Be careful what you wish for...and who you knit for!!

"Knitting is meditation.
The steady click of the needles is a
rosary, a mantra, chanting monks.
This unprofitable chore is therapy
worth $60 an hour. I can not afford
not to knit."


Excerpt from poem, "Knitting", by Cris Carusi in the book, THE KNITTING WAY: A Guide to Spiritual Self Discovery by Linda Skolnik, founder of Patternworks in Center Harbor, NH, and Janice MacDaniels.


"Listen to the music of knitting. The knitting melody flows, carrying each one of us along a river of connection. Find the kind of music it is for you. It doesn't really matter what kind of music. Just let it speak to you and open your soul to wonders.


"Hear the wind, the sea, and the rolling hills. Listen to the sky. Let your hands dance with the wool. Your fingers see the sheep on the green hills. The smell of the earth that produced the grass that fed the sheep who gave their fleece lies in the wool. The sound is in the wool. Hear the waves, the sea air, the salt spray that nurtured the wild sheep in the Shetlands and Hebrides. The harmoney is found there. It calls us to remember and reach for the comfort of the work of our hands.


"Knitting connects us to all who have gone before. It links us to the past, to those who knitted for their existence, who knitted for survival, who knitted for beauty and love. It links us to our own past. We can know our ancestors who knitted. We can experience3 their past in our fingers. A knitting great-grandmother is still in our fingers. The orchestra connects us, not just by blood and DNA but by the stitch.


A grand concert of beauty, history, earth, and sky lies in the work of our hands. Knitting has melody, harmony, and rhythm. Hear it. It is music. Listen." Excerpt, page 7.


I am currently reading THE KNITTING WAY. I had been knitting a beautiful soft rose-colored prayer shawl to give as a gift for my husband's mother, a woman who had never been nice or shown the least little bit of kindness to me in all the years of our marriage, and as I neared the completion of the shawl and was working on the pretty scalloped edging, I realized that while I was knitting, my thoughts were on her and how my mind had revisited every sharp-tongued word and misdeed I'd had to silently endure. It were as though she were here, living in my home and finding fault in each repetative loop and stitch and speaking her harsh words with each pattern and row. I suddenly realized I was extremely stressed, and my stomach was knotted worse than a messed-up and completely hopeless skein of yarn. By making the prayer shawl for her, I'd allowed her into my home and my heart where she wasn't using me gently. With the edging half done and the shawl nearly finished, I had to put the knitting down and try to find a measure of peace and relief. I turned to my library of books and was looking at various titles when I came to this book which caught my eye with the word spiritual in its title. Yes, I needed spiritual, I needed my heart and my soul to be comforted and mend after the week or so working on the prayer shawl, all the while somehow allowing my husband's mother an extended visit which I should have known she would use to again kick me in the head and the heart. What started out a joy turned into my own little hell, recalling her harsh words with each stitch and unable to move away from it. I felt as though I were dying.


It's been a few days now, and I still haven't been able to pick up the knitting. But I'm finding the book is helping shore me back up, guiding me back to inner balance and peace.


I'd never had occasion to think of this before, but be careful what you wish for as well as who you knit for!:(


A painter friend's husband just passed away suddenly. The new widow is in her late 50s, talented, gracious, lovely, and kind. With her pretty dark hair and eyes, she'd looked lovely in the prayer shawl. And for me, it would bring the joy back. My husband's mother likes hard candy and who knows if she'd like the prayer shawl at all, but I'm fairly certain she'd find something - the color all wrong, why didn't I knit her a sweater instead, that I had time on my hands, as she says, it to make it at all.


On the other hand, the woman who just lost her husband would feel loved and comforted with the rose-colored prayer shawl, and the idea that I suddenly hear whispering to my heart is already feeling a wonderful and much-needed comfort and relief to me. I wonder...