An Ode to Knitting

I am so excited. I just finished knitting this beautiful chocolate brown camel and merino cardigan (notice the perfect buttons from Windsor Button) and although it is March, it is still cold enough for me to wear it. Everyone is wondering why it is still snowing here in the Northeast, but I take full responsibility: I needed it to stay cold until I finished this sweater. Now it can start warming up. Please.

I have not always been such a knitting fiend. I used to think of it as my mom’s thing, or my grandmother’s thing, for that matter. When I was growing up, my grandmother knitted beautiful sweaters for us, and in time-honored tradition my mother took up knitting at some point and started knitting for my sister’s and my babies when they made their appearance. Eventually even my daughter learned to knit at her Montessori school and bonded with her grandmother over the needles.

No, I didn’t learn to knit until my good friend offered to teach a knitting class as a fundraiser for our children’s school and I signed up to support the cause. We met at our local knitting store (shout out to the wonderful Knitting Bee – love you guys!) that donated supplies for the fundraiser, and awkwardly learned to cast on and knit. I progressed slowly and painstakingly, and eventually I finished a scarf.

It was around this time that my father’s health declined and my family and I suddenly found ourselves spending many hours in the hospital and by his bed at home. It was a hard, hard time. To pass some of those painful hours, I decided to knit a blanket made of 12 individual squares, each a different pattern and color. I struggled over each one, and ripped 10 rows for every one I got right. It took a year and a half to complete, about the same amount of time my dad was in hospice. My mom contributed a square or two and my daughter knitted up some rows too. It was not unlike the crossword puzzles that my mom and sister and brother and I shared at my dad’s bedside, with the occasional correct word thrown in by my dad, eyes closed but ears open… what is a four letter word for family bonding? L-O-V-E.

The pride I felt in finishing that blanket was immense, but nothing compared to the peace it brought me with each stitch: the focus on those two needles and a bit of yarn, the quiet that descended on my ragged nervous system, the comfort of the knitted squares on my lap. Even as I cursed at dropped stitches and challenging patterns, there was the satisfaction of knowing that here in my hands was a problem that I could actually solve, a difficulty that I could overcome.

Last weekend marked 6 years since my father passed away. I still feel his presence near me all the time and that blanket is always wrapped around someone on my couch. I don’t think the kids remember a time when the blanket wasn’t there, but they remember their Umpa every day and their memories are part of the fabric – the blanket – of our family life.

Knitting has stayed with me. So many scarves, hats, sweaters, socks, and gloves have come from my needles that I have lost track. But it isn’t the warm fuzzy objects that matter so much as the warm fuzzy bonds. The original knitting class that my friend started grew into a loyal group that still meets at a local coffee shop, though many of our children are in college now. I still buy my yarn from the Knitting Bee, though I live on the other side of the country. And my mother and I still can talk endlessly about what we are knitting, while my sister still laughs at how we swear and curse at our knitting mistakes. My husband, who doesn’t know a knit from a purl, understands what knitting does for me. When life hands me a particularly difficult day, as it has been known to do from time to time, he will say to me: “You look like you need to knit”, and I will sigh, curl up in my blanket, and do just that.