Knitters among us know that you can spend a long time knitting, purling, slipping stitches over and dropping them to create beautiful patterns in knitwear. Big chunky wool for a winter sweater, nubbed cotton for a shawl to throw over your shoulders in the summer or fine, soft yarn for a baby’s layette, it’s all wonderful to work with.
To be honest with you, it’ s been a long time since I’ve tackled a knitting project as big as a full sweater. For the past few winters, scarves, mittens and toques have been all I’ve been prepared to take on. Nevertheless, I appreciate the workmanship that goes into a beautiful handknit project, because I know what goes into it.
I love that knitting is forgiving – far more than sewing. Once you’ve cut that beautiful one-of-a-kind fabric you’re stuck with it. There’s no going back. But with knitting, if you find a mistake, you can go back a few rows and fix it up. I think that’s why I like it. It’s a bit like my approach to life. If it’s not perfect the first time, you can have another go at it. And you can even cheat a little – I’ve been known to use a crochet hook and go down a few rows in the middle and put it back together – just don’t tell my mother!
Here’s the tough bit though. Once the hours (and hours!) of loving work are over and the knitted piece is done, it only takes one nasty snag to break the wool. With children, sometimes that happens fast. And little fingers, unable to leave that free yarn alone, start to pick at it. Unless it’s tied off quickly, the rows come quickly unravelled. Kinked-up yarn piles up beside you until you can hardly remember the original shape.
Sometimes that’s a bit like life too. Picture perfect lives get turned upside down and if they’re not tended to quickly, can come apart – and the parts don’t resemble the whole at all. Countries have civil wars and may never come back together. Left and right wing politicians and their followers, who once co-existed with respect for each others’ positions get entrenched and civility breaks down.
But back to the knitting. The one great thing about that unravelled pile of yarn is that it can be knitted back up – into any shape you want. You can recreate what was broken, or you can start all over again and create another beautiful garment. Sweaters can turn into scarves, scarves into mittens, blankets into shawls. And that’s okay.
And that’s the beauty of life too. One wrong move, one broken relationship, one political argument – with willingness and humility, each one of them can be mended, and a new future knit together.
