I am not ashamed of this addiction.

 

You call it an addiction?

 Yet I am not ashamed of it!

Most people watch with awe and envy -- grand houses, cars or motor cycles and other mean machines, gizmos and electronic toys, sports equipment, clothes, jewellery and make-up, gourmet food or sometimes even God’s great-looking living creations and want them. Not so for me! When I think of possessions, something else wins hands down in drool-worthiness for me.

No you cannot guess and your reaction might just be- what? Crazy! I’ll survive that.

These last few days as the season changed and the temps rose, people kept their silks and woollens aka winter clothes in. Women lovingly took out their chiffon, crepe and georgette saris/dresses, put them on hangers, gazed at them and lovingly patted them.

For me it became difficult to handle wool and synthetic fiber and I packed my knitting projects for the next eight months. In the big fat grey bag went the yarn with the knitting needles, most of which I do not use but love to hoard anyway. Then I took out cotton yarn, needles, hooks, hoops and fabric to work on.

Looking at yarn of any kind, weight, thickness or texture, needles, hooks, fabric and patterns makes me emotional. Did I hear what? In a shop I stare at and compare the spools, balls and skeins besides all the beads, sequins, mirrors, lace, ribbon and buttons etc. on display. I look and feast my eyes on the shapes, hues, tones, colours and shades. I also want to touch and feel, savour the texture of fabric to work on. Yarn and the tools to use it with and the medium are valuables for me. Cotton, wool, silk or acrylic, (I am allergic to jute and raffia) my confession- I am hooked. That is because I am ‘knitted/ ribbed/ purled/ crocheted/ sewed/ stitched/ quilted’ do not sound right.

Many enjoy spending time on shopping, phone calls, soap operas, Facebook and Netflix. Is there anything to show for that? Why be a passive onlooker of what others are saying or doing when you can create wonders with your own hands? I can happily postpone my bedtime to work with a needle/hook and thread.

In the past I have even asked official drivers to take up some kind of needlework to use up their waiting time. That never worked; maybe my persuasion power is abysmal. Everyone preferred playing cards, gossiping, looking at others’ inane videos on the mobile or dozing.

When a biologist is also a knitter!

Somebody came over to my house for the first time a few months ago. He looked at me and asked – Aap abhi bhi knitting karti hain? (You still knit?) It was obvious from the yarn and needles in my hand, but I detected an undertone- curiosity and derision? Was I doing something infra-dig, dirty, cheap or unfashionable?

A ‘wise’ person once suggested I should use my time to do something else, something constructive. Is there anything else more constructive?

I am forever grateful to my ‘nani’ (mother’s mother) for introducing me to the magic of needles and thread. There was a time when Punjabi women were said to be expert knitters. I do not know whether they are still claimants to that spot. They could follow somebody wearing a new design of cardigan/pullover or embroidery and copy it without asking for the pattern. Most women would start knitting around September so that new woollens were available as the winter began while hot summer or rainy afternoons were meant for embroidery and all kinds of sewing.

I need yarn and needles in my hands to keep me sane in this crazy world. It does not have to be knitting because it is a seasonal thing. It can be embroidery or crochet, everything is meditative. Now, I am considering patchwork and quilting too besides looking for my mother’s takli (spindle) to spin thread for weaving on the small plastic loom I got on my pre-Corona trip to the US.

This addiction is not like the others that you have heard of- eating, shopping, smoking, drinking, gambling, drugs or sex etc. It is non-clinical, does not cost much, helps de-stress, promotes creativity. Some days when I do not feel like working on a project, I thank intelligent minds for internet and feast my eyes on yarns, designs and other people’s creations.

I keep myself occupied and let others in the family live their own life. I am encouraging the economy by helping people making yarn, tools and patterns earn and sometimes even give or gift an article thus made to a friend or family member.

I am protecting old crafts and skills and keeping the heritage nurtured by generations of men and women before me, alive.

What more do you want me to do for this society?

In her paper Knitting Through Recovery One Stitch at a Time Journal of Groups in Addiction and Recovery, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J384v02n01_04

Dr. Kathryn Duffy mentions an experiential therapeutic technique that incorporated a knitting program within the context of a group therapy program at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center for women. The knitting program has been successful in facilitating discussions and improving the milieu, and beneficial in providing a skill for moderating stress and emotions, both for inpatient and outpatient clients.

Dr. Betsan Corkhill, a well-being coach and ‘world expert in therapeutic knitting’, has even written a book Knit for Health & Wellness: How to knit a flexible mind and more...  

If you are still not convinced, you may go ahead and read the paper published in Utopian Studies by Dr. Jack Bratich and Dr. Heidi Brush (2011) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/201701/excessive-knitting-and-addiction

where they talk of the  recent popularization and resurgence of interest especially among young women in ‘domestic arts’: knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, quilting, embroidery, sewing, doll-making. They even cited Sigmund Freud in relation to why knitting in public causes discomfort for onlookers… Knitting in public turns the interiority of the domestic outward, exposing that which exists within enclosures, through invisibility and through unpaid labor: the production of home life. Knitting in public also inevitably makes this question of space an explicitly gendered one. One commentator observes that knitting in public today is analogous to the outcry against breast-feeding in public twenty years ago (Higgins 2005). Both acts rip open the enclosure of the domestic space to public consumption. Both acts are also intensely productive and have generally contributed to women’s heretofore invisible and unpaid labor.

Yarn is a treasure. You can simply tie things with it or knit, embroider, crochet, weave, knot (macramé), make string art and decorate, sew or quilt. Don’t like something that you or somebody else has made? Unravel, rip, snip and start afresh.

When you have a hobby or an interest, you collect things to be used for future projects (which may or may not become a reality). You hoard just in case you might need something for a future project.

Naturally, I have a fabric, yarn and tools collection with a wishlist to support and I enjoy looking at it. I have collected enough to knit/crochet/embroider in this lifetime and some more for whoever wants this after I am gone. Sometimes in bouts of generosity I have even parted with my treasures for friends who share my passion.

No, most of us needle-crafters do not do needlework to earn or to save on clothes. We do it simply for the love of it and the ‘luxury’ of using those articles. You do the math, it is perhaps the most economical of all hobbies or activities. Just pick up a skein of thread and a needle for a total of less than Rs 10 (13 US cents, believe me) and any kind of fabric, let your imagination run wild and your hands make the magic.

You can even carry most of the projects around. Except paperback editions of books, the paraphernalia used for what other hobby or activity can be so portable? (Although now it requires that one plan needlework projects for flights because knitting needles and crochet hooks are classified as dangerous items.)

You can do it alone, with your grandmother, even mother-in-law or make it a social activity and do it with your gal gang or any of the men who show an interest in it.

As long as I have some kind of needlework project in my hands, all is right in my world. Any time of the day, mood, weather, season, any place, I just change the yarn and the tools and the world opens up. If I could, I’d be happy not to do any housework or cooking to sit in one chair with my needle and thread. And let the world handle that !

After all, if Queen Elizabeth II, Kate Middleton, Ryan Gosling, Julia Roberts, Joan Crawford, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marie Osmond and Ringo Starr have been seen working with yarn and needles, why not me!

(Dedicated to all those hands and minds who share this passion)

                                                                                                                               - Anupama S Mani