I Can't Spare a Square

Knitting square after square--I think you pretty much know that's all I've been up to lately--has made me realize that the act of knitting, a mundane activity on the surface, has a lot more to it.

Wait: Maybe I should listen to my inner-editor and instead of walking around a point, get to the point. What I mean to say is, "There's a lot more to knitting than what it appears to be on the surface."

A long time ago, someone wrote to me and asked me to send her all my odd balls of fingering/sock-weight yarn. I said I would. Somehow, either I lost her email or life got in the way, and all the balls stayed here in the house. Since then, and it's been at least six years, I kept it in the back of my mind--that I never sent her all my leftover yarn, and I felt bad.

All this time passed, and the other day I decided that I'd make a square. Just one square, because I hadn't ever made a log cabin square. I picked up some yarn I had leftover from a recent sock-knitting binge and got knitting. And as I knit up square after square, my mind drifted over to that Apple Store bag full of old sock yarn that I had hid away for that now unknown and semi-forgotten, would-be recipient.

I looked for it. I couldn't find it. I knew it had to be somewhere, but I just couldn't find it. I sat down another day or two, knitting squares from "recent" yarn, and looked for it again to no avail.

Then, on a lark, I looked in a completely unusual place: My daughter's closet, right up at the top and behind some junk. There it was.

I opened it up, and peered into the bag. Year's-old yarn looked back up at me. Most of it was stuff I didn't remember ever knitting with, but I knew that I must have. Why? It was all balled up, some of it caked, some of it ragged with Chuck's hair here and there. None of it weighed what it once did. So, I must have knit with it at some point, right?

Since then, I have knit square after square with this old, forgotten yarn.

And something happened. 

As I knit the squares, this weird sensation started happening. Do you know when you wake up from a dream and you fully remember it but as the day goes on, you try and try to remember it and the images and memories keep sneaking away?

Or, you smell a scent. It could be pine or dust or something else, and it brings back a memory?

Or even driving along and an old song that you haven't heard in such a long time comes on the radio and it brings you back to a night in the front seat of an orange Bronco sitting next to a boy that you wish liked you back?

Knitting is like that. But it is tactile. Even though I don't remember exactly what each ball of yarn in that bag became, my fingers remember. I feel like, with each square I knit, that I'm chasing a memory.

And even though it is a little sad on the surface, it is fine by me.

Comments

[Shirley Rae]

Loving all the beautiful squares and the reminder that I have a bag of squares sitting, waiting to be sewn together (from a swap I participated in a couple of years ago). I don't think I have as many as you, though, so I may need to go looking for scraps to make more. :)

[Meredith MC]

Lovely post- and I know what you mean. FOs do that for me- Wearing them takes me back to the knitting of them- so I always try to be knitting during the things I want to remember.

[Margaret]

I have a large plastic tote box FULL of afghan yarn weight triangles waiting to be pieced together. A couple hundred of them.

[Cheryl]

I've been thinking a lot lately about a sock scrap blanket...maybe that's why. Maybe I need to chase a memory!

[C]

Starts innocently enough, doesn't it. My leftover sock yarn is in the process of becoming a beekeeper's quilt. Knitting hexipuff's is addicting!