Mindful vs Mindless

I hear this term often: “mindless knitting”. So I was thinking … do you know how someone can tell when you have knit something with love? Well, I believe someone can also tell when you have knit something with “mindlessness”. Now, I very often knit in public. And I often knit in public with friends. When I knit in public with friends, they are also knitting (or working at whatever is their chosen craft – crochet, needlepoint, decoupage, whatever). When I spend time with non-knitter friends, I feel that I need to be fully present with them in their non-knitty-ness (I do have other interests). If I were knitting, it would feel like they did not have my attention. And if they had my attention, the project on my needles would not. So someone looses out. Suppose I am working on a baby hat or a square for a community “afghan for Afghans”. These things are easy enough for “mindless knitting”. But what if, as I work, I pour into each stitch all the love and compassion the recipient of such a precious object deserves.

My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was a child. She used the tiniest crochet hooks and the most delicate thread. At first my hands were clumsy and the movements felt awkward to me. But she was patient, and together we made a doily. It was hot pink and I still have it. And I still crochet. I wish I had asked her to teach me how to make biscuits – she made the best biscuits that we would eat hot out of the oven with fresh butter and blackstrap molasses.

I taught myself how to knit when I wanted to make my friends pillows with their names on them. I was in junior high school and would put a girlfriend’s name (done in the technique I now know is stranded knitting) on the front and the name of whatever boy she admired on the back. Mine had “Donny” on the back – it was my “Donny Osmond” phase. Naturally, it was purple. I have no idea where this pillow may be now. At that time, everyone I knew who knit carried the yarn in the right hand. Because I crocheted, it felt more natural to me to carry the yarn in my left hand (I now know this is the Continental, or picking, method). Terpsichore was my muse then. When others would tell me I was doing it backwards, she paused long enough in her dance to whisper in my ear, “There is no Right Way to Knit,” (as Brenda Dayne would put it).

My mother had breast cancer, which did eventually claim her physical life. When I first heard the news, after falling on the floor and weeping uncontrollably, I poured my feelings of helplessness and my love for her into crocheted hats. I had some soft yarn that I thought would not irritate the scalp and pulled out an old pattern for a “Juliette Cap.” She lived with the disease for three years and did not lose her hair until the very end. She actually loaned these hats to a neighbor who did lose her hair during chemotherapy – that was her way. If she had it and you needed it, it was yours. I found these hats among her things after she passed and have been holding on to them ever since. They had been worn and washed and returned wrapped in tissue paper. I now think it is time they went back into service.

I started knitting again when a friend had a need. I had put my knitting needles down, probably 20 years ago. Then a pregnant friend was put on mandatory bed rest. She had been signed up to take a “learn to knit” class at a local yarn store and was lamenting the fact that she would no longer be able to attend. I said, “I can teach you how to knit.” So I brushed up on my skills and went right over. One of the first things I made after such a long absence from the needles was a little poncho for her precious baby boy, who is now three years old. I’ve had at least one project on my needles ever since. My friend is now expecting her second child, a little girl - I see a pink baby sweater in my immediate knitting future.

So I choose to practice “mindful knitting”. I allow the intended recipient to be in my thoughts and in my heart as I work. And I believe it makes a difference. Each stitch is imbued with love … and maybe a little of the spirit of my mother and her mother as well.