Yesterday I responded to a notice on our community mailing list. A woman had posted that she had a garbage bag full of yarn and knitting needles and she was giving it away. Since I use yarn frequently these days to make blankets for my new grandchildren when they are born, I could not pass up the offer. So I called her and arranged to pick up the yarn.
When I got home I started going through the bag. There were multiple balls of the same colors and types of yarn—a nubby gray-green, a very thick off-white, a very thin red, and some nubby off-whites. However, there were also works in progress: about half of the back of a black sweater with red rectangles, but with no further yarn to finish it; the front of a salmon-colored mohair vest for a thin person, most likely a child, and a small aqua mohair skirt still on the round knitting needle.
I began to feel like an intruder on the knitter’s world. I wondered about her. I understood that the woman who had given away the garbage bag full was not the knitter. No one would give away their half-finished work. A perfectionist would finish it. A defeatist would throw it away. It had to have belonged to someone else.
But what happened to her? Did she pass away, in the middle of her work? Did she become disabled so that finishing it was not an option?
I picture her sitting and working. The black and red sweater, I imagine, was for a grandson. I recall my own mother knitting, most likely a sweater for herself, and one of my sons asking for a sweater too. Did this woman’s grandson ask for a sweater? Did she sit and knit it with the anticipation of his delight when she presented him with it?
Was the salmon vest for a granddaughter? Did she think of the child’s dark shiny braids contrasting with the brilliant hue of the sweater? And the skirt? Was this a skirt for another granddaughter? Was this the beginning of a project that included a skirt and a top that the child was going to wear to a special occasion?
And now all that is left are the pieces—pieces of potential—of a life that reached out to others and left things unfinished.
But I wonder…. Did this woman who devoted her time and energy to others express her love in other ways? Did she smile and tell stories as she knit amidst her family? Did she leave them with happy memories of a warmth and acceptance that will stay with them always?
And I wonder… I used to think that leaving a project in the middle was a negative thing, but I suppose that if I had my choice, I would be engaged in creating until the very end and the unfinished pieces would only be more evidence of the love that I felt for my family. I would hope that they would be able to see those unfinished pieces and smile, picturing my happiness at attempting to bring more beauty and love into their lives.
Oh Rona, whose musings are so poetic. I once went with a friend to the Alabama Thrift Store, where she loves to browse and buy–I never have luck there. Anyhow, we arrived at the sewing and notions “department” when I saw two crocheted triangles sewn together: one a bit smaller then the other. It was a very bright orange and a bright kelly green. I wondered what in the world…? It cost only 37 cents. I dropped it and upon retrieving it I saw the other side. Why it was an owl–the ugliest piece of handiwork I had ever encountered in all my born days (as they say here). But I really mean it. I laughed so hard and so long I cried. Even my staid friend laughed at my laughter.
When we left I began to muse aloud that by the colours it was from the late 70s and someone had lovingly made it for their daughter’s kitchen and the poor thing had to hang the little monstuosity in her kitchen and live with it and look at it for years and years, until the mother had passed away, and finally she was able to get rid of it, but momma had made it so she didn’t have the heart to toss it in the refuse where it would be mixed with the most disgusting materials and used as landfill, so she threw it in the donation box for the thrift store that helps pay for the battered women’s home, and that perhaps someone with absolutely no taste might buy it, but she really didn’t care as long as she never had to look at it again. It only cost 37 cents.
Well every time I remebered the owl I laughed, in fact, I’m laughing now. After two days, I realized that the poor thing was so ugly that it would rot and die there at the thrift store because nobody in their right mind would ever ever purchase the poor thing. I felt so sorry for it that it plagued me, so you know what happened–I drove to the shop and paid the 37 cents plus tax for it. And to prove how ugly it was, let me relate that another friend of mine was there at the store when I picked it up and when she saw me laughing, she wanted to know what was so amusing, so I showed it to her and laughed so hard a man looked at me with a “what’s wrong with her?” look. Whereupon I turned to him and showed him the owl and asked if it were not the ugliest thing on earth, to which he answered that it was “pretty hideous.”
Now, if I’m in a silly funk, I don’t even have to take it down from the closet to get a good laugh. And the thoughtful dear who made it will never know the pleasure and amusement that her little creation brings to a soul!
Dear Rona.. I too had begun to make 3 afghans for Brian and Linda’s 3 sons. Bright red and Electric blue, however, when Harrison passed away, it was no longer a joy to the remaining boys. It broke my heart not to finish them, but it took me 4 long years to give them to a shul, where the seniors can again enjoy knitting the unfinished work (which brings pleasure to them).