Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011: Better Off Not Knowing

All this week my postings are a part of the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week. To learn more about it, just click here.



Strolling through my local thrift store the other day, I came upon a hand knitted hat hanging on a hook. I pull it down to examine it closer. It was small, pale blue and  knitted in simple stockinette. It was made for an infant. I wondered about the story and life behind this little hat. Maybe a grandmother had knitted it for their new grandson. Now that grandson is all grown up and headed off to college. Or maybe, like myself, some kind stranger knitted it for charity, hoping it would warm the head of a poor unfortunate child in need. Hopefully that child has grown up to become someone willing to help others the way someone had helped them.

Then a thought struck me hard in my heart. What if this hat was never used? What if the intended recipient never got a chance to wear it? At home at the very bottom of my stash box I have a small dark grey sweater and a half-finished white baby blanket. Both items were meant for my son. Neither item had the chance to be used.

I had a lot of grand knitting  and crochet plans while I was pregnant, but those plans were brutally interrupted with my acute liver failure and the untimely birth of my son at only 26 weeks while I was in a coma. Instead of showing off  my bundle of joy wrapped in some fancy crochet blanket, we both laid in the hospital fighting for our lives.

His christening gown would never be finished. Instead, he was baptised while covered in tubes and wires a day before his death at the age of only six month.

There would be no fast clicking of needles or the magic of my hook making cloth out of thin air. It would take me a month to learn how to feed myself and another three months to learn how to walk without assistance. My son would spend the first three of his only six months of life in a hospital, never to fully recover from his early birth under such extreme conditions.

My son and I would become known for being the hospital's  first successful rare back to back liver transplant and child birth at 26 weeks. I would have rather been known as the mother who knits her son way too many socks.

I look back down at the hat in my hand. Maybe I'm better off not knowing the story behind this little hat. Besides, I carry far too many unfinished stories of my own.

The Treasure

Was at the local Goodwill thrift store with my mom yesterday. I usually don't buy anything when I'm there. It's not that I don't like what they offer, but this particular Goodwill is so popular that unless you camp out at the door and run in the very minute they open, chances are all the really good finds are gone.

As usual, the place was packed, and it was a Wednesday afternoon. My mom was searching for a skirt, so I just walked around looking at the stuff in other people's carts.

There is a small craft section on the far side wall of the store tucked into an odd corner between the kid's toys and purses. This area is usually filled with bags of tired looking zippers and old Butterwick patterns for flower skirts. An ocassional bag filled with shower curtain rings or plastic Christmas ribbon finds its way to this area as well.

I made my way over to the area on the off-chance I might find a package of straight pins. I have plans this year to finish my quilt tops and for the life of me I don't know where my straight needles have disappeared to.

Now in the craft section I found the usual suspects along with a bag filled with florist tape and another stuffed with scary look doll heads- the type one would use in cake decorating. I was thinking of how I could paint over the doll faces to make them look like shrunken heads for Halloween, when a long package hanging behind a bag of broken needlepoint hoops caught my eye.

I pulled the bag off the hook only to discover a similar one right behind it. With both bags in my hands, I stared down at my packages, unsure of what I was seeing. Through it's loosely bunched plastic coverings sat in my hands two bags filled with knitting needles!

There was no time to lose. I felt a sense of urgency to get this needles to the counter and claim them as mine with my cold hard cash. 'How could anyone have missed getting these', I thought to myself. I have seen far too many times in stores women and men come to near blows over an item that they both wanted. Although most people at the store seemed generally nice, I was not going to take a chance of anyone seeing my discovery. I could just see the news headline now: Young Woman Stabs Stranger In Eye With #4 over Knitting Needle Dispute. So, I tried to move through the store discreetly, being careful not to bring any attention to myself or the items I were carrying.

I manged to dodge an aisle filled with several gray-haired ladies. I was sure if any of them had spotted my treasure the news headline would be: Gray Hair Granny Mafia Takes Out Store Customer, Impaled With Knitting Needle.

Safely at the checkout out counter, the bubble gum popping cashier, overly made up in a sad attempt to look older than her 17 year old true self, didn't even look my way as I sat the needles on the counter. She was busy trying to flirt with the older bag boy in between the continuous line of customers.

The bag boy motioned to me letting the young girl know she had another customer. As the cashier began to ring up my order, I wondered if I should be kind enough to save the poor girl from her fruitless attempts at flirting by informing her that her lover boy was gay, seeing as he was wearing a gay pride necklace.  As the cashier handed my items to the bagger she said,"You buying these needles. Do you use them to crochet or something? I could never do that stuff. Maybe when I'm in my 30's or 40's, when old and don't have a life anymore I might learn. It's such an old people thing." I decided that having her heart-broken by a gay man would be good for her.

Package paid for and hidden in the white plastic bag, I enjoyed the rest of my time shopping with my mom, knowing that this old lady with no life had scored a treasure far better than any 17 year old could imagine.