Part 1 (Knit-wit) — Part 2 (Better Knit)
Knit Much Time
You know, there were a lot of projects Cassie started knitting-wise. There were a ton that she started but never finished. Looking through our storage bin of crafting supplies, Cassie had a good 3 uncompleted projects sitting right on top.
That was frustrating. It made me angry because I felt like they were miniature monuments to Cassie’s relatively short amount of time.
Or at least I did. I felt that way until I started knitting for myself.
A Dream and Knittle More
See, I tried to make one of her dreams a reality—I was going to make a pair of socks. Yup. Socks. That was one of Cassie’s most ambitious goals in life. If she could have knitted a pair of socks, she would have been happy enough to never pick up knitting needles again. It was a dream she had for at least as long as I knew her.
Maybe once a year her desire to make it a reality would boil over. She would pick up her knitting needles and give the art form another go. But without fail, several hours into a project, she would put the needles down, letting them collect dust for at least another year.
Knit-Picky
I always tried to encourage Cassie in her sock-making dream. But she never seemed to have the confidence in herself to follow through. She told me she never actually started knitting a pair because they’re some of the toughest things to make (or at least to make well).
Cassie thought she needed to get better at knitting and following patterns first. But she was never good enough for her own standards. And knitting, as good as she seemed to be at it, wasn’t relaxing enough of a hobby for her. It took more mental energy than she had available whenever her schedule would get busy.
All this seemed backwards to me. “Just start doing it,” I thought. “So what if you do a bad job at first,” I told her. “Just take the first steps of doing your dream. You don’t have to be perfect from the beginning.” But Cass never bought it.
Not Even a Little Knit
Because Cassie didn’t get to her dream, I figured I would pick up the torch. Having some experience with crocheting, I knew I could follow a pattern well enough. And after looking into a bunch of sock patterns, I was confident I could make a pair with just the basics of knitting down. Surely I didn’t need to be that great of a knitter, right?
Wrong.
I nailed knitting and purling… after a lot of mistakes and a lot of confusion. Then I figured out how to “knit in the round…” after hours of starting over again and again. But even after the frustration of dealing with that, I still got stuck on making the stupid heel of a sock!
It made zero sense to me. I tried watching videos, reading multiple how-to blogposts, peeking in guidebooks at the Michael’s crafts store. Nothing. It was an entirely different language—a language that didn’t jive with me at all.
I set the bar lower and lower—make a pair of socks… no, make a single sock… no, make a single baby sock. Still, I had failed. And worse, I had failed miserably.
It’s Knit for Everyone
There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 12
My inability (or lack of motivation) to do a specific thing does not makes me any less of a person. We aren’t just defined by what we can do, we are defined by what we cannot do as well—we are defined by what we need others to do for us or instead of us.
And it testifies to the fullness of God as well. God is able to work in an unbelievable amount of people, in at least an equal number of ways. More than that, God is able to take all the differences among his people, then weave them together into one big, awesome, proverbial pair of socks.
Calling it Knits
I didn’t think I would be okay with it. But like Cassie, I found myself happily throwing my knitting needles, half-finished work of art still attached, into the very bottom of our storage bin full of other crafting supplies, where it will later be shoved into the bottomless pit that is my storage unit.
Cassie accepted she was not going to become a world-class knitter. It won’t be hard for me to accept that either. For that matter, I may not even be a sock-class knitter.
Don’t get me wrong, I still want to knit a pair of socks. After all, it was Cassie’s dream. But having this weird, quirky dream—a burning desire to knitsocks—was what made Cassie the person we all loved. Actually making the socks wasn’t nearly as important. Knitting wasn’t even a thing Cassie wanted to do most of the time. She was happy with that.
Richard is someone who dreams about medical school, but who is doing everything it takes to get there. I am a person who dreams about being a good writer, and who has written thousands upon thousands of words for his blog. Richard dreams about building up God’s kingdom, and so tries to do so that daily. But I also dream about knitting a perfect pair of socks, even though I will probably never try it again. For that, Richard is also happy.
Part 1 (Knit-wit) — Part 2 (Better Knit)
P.S.
There’s a lot to apologize for in this one.
- The terrible puns. I threw them in with the hope of spicing up the writing… but some of them are pretty yarned bad.
- There’s not a lot of photos here because there really wasn’t much to take photos of. It was pretty embarrassing how little I was able to do…
But on the bright side, I’m a lot more optimistic about fulfilling Cassie’s other crafting dreams. Just you wait!
