Knit, Purl, Hush

Tapping into the generational wisdom of a centuries-old craft

Recently I decided to start knitting again, as a way to avoid social media and doom scrolling. One Saturday, when my husband took the kids to his studio for the afternoon, I unearthed my knitting needles from a bin of crafting supplies I hadn’t touched in years. Along with sponge rollers, X-Acto blades and tubes of metallic paint, there were a few balls of pumpkin colored merino in a tattered Gap bag. But I decided I wanted to start fresh.

With a few precious hours to myself, I envisioned a trip to Purl Soho, the hipster yarn shop on Broome Street, but soon discovered the storefront had shuttered and they were now online only. Discouraged but determined, I made my way to Knitty City on the Upper West Side, where I purchased two skeins of flecked, moss-colored wool. 

As I waited to have my skeins wound into bobbins in a long line of holiday knitters, a pair of young, art-school types in vintage layers and cool glasses asked if they could cut to the front. “We’re late to a movie downtown,” the young man explained, as though we would all understand.

I thought about how hard-earned my free time was, and the laundry and dinner prep that awaited me at home. How the last movie I’d seen in the theater was “The Super Mario Brothers” with my son, a film so plotless and neon-hued, it was basically a one-hundred-million-dollar hologram.

I sighed and waved the couple forward, glaring in spite of myself. In the end, they left, not wanting to miss the opening credits.

My mother taught me to crochet when I was nine-years-old, and I’m convinced I was the only child in Central New Jersey who spent afternoons alone in my room poring over second-hand pattern books and making misshapen doilies. A friend taught me how to knit in my twenties, and I was certain that my hands still held the muscle memory for both skills. But when I went to cast on, my brain went blank and my fingers fumbled with the needles. It took thirty minutes of watching and rewatching Youtube videos to find a familiar rhythm. 

When my family returned home and my eight-year-old son, Miles, saw me knitting, his face scrunched in confusion. 

“But you’re not a grandma yet!” he exclaimed.

Then my three-year-old daughter, Zadie, advised, “You should do that in a rocking chair, Mama,”

Apparently the act of knitting had aged me by a few decades in my children's eyes. My mind flashed to the classic picture book, Goodnight Moon, and the illustration of an old bunny lady in a rocking chair in a blue housecoat and apron knitting a green scarf. I couldn’t blame my kids for the stereotype that popular culture had already baked into their consciousness. I may not have been a grandmother, but in choosing to knit, I was seeking a kind of generational wisdom. 

In under thirty seconds, I could have ordered a scarf handmade by an artisan halfway around the world and had it shipped to my door. But a scarf wasn't actually what I needed. What I needed was rest. An opportunity to sit in bed or on the sofa and take a mental break. As I knit each evening, I remembered how much I loved the sensation of the soft wool through my fingers and the gentle clacking of the needles.

Hours unintentionally spent on my phone or laptop left me anxious, drained yet wired, spinning with existential dread. But knitting gave me permission to opt out of the cycle of scrolling, liking and buying, if only for a short while. Despite the relative “uselessness” of this centuries-old craft, producing a neat rectangle of wool was a deeply satisfying measure of time. 

As the scarf grew, so did my children’s fascination. Soon they were putting in orders for their own scarves - “rainbow” for Zadie, red for Miles. I realized that while they weren't asking for lessons, it was still a teachable moment. I was showing them it was possible to make an object of use and beauty by hand. I had to believe that even in the face the impending AI apocalypse, our human ability to make something warm and comforting was still of value.

With just days until Christmas, I’ve finished Zadie’s “rainbow” scarf with a fluffy, space-dyed alpaca blend, attaching the ends to make it an infinity scarf, like a cozy necklace. I knitted most of her scarf on a plane from London to New York, to the delight of the flight attendants, who all happened to be gay, male and handsome, like they’d stepped off the set of a musical. Over the seven-hour journey, they oohed and ahhed at my progress as they came through the aisles with the food and drink carts. Eventually, one of them leaned down and shared that his grandmother had taught him to knit as a young boy. We exchanged knowing smiles. Of course she had.

I’m not sure if I’ll finish Miles’s red scarf in time, though I know he will be too distracted by new toys to care. Even as I knit, I am aware of how quickly these scarves will be lost, left on a field in Riverside Park or on a bench in the natural history museum. I know how futile and foolish my efforts are, yet I am compelled to continue. It’s not about the scarf, I remind myself, as I knit three, purl three. It’s about the quietude, the way my breath syncs with the stitches. It’s about channeling that old bunny lady from Goodnight Moon, knitting and rocking, rocking and knitting, reminding us all to “hush.”

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Links

“A Dark, A Light, A Bright” at the Cooper Hewitt Museum - This show features the work of Dorothy Liebes, a textile designer who had a major impact on American design from the 1930-1960s. Very inspiring!

Diana Al-Hadid: Women, Bronze and Dangerous Things at the Kasmin Gallery - A friend told me about this exhibition and I hope to see it before it closes on 12/22.

Thank you for reading Clothbound! Happy holidays and best wishes for 2024!