Common threads

My maternal grandmother was an expert at crocheting. She found it relaxing. For most of her life, she crocheted intricate patterns with thin white thread and a small metal crochet hook. Her hook moved so quickly, it was like a blur. She made doilies, which are an anachronism in our time. The intricate circular patterns made covers for the backs of chairs, arms of sofas, liners for bread baskets and resting places for vases. The pattern directions were very complex. Undaunted, her crochet hook wove in and out with the thread as the pattern emerged. I was mesmerized. I wanted to learn. She tried to teach me. We soon realized that my left-handedness meant the directions had to be followed backwards and upside down. Not to mention, I was clumsy. It was hopeless.

When using the white thread was too much of a strain on her eyes and the small hook too hard on her hands, she switched to crocheting with yarn using a larger plastic hook. My granny became a master of the granny square. When the squares were sewn together, they became afghans. The gold and white one pictured here is the final one she completed. She used double yarn. It is so warm and heavy that when you spread it out on your legs, you are instantly cozy. Getting it out sends some kind of signal to my cat who materializes out of nowhere to snuggle and knead it.

While I was in college, I tried again to learn to crochet with yarn. I got a basic stitch down. I made a scarf as a gift for a young man I had a crush on. It was horrible. First of all, it was an early 1970s shade of brown. The sides were completely uneven. I could not get an even tension to my stitches. I made it so long that when he wrapped it around his neck, it touched the ground. We didn’t date for very long.

Like my grandmother, I believed that handwork could be relaxing. I needed some relaxing activity from all the mental stress I put myself through being an academic overachiever. I tried various handwork techniques while I was in seminary. A few of my friends were knitters. After my scarf debacle, I didn’t try that. I tried embroidery, crewel and counted cross stitch with modest success. I managed to make a few gifts more successful than the aforementioned scarf. Unlike women of previous generations, this type of handwork was not for me.

I am not sure why I did not return to the drawing and painting of my childhood. I suffered from negative self-talk about my artistic ability. I convinced myself I could not make my hands do what my eyes saw. I turned instead to photography. Learning photography did teach me composition and appreciation of values of dark and light.

Photography does not offer the tangible joy of texture and pattern that those other crafts give. I have quilters in my life who get great joy from the fabrics and the threads used to stitch them together by hand or with complicated machines. Quilting involves math and precision that leave me out.
 

I am in awe of work that is identical on the front and the back. Anything I did was a mishmash and zigzag of yarn or thread on the back. Weavers from around the world master this art. I received some beautiful gifts over the years. I had a collection of clergy stoles like this one from Central America. And because I wore scarves often up north, I received this gift of a woven scarf of purple threads from Thailand.

Clergy stole front and back sides from Central America

An overused analogy to our lives is that we live on the messy side, but God’s master design is evident on the other side. I have theological problems with that analogy. It leaves out the free will of our own decision-making for good or ill.

Purple thread scarf from Thailand

I resonate with what Rev. Cameron Trimble, CEO of Convergence.org, wrote in her Substack post on Nov. 3, “Holy Knots and Dropped Stitches." Like me, she was dealt the blow of failure at handwork. Here are a few excerpts from her post.

“Knitters are spiritual warriors. They wield their needles like tiny sabers of calm in a world unraveling at the seams.”

“Knitting and justice both require patience. Precision. Repetition. An ability to stick with it even when you want to cry or throw things.”

“It is a spiritual practice to create something slow and steady in a world that thrives on speed and spectacle.”

My current form of artistic meditation is mixed media collage. I take disparate pieces of printed or painted papers and put them together into something unique and meaningful.

I hope you have some form of creativity in your life that slows you down and puts your mind, heart and soul at ease.

I also hope that in the tangled mess that is the news and the stress of everyday life, you find some common threads that bring you peace.