The Company of Women

Yesterday afternoon was the second meeting of our new knitting group – 15 women getting together once a month just to knit. More than half of the group are beginners. They were told to bring size 8 needles and worsted weight yarn. One member, a retired yarn shop owner, taught them the basics, casting on, knitting and purling. The rest of us brought works in progress.

The group came together through our church. We are Catholic and so don’t talk much about religion. For us, it’s more a private matter. Instead, as the beginners fussed over dropped stitches and the difference between knitting and purling, and the experienced knitters offered encouragement, we talked about the things all women talk about: husbands, whether at home, dead or divorced; children and grandchildren; the work we did and do, the goings on in our community; the things that make us happy and the things that annoy. We nibbled cookies and we knit.

Women need the company of women. In another time, when families were larger and less mobile, women grew up surrounded by older women who taught them to knit and sew and talked about life. Younger women learned about marriage and childbirth from women who married and had children before they did. They watched the older women lose children and husbands and learn to laugh again and they knew that they too could learn to laugh again. They watched their grandmothers, mothers and aunts age and die and understood that they, too, would age and die one day. Now our communities are too often segregated by age and we are denied access to the wisdom of those who go ahead of us. Childbirth is feared rather than celebrated. A mother is never good enough. And aging must be denied.

Our knitting group brought women together again and became the means for sharing the wisdom of our experiences again. The oldest knitter told us the yarn she was knitting into a poncho was yarn she had first knit into a sweater while sitting with her husband before his death. She didn't like the sweater and was knitting the yarn into something new. She told us about the yarn and we learned about the days she spent at her husband's bedside. We learned another woman had had cancer as she showed us the chemo hats she was knitting. The youngest knitter, a mother with school age children, told us about her daughters as she knit a backpack for her daughter to give as a birthday gift.

And so it went for two hours of knitting and chatting. After two hours we packed up our knitting, put away the tables and chairs, and lingered just a bit. Someone said we should have our meetings more often. And everyone agreed.

If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Right!

A strong streak of perfectionism runs through the women in my family.

If you were to visit me and see my housekeeping you might be dubious when I tell you I am a perfectionist. It’s just that I don’t direct my perfectionism to being a perfect housekeeper. My grandmother was! It wasn’t hyperbole to say you could eat off her floor. You really could! But, of course, she would have been aghast at any food falling on her floor. My mother complained that Gram’s housekeeping came before everything else when she was a child, that when the family headed out the door for fun they often had to wait while Gram finished cleaning.

My mother rebelled before me. She went to college and to work. Although she told us she didn’t want to be like her mother, we cleaned the house every Saturday morning. She never had any reason to fear a drop-in visit from the minister, or anyone else for that matter. The unexpected guest was always greeted with a clean house. One afternoon Mrs. M__, who lived across the street, gossiped to my mother that another neighbor washed her kitchen floor but never washed her baseboards. My mother laughed thinking she didn’t wash hers either.

“Oh, but you work!” Mrs. M__ was quick to recover.

I saw my mother washing the baseboards after that.

Before my mother went back to work she stayed home, hung starched and ironed ruffled unbleached muslin curtains in the living room, refinished antique furniture and embroidered. She did a sampler in cross stitch when I was very young which hung over the small kitchen table where my family ate most of our meals all the years of my child hood and all the years of my children’s childhood.

Now she is moving out of the house where the sampler hung and whose baseboards she washed into a one bedroom apartment. She wants her daughters and grandchildren to take her things, hoping we will value the things she valued.

I read the embroidered words,

“Hearts are happy, health is good, where loving hands prepare the food"

I told her I had always liked it, that it was a warm memory from my childhood.

“Here, take it now,” she handed it to me.

I held the wooded frame in my hands and looked at the stitching. It was not well stitched. I felt a moment of embarrassment for my mother. She had not known to carefully separate each of the plies of the embroidery floss before stitching with two or three to prevent the threads from twisting. Nor had she known to make sure all her stitches crossed in the same direction. The sampler had hung next to a beautifully stitched sampler a friend gave to her on her retirement. Had she known her own work was of an inferior quality? Did it bother her?

After she went back to work she decorated with the knick knacks, paintings and other souvenirs she collected on her travels rather than with things she had made. Those aren’t the things I want from her house. I want the sampler. That it was not well made did not make me value it less. It spoke to me of home, of a good time that is now gone. I took it for my son and daughter-in-law and now it hangs in their kitchen.

I wonder if my mother gave up hand work because she didn’t have the time or interest to do it better. I wonder if she felt that if it she couldn’t do it right, she shouldn’t do it at all.

Family Needlework and Arthritis

The arthritis suggesting I give up hand appliqué is still just a quiet voice reminding me gently now and then of my place among the women in my family. My mother was about the age I am now when arthritis caused her to give up sewing doll clothes for her grandchildren.

My grandmother made beautiful crocheted doilies, tableclothes and bedspreads. Her standards were always exacting and the pieces I have are seemingly without mistakes. One lies on my dining room table. The layette set she made for me, her first grandchild, is done in tiny stitches, no bigger than the width of the white and blue thread she used. Later, when she went to live with my mother because she could no longer live alone, her knuckles were gnarled but she sat quietly on the sofa for hours, embroidering pillow cases. My mother bought her embroidery floss and stamped cases from the variety store. She couldn’t see to divide the threads and so used all six strands of the embroidery floss to make long, uneven stitches. I don't know how she threaded her needle. Fortunately, dementia allowed her to enjoy embroidery despite the quality of her work.

My mother’s Aunt Hett was a much younger woman when arthritis interfered. In the early part of the 20th century, she sought help from the doctors at the University of California medical school in San Francisco. On the first visit, the doctor looked at her hands and ordered amputation of one of her fingers. When her arthritis didn’t improve, she went back. This time Hett looked carefully at what the doctor had written on the order before going upstairs for a second amputation. The doctor had written “for research.” Hett turned around, climbed back down the stairs, walked out the front doors and didn’t go back.

A Week In the Pines with Friends and Fiber

Sunday after dinner we covered the dining room table with felt and plastic table cloths. Nancy and Kay set up their machines at each end of the table and I laid out my appliqué supplies in the middle. We set up an ironing board in the kitchen.

Monday morning we got right to work. Nancy is the most disciplined of the three of us. She finished three traditional two colored quilts from blocks she had pieced at home and had ready to sew together.

Kay sewed the blocks of what will be a beautiful batik quilt and I started work on my appliqué. Kay and I took frequent knitting breaks.

My appliqué was not a success. Although I thought I had started it 10 years ago, Nancy corrected me. I started it 5 years ago when she and I went to Asilomar together. In any event, my skills have declined and my fingers have stiffened since the last time I picked it up. The first day went well. I stitched the long smooth lines of the trunk and branches of the tree of life and remembered how much I enjoyed appliqué and had ideas for lots of applique in my future. But the second day I worked on one of the flowers and couldn’t get the petals or the leaves to point, the v’s between the half circles in my scallops turned into curved u’s. I wasn’t at all happy with my work. The third day I ripped out what I had done.

I have two choices: give it up and never finish or find another way. I’ve decided to try the machine. I’ll free motion stitch around the edges of each floral piece. This will give them a slight frayed edge when the quilt is washed. After the pieces are all down I’ll free motion quilt with colored thread, silk or sulky, repeating the shapes of the appliquéd motifs. It should work. And, this way there is a good chance it will be finished someday and it won’t ever be finished if I stick to what I started.

After I put the appliqué away, I spent the last days knitting. More on that later.

Getting To Not Getting Away

I’m off to join two friends for a week of sewing in the mountains.

In the past the three of us attended Empty Spools seminars at Asilomar together. The location, right on the Pacific Ocean, the activity, working with fabric, the company, other quilters, was wonderful. The Asilomar Conference Grounds, part of the California State Park system, with buildings designed by Julia Morgan, sits directly across from the beach in Pacific Grove. The rooms range from cozy and rustic with a fireplace to dorm like. The food was plentiful and good. And five days with no work other than that I chose to do with fabric was wonderful.

But when the Empty Spools schedule came out this year we couldn’t find a session that worked for all of us. We’ve decided to try a private retreat instead. We are going to my sister’s mountain home, snuggled in the Sierras between Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, surrounded by pines, away from traffic and internet service. Only the squawking blue jays will interrupt the silence. We’ll take our fabric, machines and notions and get to work.

We’ll eat well too! We are all good cooks who enjoy cooking. Nancy is making her special triple ginger cookies, Kay promised oatmeal cookies. I just finished baking a dozen vanilla cupcakes, put together premeasured packages of ingredients for baking a cherry upside down cake and chocolate chip cookies. Three nights we are having main dish salads. Tri tip and curried tuna are two on the menu. One night we will have chicken curry. We’ll be driving south through farm country and intend to stop for fresh fruit and vegetables on the way. We’ve also packed nine bags of microwave popcorn.

I used to look forward to going to Asilomar to get away. To get away from the long hours and responsibilities of a demanding job and all that went with it, a commute that had me in stop and go traffic for an hour in the morning and again in the evening, an inflexible schedule. I looked forward to getting away from those things that stifled the inner artist I wanted to nurture.

I don’t look forward to getting away anymore. I don’t look forward to getting way from what I do everyday because today I do those things I choose to do, knitting lace shawls, baking cupcakes for 2 year old Clara, meeting a friend for lunch and volunteering that fits me so much better than the work I used to do. I don’t look forward to getting away from the husband who supports and encourages me. And I don’t look forward to getting away from the pleasant community where I live.

Instead, I look forward to getting to. Getting to the mountains, the pine trees, the quiet. I look forward to getting to the hand appliqué wall hanging I started in an Empty Spools class taught by Pat Campbell 10 years ago. I worked on it for 5 restful days with Pat's help, sitting with other women, talking quietly as we worked. I was pleased with my piece, the colors and fabrics I had chosen. I was happy with my stitching. But I brought it home, set it aside and in the distractions and busyness of life, never picked it up again. It still sits with my hand traced pattern basted to the front, many pieces are only pinned in place. Others haven't even been started. I’m looking forward to getting to it.

I’m not looking forward to getting away, I’m looking forward to time spent with friends, with nature and fiber. I’m taking my knitting too!

4th of July Heartland Shawl

Mine was a quiet 4th of July. I cleaned the house, prepared food for family arriving the next day, and cast on Evelyn Clark’s Heartland Lace Shawl.

The Ravelry Knit Along for Evelyn Clark’s Heartland Lace Shawl started in mid June but I had too many projects on my plate and, after selecting sport weight Misti Alpaca in a brick heather, knitting a gauge swatch and selecting a size 6 needle, I set the project aside. When one of the other knitters said her goal was to cast on July 4th, that worked for me.

Honoring the buffalo who once roamed strong and free seemed a fitting celebration of all that is good about my country. The bulk of the shawl is done in Clark’s Bison Tracks Lace depicting "the buffalo’s heart-shaped hoof prints alternating with small diamonds that point to the four directions on earth.” The shawl’s edging is called the River of Life. The shawl is a celebration of the buffalo’s return, she says.

I hope the buffalo are returning. Five were born this spring on a small ranch near my house. The herd of 12 graze on a hill cheering commuters on their way home from work in Sacramento. Twenty-five years ago there were only two.

My husband hung out our flag as he does every Independence Day. I hunted for the marches of John Philip Sousa on the radio to cheer my work. Instead I found myself singing “We Shall Overcome” with Bruce Springsteen.

Deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall live in peace someday.

1970 Knitting In The Office

I didn’t think I had much in common with the other women. They sat all day at their metal desks, six lined up in the center of the room, three facing the walls, working at their adding machines and typewriters. I was in graduate school and after morning classes, worked afternoons in the university’s accounting department processing invoices. Each day I arrived during the lunch hour to find a big stack of invoices on my desk. My job was to take out the staples, put the invoice together with supporting papers in order with the invoice on top, staple the stack back together, add up the amount payable, stamp the invoice with a big rubber stamped form and fill in the blanks with the payee, invoice date, invoice number and amount to be paid. With slight variation, it was what we all did. Invoices were received in the mailroom; date stamped and assigned a number. Each of us was given part of the numerical sequence.

Promptly at 3:00 the yarn came out and for 15 minutes the women knit. I watched baby blankets, sweaters and one bikini take form. They knit every day during their morning and afternoon breaks. They knit at lunch too. They were cheerful and friendly and when one day I brought in yarn, they helped me. I began coming in earlier during the lunch hour to join them knitting before starting my work.

Most of them had returned to work after raising children and still went home at night to cook dinners and keep house for their husbands.

Thelma was the lead clerk. Her desk was a little separated from the others, off to one side, closer to the male supervisor who sat alone in a glassed in office in the corner of the large room. She went home at night to care for both her own elderly mother and her mother-in-law who both lived with her. She laughed about the burden of caring for the "mothers", the loads of laundry and special diets.

Marta crocheted blankets for the babies of nieces and nephews and told me about her big Mexican family and the successes of her husband and brothers. Jean knit a layette set for her daughter’s third child.

Merle, a divorcee who smoked at her desk, was the most flamboyant of the bunch. She was knitting the bikini and I enjoyed her rebellious humor. She was the first knitter I knew to hold the yarn in her left hand. Doing something just a little different from the norm appealed to me and I have been knitting continental since. One day Merle quit coming to work and one of the other women whispered she had been hospitalized with a nervous breakdown.

Jackie smoked too. She was different from the others, single, almost thirty. When the yarn came out, Jackie reached for the book she was reading and ignored the chit chat around her. She wore straight skirts and tailored shirts, unlike the soft skirts, blouses and cardigans worn by the older women. She had graduated from the university and processing invoices was not how she wanted to spend her life. She often called in sick or went home early with a headache. Many afternoons Thelma sorted through Jackie’s in-basket and gave much of its contents to me.

It was 1970, my consciousness was not yet raised. I didn’t question that the open teaching assistant position would automatically go to the male graduate student. I was glad to have found this part time job, but I knew Jackie was trapped.

I only spoke to our supervisor once. He was a pasty face young man who didn’t mix with the women. After I had been there a short while he called me into his glassed in office to tell me my work was adequate. Then he asked me if I liked the piped in music that played while we worked. He told me he arranged for it as studies showed music made employees more productive. I told him I preferred silence. I needed to tell him I didn't plan on staying.

She Taught Me to Knit and Fixed My Mistakes

I'm going to teach a friend to knit. To begin a piece of knitting, you have to cast on. That's where most knitting teachers start. But I might cast on for my friend. And I might knit the first row, too, because that's what Aunt Bobbie did for me when she taught me to knit almost fifty years ago.

Casting on is more difficult than straight knitting and the first row after the cast on can be too tight to knit easily. So, when I spent time with her one summer, Aunt Bobbie cast on and knit a few rows. Then she showed me how to hold the needles in my two hands, how to insert the right needle into the right-most stich on the left hand needle and pull a loop of yarn through.

My first attempts were full of split yarn and dropped stitches. Aunt Bobbie looked at my knitting and laughed.

"What did you do?"

Then she took it from me, unknit most of what I had done, fixed my mistakes, reknit the row and gave it back to me to start over on the next row.

Aunt Bobbie was very different from my mother. My mother was blond, blue eyed, serious and stern. Aunt Bobbie had dark hair and brown eyes, wore bright colors and seemed always to be happy and cheerful. My mother sun bathed. Aunt Bobbie covered up so she wouldn't get too dark. My mother was a good cook but Aunt Bobbie made tacos and enchiladas and served them with homemade bread, cake and pies. One summer she taught my mother and my grandmother to make earrings from watermelon seeds painted with bright red nail polish. My mother never wore nail polish.

My mother went to work when I was seven. Aunt Bobbie was a traditional housewife who should have had a house full of children. But she was just a bride when surgery made that impossible. My mother said the doctor was a butcher.

In the 1950's theirs was a mixed marriage. My aunt and uncle were not allowed to adopt. She doted on us instead.

When I was three she made me a doll that looked like me, was as big as I was, and had braids of yellow yarn. The rickrack red plaid dress with a ruffled white pinafore she made for me when I was seven was my favorite.

One Christmas she made a gingerbread house and decorated it with Necco wafers and gum drops. It was the first gingerbread house I had seen outside of a fairy tale.

The days I spent with her were fairy tale like, vacation days without chores. I was well behaved and so she rarely corrected me. By the time I was old enough to understand the pain in her life, she was gone. When I remember her, I remember her cheerful. I remember her trying to do for me whatever would make me happy. I remember her teaching me to knit and fixing my mistakes.