On the Virtues of Knitting, Pt. I

The first time I seriously tried to knit as an adult was when I was being held prisoner.  I was early in my third trimester of my first pregnancy, breezily going about my business taking call every third night and working full time in a busy practice, waking up at 5 am to exercise by riding my bike on a stationary machine, planning on how I was going to quickly transition back to work after a really generous three month maternity leave.  I was in that really cute phase of pregnancy where you are very obviously pregnant but not yet a whale.  I suddenly started having regular contractions one night.  No, no, no.  This was not happening to me.  But it was, and I was scared.  In a calm and clinical way I spoke to my OB, she brought me for an evaluation, and there in seismographic ink like periodic earthquakes were regular contractions.  One heart-racing, tremor-inducing dose of terbutaline later, and they were gone.  And I was on bedrest.

An experienced mom of two would smile benignly and tell me to surrender.  I understood what she said only on a very superficial level at the time.  Pregnancy had brought out an extreme anxiety in me, as it does many women.  Having the somewhat unfortunate knowledge of the horrific things that can come (but thankfully mostly don't) with pregnancy, combined with the completely new sensation of vulnerability, left me worrying.  Worrying does nothing for anyone.  You fantasize about what may come, what might be, all of which--particularly when it comes to pregnancy and birth--means nothing.  I worried about miscarrying, knowing full well that there is very little that you can do to cause or prevent it;  in fact, most of those babes are not compatible with life, as we say in medicine.  Having had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy, I kept thinking that once I was through the first trimester, I'd be home free!!!  

How wrong was I!!!

That was just the nascent beginning of the worry that comes when you know you have a viable pregnancy--a growing actual person and soul in baby form--in there.  And then, oh, just the rest of their life.  I did okay through the second trimester, feeling a bit like superwoman/mother goddess as you do at that point.  I was confident I'd work as long as possible or until my due date.  I was exercising, determined to stay in shape and continue my mental health regimen as long as possible.  I even skied until somewhere around 25 weeks, at which time my completely unzipped snow pants became too tight and I could not bend down to buckle my boots.  We then passed the next milestone--24 weeks--the point at which a baby could survive if born.  And I'm thinking "I'm doing great!"

Somewhere around 26 weeks the regular contraction event happened and I was forced to bed to receive, as my OB ordered, "The Princess Treatment," getting up only to use the bathroom.  For this type-A mama to be, exercise was my anxiolytic;  it always had been.  It got me through 11 years of very stressful school/training without the use of antidepressants.  So there I was, worried about birthing a pre-me (and much, much worse), and trapped in bed.  My sweet hubby rented me a stack of movies (we had a TV but no reception).  I tried to read.  I could not settle.

I decided to try to knit something for the baby.  I'd been taught knitting as a kid but had never really done anything but a potholder.  It seemed so old fashioned and boring, I'd thought in my youth.  Both my mom and her mom knitted.  My Grandma knitted each of her grandchildren a blanket, customized to the child's color preference.  I had my green acrylic one for years, but I kick myself now for jettisoning it in college, along with many of my sentimental material attachments.  It was a kind of Buddhist, self-deprived period.  My mom knitted everyone in our family sweaters.  They were beautiful, I recognize now.  At the time a home made garment such as this seemed so uncool.  The pieces were "different", un-branded, and didn't fit into the late1970's little girl uniform (you know, Jordache or Chemin de Fur, rainbow shirt, leg warmers--ironically, none of which I had). 

Back in bed, my mom brought me some knitting needles and a pastel rainbow-ed neutral yarn suitable for a boy or girl (or hermaphrodite as I worried about--we didn't know what we were having).  She showed me how to cast on and do a basic stockinette stitch.  I went for it with my usual drive.   Unfortunately in my wound up state, I wound my stitches so tight that after a few rows, I couldn't even get the needle into a loop to knit it.   I ended up with a pale yellow-green-blue-pink tightly knit rectangle.

I went on to give birth ten days past my due date, to a healthy 9 lb 2 oz baby boy.  I didn't do much more knitting until I was pregnant for the second time.  In my eldest son's infancy and toddlerhood I tried to be supermom, working and mothering and wife-ing and everything.  I could go on volumes about that (maybe a later post) but suffice it to say that I finally and fully learned what my wise friend meant when she said "Surrender."  While pregnant with S, baby #2, I felt the knitting urge and went with it.  I think it had something to do with a nesting instinct.  Oh, that and being imprisoned yet again when I began to bleed early in my second trimester.  I bleed heavily for 3 weeks.  Major bummer.  I managed to knit some looser rectangles, and a little scarf for my older boy.   I think I've mastered the scarf, actually, having now made several for myself and for each of my kids.  The nice thing about the scarf is that it's easy, quick, you don't need a pattern and you can make it any size you want--it's a very long rectangle.  It is the way to start--a beginner can make it and have something organic and maybe even nice to wear at the end.

Over the past few years I've ended up coming back again and again to knitting.  It's a hobby that has evolved in slow motion.  It seems to be seasonal and I definitely feel inspired as the days grow shorter.  There's more inside time, more dark hours and it's cold so you can wear your woolen creations--a perfectly utilitarian and yet creative project!  For you fidgeters out there, and I count myself among you, knitting is a terrific thing to do while trying to watch a movie or news or The Daily Show.  You can be productive in a highly meditative way while unwinding.  How great is that?  If you have an OCD tendency to count things, such as stairs, steps--you know who you are--knitting would suit you well.  Knitting is portable.  It appeals to me in the same way running does--both require very little equipment and can be done anywhere.  Stuff it in your bag and while waiting at soccer or swim practice, knit away. 

This fall, I had to skip out on our latest bookclub read because of a meeting.  I took the hiatus as an opportunity to design my first big knitting project.  My son had won some hand dyed wool yarn and bamboo needles at a raffle.  I had bought some ivory alpaca skeins while visiting a nearby alpaca ranch, on a whim because it was so beautiful and soft even though I had no plan for it.  So I made a plan.  I thought:  poncho.  I looked though my knitting encyclopedia for ideas.  I visited knitty.com for patterns.  I came up with a hybrid design based on using what I had.  It was basically a big rectangle--I can do that!!--that was then folded in half and sewed up one end about 2/3 of the way, making a hole for the head.  I knitted away for weeks.  I learned the immense value of blocking your knitting.  I felt okay about pulling things apart and starting over, because, as an experienced knitter friend told me, you don't want to look at something you've worked long and hard on and be disappointed for eternity.  I learned how to crochet (even easier than knitting!) and made these cute little flowers that my mom just made up on the spot.  I sewed it all together and crocheted a little ruffle.  And, my friends, I made a poncho. 

The funny thing about working on something like that is that after a while you've looked at it for so long, you lose perspective on how it really looks.  Is it even cute?  I don't know.  Is it me?  Is it something I'd wear normally?  Is it something I'd buy?  How much?  And I've asked myself all of those questions and oddly enough I can't really answer them.  I love it and I've worn it and I don't even know how much I'd sell it for because I wouldn't sell it. 

I knitted it in the evenings.  I knitted it at soccer practice.  I knitted it while nursing my boy through the swine flu.  It kept my fidgety hands from being idle...because you know where that leads.  My poncho has the qualities that I now appreciate so much from the pieces made by my foremothers--hand made, considered, imperfect, with love.  The things I knit inevitably, inescapably are made with love.  When you take your hands and create something for someone else that you know and love (or even for yourself, as my husband teased me), your time and energy and thought and feeling goes into that piece and the love comes through.  The fact that you make it yourself, with your own two hands, investing your precious time, and thinking about someone else in what you create--that is love.  I gave a dear friend a scarf (of course) that I knitted for her birthday.  I got the yarn at the aforementioned alpaca ranch, and it was so soft and so beautifully eggplant purple.  I immediately thought of her.  And the shop gal gave me a pattern that used one skein of the stuff and created a beautiful ribbed and ruffled scarf--one of my friend's favorite accessories.  What I gave her wasn't perfect, but she thanked me for it and told me how she would feel enveloped with my love every time she put it on.  Exactly what I was hoping for.  And only now, 20 years too late do I wish I could have that dark and light green zig-zagged blanket back, ugly as it was, as a small thread linking my adult self back to my grandmother, my kids to their great-grandmother, and the time she loved me enough to knit me my very own blanket.