Echoes and Knitting Knockers
Have you ever heard the theory - when you're trying to figure out if something is a 'God thing' or not, to listen for echos? When you're trying to decide what to do, or whether to do, to pray, then listen for the same answer to come to you over and over?
Back in December of 2018 I made a resolution to improve my knitting skills. Some people set goals to learn Russian or to dig wells in third world countries, but mine was to improve my knitting - feel free to judge. I've been knitting for twelve years now, and am likely considered an intermediate knitter, but there were many basics I still didn't know how to do, and I wasn't improving or growing in the skill.
I'm not really geared to not improve, to not learn.
I pursued this news-worthy goal in a variety of ways, one being to join a weekly knitting group in Texas, then to join a monthly knitting project in northern Idaho that I knew would push me.
This past summer, as we were on a long road trip, Cub Sweetheart told me he thought the monthly knitting project in my lap was too difficult for a car trip because I was counting and locking floats, and COULD NOT TALK.
When I cannot talk something is difficult, just saying.
So the next time I went to the knitting store I casually mentioned to the clerk that I needed a 'dumb knitting project', something I could do with little attention to the task, and she told me she called that her 'social knitting', and that she always had a project on the sticks that was more socially inclined.
A much more gracious way to put it.
Back home, I decided to go through my 'stash' - what we knitters call our skeins and skeins of yarn we've bought on a whim and hiddenunderbedsandinclosets stashed away somewhere in our home.
When I pulled out a bin of yarn in a downstairs bedroom closet, there was a local magazine inside with my skeins of yarn. The magazine had nothing to do with yarn or knitting, very random I thought, but I pulled it out and looked at it anyway. On the cover was a young single mother of three, named Staci. Her head was bald and her face was brave. Inside was her story - of battling breast cancer the first time, going into remission, only to start having vision problems three years later, and finding out she had lesions on her brain from the cancer metastasizing to her brain. She shared that this time around it was much harder because her young children were older and understood what was going on, and the battle she was facing.
The magazine was two years old. I sat at my keyboard and hesitated to type her name into Google, afraid of what would come up.
Staci's obituary showed she passed away not quite a year ago. She was only 44 years old.
The next week I sat at a coffee shop and knit mittens for somebody (destination still to be determined), and noticed another woman knitting what I thought was a teensy baby hat. Tiny yarn and lots of bamboo needles.
Knitters always, always ask other knitters what they're knitting, so I asked. And she gave me an answer I didn't understand - didn't understand the enunciation or the answer.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched her knitting around and around and making this teensy, pointy hat, but something about it intrigued me. Maybe it was a hat for a preemie?
Finally I couldn't resist the nudge, so I asked her, 'Can you tell me again what you said you were knitting?'
She answered, 'knockers.'
I grew up sandwiched between four earthy brothers, so I knew what I thought knockers were, but surely not.....
But yes. That's exactly what they were.
She told me about an organization called Knitted Knockers and another called Knitted Knockers USA. They knit cotton breast prosthesis for women who have undergone a mastectomy and either can't or don't prefer to have reconstruction surgery. Knitted Knockers USA is an offshoot of - wait for it - Bag and Boob Babes, and Sheila Wayman is their NW Director; Sheila lives five minutes away from my Idaho home.
By now, this seemed like a lot of echoes, so I went to meet Sheila, who was the loveliest of ladies. We sat in her yarn and fabric filled sunroom as she told me all about this wonderful organization. She doesn't actually knit the knockers herself, but rather writes grants to get money to buy the yarn, and she needs knitters who will make the prothesis. Knitting something that starts with three stitches cast one, and then joining six stitches into the round on three needles feels a little like a super power. This was definitely going to stretch my knitting skill level, as Sheila let me know the knocker needed to be beautiful when finished.
I left with a pattern and about a dozen skeins of freshly wound Cascada Pima Cotton yarn.
It's taken me about six or so to get the hang of them. If I hadn't set the goal to improve my knitting skills I wouldn't have been able to tackle them; now I can knit one up in an evening of television watching. I can knit them at the doctor's office, or during bookclub or road trips with Cub Sweetheart. Sheila told me she has one knitter who knits them in the grocery line - whoah!
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| A finished knocker, knitted to size B cup, with a little opening to stuff them. |
It's ironic to me that I didn't want to learn to knit, and was somewhat strongly encouraged by my daughter to do so; now it's a part of my day I really look forward to. But the truth is that if I want a pair of socks or a cap or scarf I can head to Target and buy them. So why knit? Why bother to take string and sticks and spend hours going through hand gymnastics to make something?
For me it's to fill my time, to fill my lap, to fill my hours, and for the mental challenge that keeps my brain fresh. It's for the comraderie of other knitters, and especially my daughter who taught me. But this, this is the BEST reason to knit. To fill a need that can't be filled otherwise. To be a part of something much bigger than me. And to honor Staci who fought bravely, yet left three children behind way too soon.
Every knocker I knit, I'm conscious that I am touching something that will touch an oh so tender part of the body of some woman who has had her world turned upside down, and is likely scared and overwhelmed. What an honor to knit for her, whoever she is, wherever she is.
If you're interested, you can learn more at the links above. Knitted Knockers are being knit all around the world, but there is still more need than is being met. My representative, at Knitted Knockers USA, doesn't accept crocheted knockers because of the difference in finished texture, but Knitted Knockers does, so perhaps you're a crocheter and want to donate that way? The pattern is free online, and anyone is welcome to join in and to share the pattern with others. So far I've recruited two other knitters for Sheila!
I absolutely love the echoed answer I'm convinced God sent to my search for 'dumb knitting'.
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