It is in the quiet times after a flurry of activity that the most important lessons sink into the place of not forgetting. I was struggling with my shawl for the prayer ministry. I had pushed to get it done and then realized that the pushing and the approach I was taking were just wrong and the piece and my attitude toward it were going from bad to worse. I have such good friends. They looked at the shawl and said not a word, so I finally accepted what I already knew--time to rip it out and re think. And those same friends who had said not a word set about helping me rip it out.
I managed to save a bit of it and regrouped but by the time I was once again approaching the finishing line, I lost my nerve. More colours? Fewer? Crochet edging? I folded it up in the confidence that I knew how to get my way out of this confidence crunch--a design consultation with a friend both gentle and wise. A text to my friend was like the cavalry coming over the hill in the old western movies of my Saturday matinee in the balcony childhood.
With her eyes, I could see that the new approach was OK and we talked about how to proceed, but before I could fold it up and run off, she had set me down with a cuppa in her studio. I stitched while she sat next to me. When she offered to work in all the edges where I had changed wool, (When she tucks them in, they stay tucked) I was delighted. Each of us working on one side of this wee shawl.
And as we sat there watching the waves on the shore between stitches, she said quietly, "I like knitting together." And that is the heart of Northern Loops. Oh, we all enjoy our own quiet time of knitting, but knitting together is wonderfully different. Knitting alone is connecting with self; knitting together is --knitting together. Now hopefully whoever gets this shawl will be able to feel that connectedness, the things coming right after a wrong turn-ness because we have knit that into the shawl and into ourselves.
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