Morning Spinning

...and evening knitting. 🐻❤️

From where I sleep, atop Genevieve’s Yarn Drobe, I am wakened by the whir of her spinning wheel. This is typically around 5:30 or 6 am, but she has come down to spin even in the wee hours on a couple of occasions lately and I’ve wondered what’s afoot.

When I ask her, she says that the middle-of-the-night spinning is to try to untangle a mess of thoughts keeping her awake. She tells me it helps ease her mind and so I cheer her on! When she spins at her normal waking time, she says she loves to spin the morning awake, watching the sky come alive as the fibers flow through her fingers. One morning, as I sat nearby while she was spinning, she pointed to the beautiful sunrise happening out our windows. She said, “Look at the clouds…how they appear to be attenuated wool, stretched across the sky!” She pointed out that these fiber-clouds were lit up with color from the sun rising right beneath them and she reminded me, even as she was reminding herself, that this is Life. She explained that daily living is like being stretched thin across a dark landscape, yet always illuminated by a growing Light which can never be fully quenched, even on the darkest days. We sat in reverie as her wheel continued to whir, whispering softly of the promise that all the twist and torque of our days will one day yield something beautiful and useful.

I was very encouraged by these reflections and I think it helped her too. She often tells me that our making has wisdom for us, contains pictures of how our lives are being made beautiful even when there are difficult, unwanted threads introduced into the tapestry of our lives. I know that Genevieve is often sad about her mom, who lives in a memory care home. They were knitting buddies, and painting buddies, and shared a love of creativity that is now gone for her mom, but is alive and well (most days) for Genevieve. I will cheer her on in all she continues making, even when she is too discouraged to do so. 💖

Our evenings often find us on the couch, knitting our respective projects. This drawing shows us both knitting socks, which we often do. And while I am still knitting this same sock 🙄, Genevieve has finished the pair she was knitting and has now moved on to knitting a really big sock! She says it is a Christmas stocking for her newest grand baby girl, Amelia. Oh how I love watching this stocking grow! It is called the Winter Snowflake Stocking¹, a pattern she has knitted a couple of times before, one for Amelia’s mom and one for her dad.

Genevieve has also been knitting on a blanket² she started about a year ago. She shares a portion of it for my legs as we knit together and she adds square after mitered square, or a lovely star, log cabin, or pinwheel square. I can tell she doesn’t really want this blanket to end, but is also eager to finish so she can use it every evening while we knit or draw. Genevieve has so many things she wants to knit, for her grand girls, for herself, and for others, but she is really trying to stay present with just two projects at any given time. She says it is a great way to practice staying present in life, no matter how long and tedious something may become. I know she is referring to the long and sad decline of her mom’s situation and I marvel at how Genevieve is able to hang in there! She tells me that yarn is a lifeline, a thread that leads her to where real hope abides, keeping her aloft on the waves and anchored to what is true.

Genevieve and I wish this for you as well dear reader! May all your creative efforts anchor you to a Hope that is wrapped around all your days, be they difficult or joyous, mundane or magical! Today is a magical day as little Amelia is visiting! She is fascinated by the spinning wheel and seems to love the purr of the wheel as much as we do! I must go watch her incredible smiles…bye bye for now!³

Your friend,

Bertie (the Bear)

P.S….

1. The pattern for this stocking can be found in the 2017 Holiday Knits Interweave Magazine. Genevieve says you can also find it on Ravelry here. 💖🧦

2. This is Susan B. Anderson’s blanket called the Sampler Blanket, which now has a pattern that includes many different quilt-type squares! 🙌

3. Do you see the sweet little flower hat Genevieve knitted for Amelia? I want one for me!! Apparently it is also a Susan B. Anderson design!