The Knitting Way , livre ebook

To all the knitters, and others with enthusiasm for learning, who feel a longing for connection and a thirst for meaning.
-L. S.
To all knitting souls who seek the knowledge and wisdom of the Holy and the deeper places of their spirits.
-J. M.
Contents
Preface
Introduction : Finding the Knitting Way
1 Knitting into Awareness:
Escape versus Care for the Soul
2 Science, Mystery, and Knitting:
A New Way of Looking at Things
3 Sacred Space:
Your Knitting as an Opening and a Sanctuary
4 Once Upon a Time:
The Stories of Our Projects
5 The Bearable Lightness of Knitting:
Learning to Let Go of Perfection
6 Making a Daily Practice:
Cultivating the Time for Knitting
7 Mind and Body:
The Role of Knitting
8 Bearing Witness:
Following Your Own Knitting to Find Your Story
9 Paying It Forward:
Passing On the Knitting and the Wisdom
Conclusion : Continuing the Story
Appendix
Notes
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
Also Available
About SkyLight Paths
Index of Patterns
Ball from a Cube
Cozy Tea Quilt
Curly Ribbon Coin Purse (or Prayer Pocket)
Curly Ribbon Hat
Da Vinci Message Seaman s Scarf
Diagonal Square Shaped from the Center
Hat of Infinite Possibility
Janice s Quad Socks
Jar Head Illusion
Knitting Way Spiral
Log Cabin Quilted Square
Mini Wrap
Mitered-Corner Log Cabin Square
Simple Striped Slippers
Spiral Skullcap
Top Down Shawl
Two-Tone Gaugeless Diagonal Square
Warm Ski Band
Wonder Wrap
Preface
The Knitting Way is what came from the convergence of the knitting journeys of two women from very different backgrounds, whose paths first crossed and mingled at a Yarn Paradise. That s the way of the Knitting Way. Connection happens through knitting. Now, as your path crosses ours, we invite and welcome you to come along. That s really why we wrote the book.
So, where did we begin? Linda, an only child, was born and raised in a small apartment (where she says she believed water came from the superintendent and vegetables came from the vegetable store) in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, which was a Jewish Camelot. Although her family was not religiously observant, she always felt a connection to her heritage and traditions as a Jew. After IBM hired her husband, they moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, with their two children in 1969. Ten years later she began Patternworks, without which this book would not have been written. And if she had not sold Patternworks in 2002, looking forward to more time with her three grandchildren, this book still would not have been written. So, it seems, a full cycle had to be completed.
At another time, Janice was born in Illinois, the eldest of five children. Her early life took her from Illinois to Florida, with stops in Oklahoma, Wyoming, California, and Texas (twice) in between. This young family of seven eventually stopped moving. She grew up in Florida, her later childhood spent on the beach and in a boat, with strong cultural ties to the Midwest and farms, steeped in church and Sunday school Christianity. Marriage and IBM brought Janice and her husband to New York thirty years ago and now, with four children and two grandchildren, she says she still bears those ties with a little bit of the Northeast thrown in.
This book is about seeing and listening. It s about becoming aware that through knitting you can hear and give attention to what s in your heart and soul-that knitting can be a place of rest and thought and a place for the Divine. It s about connection-to yourself, to the world, to others, and to the Holy. You will find accounts of the Monday night discussions between us as we wrote the book and our explorations in between. You will meet other knitters and learn their stories. You will find thought-provoking patterns that were meant to be exercises to increase awareness and point to a spiritual and community connection. They also turned out to be lots of fun, because fun and play are part of the journey. You will find a place to add to the connection at www.theknittingway.com .
Linda serves as the voice of the story and Janice invokes the wonder of knitting and living in interludes identified as Space between the Loops. You are encouraged to become a coauthor with us, to join in our journey as you live with this book. Use it as a kind of journal; write in the margins and mark it up. Take what you find and make it yours. Add to it. Make it work better for you. It was written to help you gain a little more-and a little deeper-sense of the mysterious and divine place in your soul through your knitting, as you join with kindred spirits on the Knitting Way.
Introduction
Finding the Knitting Way
Strange how this all started. I would never have thought twenty-five years ago when I started a mail-order business called Patternworks that it would lead me to find the Knitting Way.
I owned Patternworks from 1979 to 2002. The business I birthed and nurtured in my basement took on a life of its own, and we went together on a magic carpet ride as Patternworks became what Barbara Albright in Knitter s Stash: Favorite Patterns from America s Yarn Shops called one of America s best-known knitting shops/warehouses/catalog companies a mecca for knitters from all over the world who come to revel in its vast selection of yarn and accessories. 1 I had married when I was a junior in college, working toward a BA (read: Mrs.) degree in psychology at Brooklyn College. My son, Daniel, was born a month after I graduated and my daughter, Karen, two years later. Predating the baby boom generation by a couple of years, I hadn t considered pursuing a career path. As the children became more self-sufficient, I was inspired to develop a business from home. Wracking my brain for a business idea, I took the spiritual advice of Russell Conwell in his classic self-help book Acres of Diamonds and focused on what was right in front of my eyes, which turned out to be my own yarn basket. I had loved to knit from the time my grandmother taught me the craft as a child. What could be better than turning a passion into a business?
If you were a knitting enthusiast back in the early 1980s, perhaps you remember Patternworks s early black-and-white leaflets called Hard-to-Find Things for Knitters. I loved every aspect of the little business-finding and developing gadgets and patterns, presenting them in a catalog, preparing ads and publicity, and supplying customers through the mail from my basement. The business slowly grew. Unfortunately, my marriage didn t survive.
By the time I married Marvin Skolnik in 1984, my beloved Patternworks had a few thousand devoted customers, although for an actual salary I worked in a yarn store. When Marvin took early retirement from IBM, he persuaded me to step outside my comfort zone and (1) get a toll-free phone number and (2) print the catalog in color (to sell yarn to knitters, duh). These steps worked so well that the business began taking over our small townhouse room by room until there was barely space for living. It s a wonder that the daily arrival of an employee, strenuous UPS exchanges, and the occasional tractor-trailer truck delivery didn t get us into hot water with the neighbors before we took the big plunge and rented a commercial space.
General interest in knitting declined from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, forcing mills and yarn stores to close in droves, but it was the right time for Patternworks to fill a niche. There was real fear that knitting was a dying craft, and I remember brainstorming sessions on how to attract young knitters. Back then, as now, knitters were happy to share our skills, but the prospect of participating in an old ladies activity held little appeal.
At long last, in the late 1990s, the stars formed a constellation that drew in new and lapsed knitters as the knitting lives of Julia Roberts, Mary-Louise Parker, Daryl Hannah, Cameron Diaz, and other celebrities were featured with increasing regularity in the media. And thus a multigenerational support group was already in place in the wake of September 11, 2001, as women shared knowledge, time, problems, solutions, ideas, stories, laughter, and tears.
Knitting reemerged as a powerful connection when we needed it the most. It is as if a healing wisdom finally sprang out through our DNA. It became acceptable to knit in public, at bars, in coffeehouses, and at other gathering places. The craft many of us learned at grandma s knee became a cool connector.
In 2003 Debbie Stoller wrote in Stitch n Bitch: The Knitter s Handbook , It was exactly the gendered nature of the craft that drew me to it. Betty Friedan and other like-minded feminists had overlooked an important aspect of knitting when they viewed it simply as part of women s societal obligation to serve everyone around them-they had forgotten that knitting served the knitter as well. 2
In her 1981 book, Addiction to Perfection , Marion Woodman lamented that a society that dishonors primal feminine instincts produces generations of mothers who do not own their femininity, so they could not pass on their joy in living, their faith in being, their trust in life as it is [to their sons and daughters] nor can society offer a Great Mother image [for a daughter] to reach out to to bridge the gap between herself and her femininity. That archetype is not yet constellated. 3
In the beginning of the twenty-first century, it appears from all accounts that knitting has emerged as a powerful female symbol that can put us back in touch with the harmony of life. The rich mythology, realities, and possibilities of knitting have brought us together to reexperience and reinvent its ways for ourselves, and to deepen the richness of the communal knowing. In its depths we can find a space to untangle the complications that keep us from finding and trusting who and what we really are-and ponder how we fit into the scheme of things.
In pr