July 02, 2007

From One Knitter To Another

We had a garage sale this weekend. And by ‘we’ I mean that I planned a garage sale and everyone in my family brought something over to sell. It was a madhouse. Our entire driveway was PACKED with stuff.

Anyways, between customers I was working on my poor, long neglected Jaywalkers. It eventually got too hot (you should see the sunburn I’ve got on my scalp where my hair parts. I nearly couldn’t brush it this morning, it hurt so bad…) so the knitting sat in a basket.

A woman showed up with her elderly mother. I’m going to say that I felt an immediate pull to the older woman, when she was getting out of her car I wanted to go right over and help. It must have been my knitter’s sense tingling.

The pair made their slow way up the driveway and the daughter saw my finished Jaywalker in the basket and just started raving over it. She climbed over a pile of crap to get a closer look and just kept insisting “It’s beautiful! It’s so beautiful! Look at the pattern, it’s just gorgeous!”

The mother, in a wonderfully thick German accent, began praising my sock as well, telling me that she’s a knitter (her poor hands were so knobbly, she had arthritis in the worst way), she used to knit socks all the time, where had I found the pattern, she loved knitting, she would have loved to have a pattern as lovely as that.

I pulled the pattern out of my basket and handed it to her. “Here, this is the pattern. You go right ahead and take it. I’ll get another one for myself.” She offered to pay me. I refused and told her it was a gift, from one knitter to another.

When she thanked me… she was all choked up. Told me I was a lovely dear. I was so generous, she was so happy, I had made her so happy.

This is what ties us together. Our craft. Our art. Our love of fiber and needles and the act of creating beautiful and useful things. It voids the boundaries that would usually separate us. Age. Religion. Race. Sexual orientation. Politics. None of these matter when we pull out our needles and begin to create.

I’ve always been glad that I knit. But this was the first time I’ve ever been grateful.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful story. I love that odd connection between knitters. It's like being in a secret club.

Anonymous said...

What a sweet story.

knittingnurse said...

What a fabulous gift you gave that lady. . . . .no not the pattern per se. . . but the gift of belonging, of a sense of worth and community.

You are indeed a lovely, lovely person.

Thanks for sharing.

Chris said...

Aw, that is a great story!!

So, how'd the garage sale go?!

Peevish said...

:) That's wonderful! I cheered up an elderly lady in a thrift store the other day by telling her that knitting is in fact back on the rise, and proved it by pulling out my sock in progress.

Diane said...

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

mrspao said...

How lovely! A similar thing happened when I was knitting on holiday in Montenegro - an elderly German lady came over and took my knitting out of my hands and looked liked she was going to cry so I let her knit a couple of rows. She was so happy and I didn't understand a word she said.

Anonymous said...

awww how wonderful. I'm sure you made not only her day bit probably her week. She'll be talking about you to everyone!