Once Upon a Stitch….
Soulskin spills across my lap and trails down towards the floorboards, the soft shuffle and whisper of my fat bamboo needles dancing through the yarn accompanying its descent. The rhythm lulls me into a state of peace – soothing, settling, calming. Knitting these sacred garments, I feel whole, I feel full and I feel love.
I don’t remember learning to knit. In my family it is passed on through mothers & grandmothers. My daughter knits beautifully. My 5 year-old niece can even produce a passable scarf for her dollies.
I have a beautiful memory, from when I was very little, of sitting on the back lawn at Grandma and Grandad’s house with a plastic bag filled with brightly coloured odds and ends – leftover wool and cotton from just a few of the many knitting projects my grandmother had completed over the years. My brother and I sat with that bag of treasures and did finger-knitting – possibly the simplest form that produces long, narrow strings of knitting – which we then coiled into spirals to create mats and coasters.
I have another memory of my mum knitting a Kaffe Fasset jumper. Kaffe Fasset is a knitwear designer that specialises in beautifully complicated colourway designs that involve many many different colours of wool. I’ve never really enjoyed working with many colours, but it’s something that my mum does so beautifully. I remember looking at this enormous chart that she had printed out which showed the design through a variety of symbols – blacked out boxes, open circles, filled in circles, crosses, diagonal lines… As each laborious row was completed, it was scored through with a fluorescent green pen to help her navigate her way through this labyrinthine pattern.
I remember too the first proper piece of knitting that I ever did. One that followed a pattern and had to be constructed from carefully shaped pieces. I was just married and we had moved in with my grandparents while we found a place to live. I was 19 and we had discovered that I was pregnant. And I was sick. So sick that I couldn’t even hold down water. Grandma gave me wool and a pair of needles and a simple pattern to knit my new husband a jumper. That project got me through some of the most physically difficult months of my life.
My life has been undeniably interwoven with the grace and the teachings of my mum and my grandma and the hours we’ve spent adding one stitch to another.
And so to this week….
I am knitting the last of the soulskins to be sent out before Christmas. I find the process incredibly soothing, particularly as this last couple of weeks have been very upsetting. Without going into too many details, Grandma has had a couple of strokes, and she is currently in the hospital.
Last week, Mum brought a pair of needles and a truly lovely ball of yarn into the hospital and left it beside my grandma’s bed. Grandma has been knitting ever since she was tiny, and we were hoping that the practice of knitting would prove therapeutic.
It lay untouched. Until…
Yesterday, when Mum visited, Grandma indicated towards the bedside table. When Mum looked she saw around 20 stitches cast on and a couple of inches of garter stitch knitting edging away from the needles. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to start this little piece of knitting. I can’t even imagine how Mum must have felt when she saw it!
Because this knitting symbolises our family connection, it symbolises the taking of steps towards health, it symbolises hope.
So, this week, I’ll be knitting soulskin, my Mum will be knitting fancy Turkish-style socks and my Grandma will be knitting her way back to self. A maternal line that threads its way through the fabric of our lives.
10 Comments
Julie Gibbons
Marvellous imagery, Amy 🙂 I read this and could feel the words deep in my body. Such healing there. (((hugs)))
Daniel
You write like a seasoned storyteller, Amy. I felt completely immersed in your words. The years, the colors, the rhythmic knitting, the family connections.
Peace and healing to you and your family during Grandma’s time of hardship.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful jewel of tradition and memory with us. I can understand now why knitting your soulskins resonates so deeply within you. I am glad to know you.
Miss P.
Just leaving a short little note here too. I love this. I’ve certainly knitted myself back to sanity on occasion. And I love that you learned it from your family and passed it on to your daughter.
Jackie Walker
How very special for you all, thank you for sharing this with us x
Suddenly Jamie
Beautiful, Amy. It is these small traditions and scraps of creative knowledge that tie us all together. I hope your grandmother is well and casting more stitches soon.
Karen Sharp
ohhh
this is so lovely, so very lovely.
A r’fuah shleimah to your grandmother, Amy.
(That, in Hebrew, means a full-complete-perfect healing, a healing-of-peace.)
Knitting hands knit the whole world together, one loop upon the next, each loop sustaining its neighbors in the whole knitted web.
Amy, all love to you, and to those whom you love.
All of us sustaining each other in this great interknitted web.
Miss P.
Karen, that was so beautifully said:
“Knitting hands knit the whole world together, one loop upon the next, each loop sustaining its neighbors in the whole knitted web.”
Sara
Amy, so perfect. Yes.
I taught myself to knit as a challenge for my high school graduation. I needed to learn a skill I could bring anywhere, and not grow tired of, while I was struggling to stay sane in an insane world-situation. Knitting carried me through the rest of college, through several troubled relationships, and through the pain of losing family and friends because of who I am. I always wanted to have a long line of knitters in my family, but the closest I come is that each of us creates with our hands {grandmum a cross-stitcher, mum a quilter, me a knitter}. What I love most about this story is the ease of continuity. It flows through your veins. And brings you always together.
Much love to all the women in your family. xx
Chris Owen
Hi Amy
Reading this beautiful story has brought me some of the peace that knitting brings me.
Thanks for taking me there
Wendee
This is so moving and lovely. I come from a line (how long we cannot be sure, but we have our suspicions) of crafters. Always sewing and quilting and making. I know the comfort that came from my grandmother’s quilts, and the quiet peace that now comes from lingering over the un-pieced fabrics that she left us. So many projects, so many pieces cut from paper patterns that she drafted up. I know what it’s like to plan and cut and sew, so I gladly took a good portion of her unfinished projects. They work their way into my projects. I have no question as to where I got my fabric-collecting (hoarding) habit from, and in many ways I am glad for it.