stitch x stitch

on meditative acts of the hands

I’ve been knitting a lot these past few weeks since I injured my shoulder. It is something productive that I can do while resting, icing, and with no arm movement. Along with writing in my journal and long, slow walks in the fields next door, knitting has been a companion that I seem to rely on during times of stress or uncertainty. I have not felt much like walking lately, probably because it’s how I injured myself, but even before that. I am not sure why. That is a dilemma to solve on another day.

Today I want to celebrate the beauty of knitting, that ritual of looping beautiful threads together one by one to create a cloth full of intentions, each stitch a prayer of the moment, a presence of mind and spirit that cannot be undone by invasive and unwanted thoughts.

A hat I designed along with a pair of Pixie Stix.

I have been a knitter for all of my adult life, teaching myself first on a sailboat off the coast of Turkey in 1983. I so clearly remember buying the orange wool at an open air spice market near Ephesus, along with two wooden needles. There was a quick demonstration by the vendor, and then I was attempting it myself, later that day while sitting on the wooden deck of the boat, watching the sun sparkle on the wine dark sea. I had Tchaikovsky in my Sony Walkman and the sea sparkles seemed to be dancing to the exact rhythm of the Waltz of the Flowers. My knitting didn’t turn out so well—big holes began to unravel and my scarf resembled a trapezoid more than a long rectangle. I abandoned it and did not pick it up those two sticks again until many years later.

A shawl I designed, and knit many variations of over the years, called If Bob Marley Lived in Buffalo.

In the later winter of 1988, with a little boy growing in my belly, I picked up those sticks again. There was a wool shop on my street and I passed it each day on my walk to work as a potter’s apprentice. One day I got the courage to stop and met the most welcoming friend. She invited me to sit on her well-worn sofa, and we wound up a ball of orange wool, much like the yarn I had purchased once upon a time in Turkey. There we sat, week after week, her patient hands teaching mine to knit a charming little sweater for my tiny growing boy. I wish I still had it, but somehow it was lost. My infant son wore it many times though, and my hands picked up those same wooden needles again and again. Soon I was knitting mittens, hats, more sweaters, blankets and I began to design my own. A baby girl arrived a few years later, and with two children my knitting time greatly diminished for a while. By the time my daughter was five I was full force back in the habit and I even taught her tiny hands to knit her own scarves and treasures. I still have her first piece of knitting, a raspberry-hued wool scarf. She really took to it, and soon was designing and making tiny sweaters for her stuffed animals. She continues to knit beautiful things today, as mother herself. We spent a lot of time at that wool store as she was growing up. They had moved to a new location on Main Street in our village, and we were regulars on that sofa.

A rustic little cap I designed, called Pearl.

A few years later they hired me, and I began to teach classes, knit things for the shop, and design my own patterns. The year I homeschooled my daughter, she went to work with me, and we both look upon those wool shop days as some of the best of our lives. Eventually I began my own knitting pattern company, and, with my daughter’s help, also made buttons and decorative knitting needles we called Pixie Stix, that, along with my patterns, were sold at yarn shops all across North America. I was making a name for myself in the hand-knitting world, my needles even appearing in Vogue Knitting and other publications.

My daughter’s current project. We send one another progress updates regularly.

Like so many endeavours that begin at a kitchen table, it outgrew the time and space I had available as a young mother. I could either expand the business and hire employees, or I needed to step away. At the time I chose to step away. I’ll never know what I could have accomplished, but it did feel like the right choice and I have no regrets. Boy, I knit some beautiful things, even very complex Fair Isle garments, Aran sweaters, Icelandic sweaters. You name it, I made it.

These days I simply knit. Round and round or back and forth, nothing too complex. It’s the beauty of the wool that draws me in, and the precious stitch by stitch of weaving of moments into a cloth of peace-filled intentions. Right now I am making a seamless sweater in a very old-fashioned and sagey-green wool. Nothing really to think about, mostly just round and round. It calms my spirit. It is a companion that helps to slow time.

Tell me, do you have a handwork ritual in your life? I would love to hear about it.

Sending warm wishes for a peaceful week, friends. Thank you for being here.

🕯️ kateri