital rooms.
He decided he was comfortable enough with purling to try out the Checkerboard Dishcloth and had just gotten going on that before our time in the hospital ended. He told me he’d like to mark the place where he was in the cloth when our loved one passed. I think we’ll use some contrasting yarn and he can work a couple of rows to create a visual demarcation. Perhaps I’ll suggest plain garter stitch to create a ridge and intentionally break the pattern. That’s just what those Big Life Events do sometimes, isn’t it?
Have you ever intentionally put some marker into a garment or piece to mark a significant event? I’d love to hear about it if you have.
In a lighter-hearted way of marking the time, I should report that I’ve succumbed to the lure of the seasonal crocheted pumpkin. I have made it almost 30 years of crocheting without doing one, but Briana K‘s Wheat Stitch Pumpkin Spice Crochet Trio finally got me. It’s just too clever with the use of the color-changing yarn, the choice of stitches, and the cute factor.
I’ll never be a natural decorator, but even I can pop one of these on a surface and feel seasonal.
And as I make it, I’m marking this time as one of rest, renewal, and reflection.
And now for something completely different:
Those of you who know Greg in person know he’s a man of questions. He loves to ask them, is great at asking good ones, and in some contexts (restaurants come to mind) seems to be constitutionally incapable of proceeding without asking at least one. Each week he’s going to ask a handful of questions, and you get to decide which one gets answered in the next newsletter.
I have to admit to a moment of doubt when he raised the idea. Could even he, The Most Excellent Asker of Questions come up with multiple questions on a regular basis? He rattled off a sampling. Like a Kansas hailstorm of questions. Oh, me of little faith. The difficulty will be limiting ourselves to only three at once. (Bonus points to you if you get that Jane Austen reference!)
So, here we go.
Greg’s Got Questions:
- Could you please help me understand why, given the fact that you’ve been crocheting for almost 30 years and we have a basement packed with fiber arts tools of all shapes, sizes, and colors, did I see a new crochet hook arrive in the house with the beautiful yarn you bought to make the pumpkin?
- Why does the Wheat Stitch Pumpkin use crochet instead of knitting?
- Did you intentionally NOT explain to your readers how I applied my engineering skills in the hospital room to keep my ball of string from falling out of my lap onto the floor?
Happy knitting,
Kiersten J
