First Person
Love, Loss, and What I Knit
Before I became a knitter, I just thought it would be fun to make things with sticks and string. What I didn’t realize is that it would become my personal knitters anonymous and save my sanity. Or that it would force me to confront my feelings about perfection, or the lack of it.
I became a knitter when my husband Tom developed throat cancer about 18 years ago. The sheer terror of it kept me up at night, all night. I self-medicated with yarn and reruns of Becker, in which Ted Danson plays this curmudgeonly but good-hearted doctor. On my iPad, I would switch from scenes of Becker grousing at the local diner to videos of how to perform a slip-slip-knit.
It was a year of hell, filled with surgery, tube feedings, and so many trips to Mayo that it felt like a second home. In a horror film.
The result is a beautiful black sweater that I can’t bear to wear. It reminds me too vividly of sitting in the waiting room while they sprayed radiation into Tom’s neck. The good news: he survived, and thrived, and I found a new passion.
The black sweater that I knit while Tom was enduring radiation treatments.
In the beginning of that year of hell, I stumbled into a knitting store in a little blue house on Scottsdale Road in Arizona. It was like walking from the horror film into the inside of a rainbow. Yarn was piled in cubbies and hanging from the ceiling. I wandered around, holding the soft, lovely skeins to my cheek, my eyes closed, healing my fractured soul, just a little.
The owner, a no-nonsense woman, must have sensed I needed comforting. She helped me pick out yarn, needles, and a pattern. When I screwed up, I went back, and she helped me fix it. I went back again and again. Years later, she closed her shop. It was like a death.
Then, knitting went digital, and my knitting community went global. I found MDK and its daily knitting missives, and I instantly bought all the wonderful Field Guides. I discovered Knit Stars, which each year releases videos of amazing designers around the world.
I’ve made mittens with the face of John Lennon, pink-and-white checkered socks designed by Summer Lee, and a Sushi and Snark Wrap by Casapinka that’s like a poncho, but not. Her tip: Never position it as a crotch pointer.
After Tom’s cancer, knitting helped me rebuild my shattered courage. I don’t remember where I first heard the phrase, “It’s not hard; it’s just new,” but it was definitely in my yarn world. I’m pretty sure it was Gaye Glasspie, @ggmadeit. I learned to knit a cable. Lace. Bobbles.
I flew to Thailand and bathed an elephant in a river. We sold our house and moved into a camper van to travel the country.
The ice-blue scarf I knit for my mother.
Knitting helps me embrace the fact that I’m an odd bird. I look for other odd birds in the wild. I love their twinkly eyes and wrinkled faces and pink hair and excitement over a repurposed breath-mint case to carry stitch markers.
I talk to them in airports, and campgrounds, and coffee shops. Amazing conversations start with, “What are you making?”
As I knit, I feel a yarn lifeline connected to that sod-busting woman on the plains, spinning yarn on a drop spindle to make socks for her family. And to the women I visited in Vietnam weaving in dirt-floor houses with no electricity.
It’s a lifeline of women’s work, historically considered of little value. I’m so proud that, despite the backbreaking work of birthing and feeding and washing and nursing the sick, they summoned the precious nanoseconds of energy they had left to stitch creativity into a shawl or quilt or rug.
I’ve knit shawls for people I love, hats for friends with cancer. A burnt-orange scarf that hugs Tom’s scarred neck. For our precious son, Nate, a sweater exploding with color and filled with joy.
The sweater exploding with color for our son Nate.
At first, if I made a mistake, I went back to fix it, even if it was waaaay back, even if it was something only I would notice. Imperfection plagued me. Now, I’m more forgiving. A few oddly shaped stitches? Well, it’s f#%#ing handmade. Want perfection? Get your boring, machine-made knitwear online.
But when imperfection becomes unacceptable, like a cable leaning the wrong direction, or some drunk knitting you don’t recognize the next morning, or a sweater that won’t fit around your thigh, knitters know what to do. We call it frogging, ripping out stitches, rip-it, rip-it, rip-it, unknitting to get back to the place where you can go forward again.
Bonus: Frogging works on real life, too. Frog that bad job or boyfriend. Rip-it until you get to the spot where you can stop, take a breath, and move ahead to remake your world.
I did.
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Thank you for your story. We’ve also lived through cancer. It’s been many years ago now. We are odd birds too and sold our home in California and moved to Wales. There’s no time like the present to knit a new life.
When I make a mistake my mantra is “Let the hand be seen”, a quote from Karin Larsson. She was the wife of Swedish artist Carl Larsson and she was an amazing textile art.
Karen, thank you for sharing this beautiful quote – the words exactly describe the decision I recently made about project I just completed.
You are an absolute gem and I so loved your story.
Thank you Ali from Australia
Best wishes and knitters rock !
They are the best and you are one of them as am I x
This was inspiring and reminded me of Elizabeth Zimmerman- knit on with confidence through crises- or something like that!
Thanks for this!
Thanks for sharing your story – beautifully written. And so glad that Tom is healed, accompanying you on your wandering. Always with a project in hand! I too persist in talking to strangers anywhere about their knitting or crocheting. My husband doesn’t really get it, but happily wears hand made socks daily!! Best wishes to you and Tom.
Exactly!
A friend who was getting me to start knitting again said, ‘ keep going. No one will ever notice.” what I asked her about something I had done. So I have embraced that!
Thank you, Judy!
I, too, was inspired to knit by the woman in the little blue house on Scottsdale Road. And I, too, was devastated when her shop closed.
I send best wishes to you and your family. “Knit on!”
What a lovely story in my inbox this morning. Glad to know there’s a next stage for my knitting adventure. I am currently able to rip back ‘til I get it right,’ because of all the things I’ve learned from the fixing.
Knit on…
As a cancer survivor and a widow, this article really hit my heart and emotions.
I’m glad that your husband has survived and thrived. Cancer deserves to have its ass kicked!
Knitting is part of who I am. I have proudly passed this love onto my daughter.
Thank you for sharing your Knitting journey.
Thank you for sharing your story, Judy. It hit so many chords with me. I, too became a knitter when my husband faced a similar fate. Your Tom’s experience gives hope to so many. My Bob wasn’t as fortunate. For a long time, I associated knitting with waiting rooms, hospital rooms, and I put knitting in a mental box of sad memories. My binge of choice was Doc Martin ….I’d get to the end of the series and start it again.
Until….a friend referenced a piece that she read on Snippets. I started getting up at the crack of dawn to read the new entries. First, it was only on Saturdays. Then, it was every morning. I saw knitting in a new way. In the past eight years, I’ve learning new techniques, drooled over new yarns and patterns. laughed at my mistakes. I am more aware of sheep breeds, the challenges facing the industry, the legacy and history of this craft. MDK has been a jumping off point for learning more on my own. I’ve expanded my television-watching and music taste beyond Doc Martin!
In this time of reflecting on gratitude, I am so grateful that you wrote your poignant article.
I am so thankful to MDK for the jumpstart they gave me when I needed it most!
This was so timely for me to read. When my Mother was dying almost 19 years ago, I knit thru my grief. December 1 marks 18 years since my husband died unexpectedly. When I couldn’t do anything else, I knit. Today I’ll be making an appointment to euthanize my little dog who is just a few weeks shy of his 18th birthday. He came to me along with his litter mate February after losing my husband. Those two little dogs along with my knitting saved my life. I lost my girl 4 years ago. And now I’ll lose him. The grief is already consuming me. But I know that once again, I’ll pick up my needles and yarn and knit thru it. Tears may fall on my work along the way but also will come healing.
My mom taught me to knit after my 6 year old son suddenly passed away in an accident at his elementary school.
Knitting and my 2 other children are what has carried me through my life.
Knitting helped my mind and my hands to stay moving. I still can’t say exactly why or how I was able to focus at all through my grief but, knitting has been my constant companion.
I lost my husband this summer and knitting has become my lifeline it keeps my mind busy and my knitting community has been my salvation it is my safe spot
❤️❤️❤️ knitting helps regulate my much bumpy terrain. I am trying to let go of perfectionism and embrace the lace that has one yarn over too far to the life of the stack. Sigh. Plato was right. There is no perfect.
I will send you a check for a therapy session. This was wonderful. Thanks. Sue
Hi Judy,
I love the sweater you made for your son and your wonderful essay!
Do you remember the pattern you knit for your son’s sweater? It made me smile the moment I saw his picture.
So beautifully written Judy. Those photos of your husband and son bring to life that sense of possible impending loss you endured while you all were experiencing your husband’s cancer. They both look like such beautiful people. I am somewhat familiar with that long Scottsdale Road and am a bit regretful that I never got to visit that little blue house. I don’t even think it exists as a building anymore as I’ve never seen it. Glad it was there for you when you needed it.
Judy…the picture of your son is, well, perfection..
I loved your story and creating does get us through those rough days.
PS what is the pattern for Tom’s scarf?