There was a lovely short story by Brit E.B. Hvide in Cast of Wonders a while ago, Knitting In English. It reminded me first of this quote:
[…] Knitting is a magic trick. In this day and age, in a world where science and technology take more and more wonder and work out of our lives , and our planet is quickly becoming a place running out of magic, a knitter takes silly, useless string, mundane sticks, waves her hands around (many, many times…nobody said this was fast magic), and turns one thing into another: string into a hat, string into a sweater, string into a blanket for a baby. It really is a very reliable magic.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot
And secondly, of the more subtle kind of magic that knitted items bring with them. I like to knit everywhere I possibly can, and when I do, I accidentally knit memories into the fabric. There’s a sweater that I still need to finish that carries the memories of countless movie experiences with my partner and a friend ours. A cowl that remembers Eddie Izzard and last Christmas spent playing board games. A finished sweater that remembers California heat, a creaky house in Oakland, my friend Jennifer’s novel, and surprising my partner at the airport late at night.
I have had things that I finished while I was unhappy with my life. Things that were made for people out of a sense of misplaced duty. Things I made while frustrated. I always wind up trashing them or giving them away to people I don’t necessarily want to see ever again. I don’t wear them, because they put me right back into that same state of mind. On the other hand, the pieces I made while I was happy, like that sweater I mentioned above, they always make me feel better. The sweater that I worked on while in California, it always feels warmer than it has any right to be.
I’ve never tried knitting something with the goal of imbuing it with the kind of magic Hvide talks about in her story. But for some reason, I have no trouble believing that it could be real.
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