Essay #4...which I am not proud of (about Knitting)

Knitting and Writing

The best method for knitting a hat is to use five double pointed needles rather than the round needles (which are really just two regular needles joined together with a strand of plastic). Wooden needles are ideal, for what is the point of holding synthetic, uncomfortable materials in your hands for hours and hours and hours? My favorite type of hat to knit is a fisherman’s cap with a ribbed brim that flips up to adjust with the dome part of the hat knit in stockinette. Knitting hats is one of my favorite items to knit because they are swifter than scarves, and keep one warm during the bitter cold months of Vermont winter.

When I was thirteen the principle of my high school taught me how to knit. The new knowledge allowed me to sit quietly in class without fidgeting, which was a new experience for me. Knitting also gave me an outlet for frustration, instead of sulking, I could knit a pair of mittens. Thus, needlecrafts became a coping skill, a way to stay focused, and a source of joy through creativity. There is nothing like creating something to give away.

Writing serves a similar purpose for me. I write poetry as a way of working through difficult emotions, or to express joy, anger, etc. Writing has been associated with textile crafts for thousands of years. Even the word text comes from the Latin texere which means “to weave.” Even the language can be interchanged, we are able to “spin a tale” or “weave a story.” Although it was accidental that writing and textiles became my crafts of choice, I do not think that the two art forms are unrelated themselves. Working with both fibers and words are so comparable to me, that creating a scarf is almost the same as writing a poem. Both the scarf and the poem are unique, they will both inevitably carry mistakes, and both can protect me from the world.

For the holidays this year I was given a loom and a drop spindle. My mother took me to the woodcarver who made my spindle and his wife showed me how to twist the soft wool roving into thread that is stronger and softer than I could have ever hoped. Holding the spindle correctly was awkward for a moment, but once I got the motion and rhythm, I was able to spin the undyed sheep wool into a half ply of yarn. In order to make a full yarn that one would knit, crochet or spin with, one needs to spin two single plies and then twist both of those together. Writing poetry has progressed in much the same way. Every year I learn a little bit more about twisting the words, spinning them into something else in order to create something completely different. My Latin instructor told me once that words are not definitions, they are ideas, and that phrase has stuck.

Strangely, texts and textiles have continually connected and related themselves to each other throughout my undergraduate and my graduate career thus far. As a double major in English and Classics I was able to learn about the importance of weaving to ancient cultures, as I was also learning to unravel Latin and Greek texts and weave them back into English translation. For my honors thesis I wrote about the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty who pricks herself on a distaff and falls asleep for a hundred years. This past summer I studied at Oxford through the Bread Loaf program and focused on writing essays that would hold texture and meaning and color for the reader in a way that I had never experienced before.

My current project is weaving a plaid scarf on a rigid heddle table loom. The process involves beating the heddle into the warped thread, which pounds the loom against my chest. Sometimes I feel as if I will bruise there. Strangely, this does not stop me, but I get a kind of satisfaction from the idea that my craft leaves a temporary physical mark on my body. Just like when you are learning to play an instrument and you finally see a callus build on your fingers. I will continue to study writing, to try new types, to create and to encourage other to create. This year I started the Burlington Poetry Journal with two close friends. I don’t know what it will turn out to be, but the process has been incredible and I am looking forward to the next edition. It doesn’t seem possible to stop writing, and as most of the English grad students I know, I desire to make my living from my work. But first I need to learn how to knit a sweater.