Christmas knitting
Pictured: one mug cozy, one knit scarf
My gifts this year were these knit mug cozies that I attempted to make for everyone in my family. I didn’t succeed; if I didn’t see you Christmas Eve, you are likely never going to receive one. Apologies.
I started knitting again (a skill I learned very briefly in the fifth grade, and quickly forgot about) over the summer, when a neighbor was getting rid of a bag of various yarns, knitting needles, and a book on knitting and crochet. I was bored of puzzling, ran out of paint, and wanted a new hobby, and teaching myself to knit again seemed like just the thing. Going through the book, I learned to cast-on, bind off, purl, increase. I knit a very thin, ribbed scarf using gigantic, mismatched needles, and I pulled it apart. Then I cast-on 75 rows just to see what that was like, and pulled it apart again. I transitioned from the English stitch to the continental stitch to increase my speed. I learned nothing of yarn, or needle size, or skeins. I wasn’t interested in the mechanics, I was interested in keeping my hands busy.
Furiously, I knit. When I wanted to pull my hair out, I knit. When I was sobbing, screaming, desperate to smash the plates in my kitchen, I knit. When I lost my keys, I knit. When I lost that job, I knit. When I simply couldn’t face the disappointment and the heartbreak and the rage in my bones, I knit and knit and knit and knit.
2023 was a riptide. The feeling that I was being pulled under, drowning; reaching the surface to gasp for air only to see the shoreline growing smaller and smaller. No matter how hard I swam, I would never be on that beach again. I’d never walk on the same sand, throw the same rocks, watch the same birds. But while 2024 has already begun, and I’m still floating out here, I can feel the tides changing beneath me. That old beach has shrunk completely out of sight, and I’ve forgotten which direction it was in the first place, but perhaps a new beach will appear. Or a boat, or an island, or even a sand bar to aide in my journey.
Knitting began as a distraction from my life and an outlet for my anger. And it still is, when I need it. But I hope, in lieu of a resolution, that this year brings me enough peace that the need to knit isn’t quite so strong.
