Character Study: The Knitter
When my husband was in seminary, I commuted to Dallas until I found a job closer to home in Fort Worth. It was a two-hour train ride every morning to the university, getting on at the first stop and off at the very last. Then I did it all in reverse every evening to return to our absurdly tiny seminary apartment. Four hours a day, every weekday. It was a long nine months on the good 'ol TRE.
As you might imagine, I met a lot of interesting characters on that infamous train. Still, I'll never forget the evening I met a woman I'll call "The Knitter" or "K" for short. I first saw the Knitter at the train's second stop. I had decided to move seats between stops, and it was impossible not to notice her. A pair of brightly colored spectacles made her eyes larger than life beneath a shock of wild salt-and-pepper hair. She wore a handmade burgundy shawl and black clogs. Her knitting needles flew faster than my eyes could follow, but she had a friendly look that made you want to talk to her or at least watch the magic being woven betwixt her knitting needles.
I crochet, but I did not know how to knit at the time. I caught her attention and asked if I could watch as she worked on a pair of socks. She slowed her lightning-quick stitches so I could watch the pattern take shape and told me about her favorite sock yarns, knitting patterns, and the knitting podcast she'd found.
"The host is British," she said with a wink, "so after a long day, I grab a skein or two, turn on the podcast, and let that soothing British accent relax me."
She had a musical sound to her voice and a loud laugh that made you join in. We became train friends, and I looked for her every evening. She was a knitting machine, finishing a sock in a single day. Each time we met, she had a different project.
"That's an interesting sock pattern." I pointed to a fine yellow yarn.
"It's historical!" She explained a duchess or countess of minor importance wore the same socks in a centuries-old portrait. Another night she brought her famous angel shawl, a five-foot-wide navy wrap in fingering weight yarn that looked like a pair of wings. (I still want to make one for myself!)
"So what are you making tonight?" I asked one evening as she picked at a ball of navy wool with visible frustration.
"I don't know exactly," she said, half to me and half to the fibers between her needles. "I've tried this with several different patterns, and it hasn't turned out." She gave a long sigh. "Sometimes, you have to ask the yarn what it wants to be."
It still makes me laugh how she treated her yarn as if each skein had a different personality. But my favorite memory of K was her telling me about her conversion to Mormonism.
She converted later in life after a divorce and raising several children alone. She told me how she found it comforting to chat with her women's group on Sundays, knitting the entire time. She usually made it through a substantial portion of a sock between verses. The idea of her debating the finer points of the Book of Mormon, needles clicking all the while, struck me as funny.
"Coffee and knitting," I said. "That's a pleasant Sunday morning. Oh, wait! You can't drink coffee, can you?"
She paused her knitting momentarily, a dreamy look in her eye.
"No, I don't. And it was a terrible loss, to be honest," she said. "I didn't know much about the standards at the beginning, so I buzzed along, doing my best. And one evening, I went to Braum's to get ice cream."
(For those unfamiliar with Braum's, it's a regional ice cream and dairy store in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, and it's better than Bluebell. Fight me, Lori.)
"I was just sitting there, enjoying my favorite single dip." She sighed dramatically.
"What kind?"
"Cappuccino Chunky Chocolate."
"Oh, no!" I practically snorted with laughter.
"Oh, yes," she said, her voice full of mourning. "I was halfway done before realized what I was eating. I didn't know what to do. I'd already paid for it, and it was my favorite!"
She demonstrated her horrified and depressed face as she looked at an imaginary contraband ice cream cone in her hand.
"I finally prayed, 'Well, Heavenly Father, just let me finish this. After that, I'm done, I promise.' And then I said goodbye to cappuccino forever."
Whenever I meet a Mormon now, I think of the Knitter, imaginary ice cream cone in hand, sighing over her final goodbye to caffeine. Thank you, K, for making a dreary commute so much brighter. I still hang the beautiful miniature stocking you made for me on our tree every Christmas.
