I open one eye and peer down toward her hands. Her shaggy, black hair has grown longer, the uneven ends resting across the front of her shoulders. The patina white yarn is stretched across her lap. While her face is not in view, I know her mouth rests closed, lips pressed gently together. Her eyes are watching the screen in front of her, her hands moving quickly to the pace of the show—twisting in and out, in and out, through that gentle, oatmeal color. 

Feeling my gaze, she looks to me, placing the knitting needles down. 

I smile back, signaling towards her hands.

What’re you making? 

As I trace the back of her almond-colored sweater, the texture once yarn, she tells me a story. 

The lamp to her right hums lightly. At nighttime, her hands are cold against her bare legs. While outside the ground is barren of snow, she learns to knit for an Alabama winter. Her hands move to her ears, to the tip of her nose, her cold fingers leaving an icy trail.

While she initially learns to knit to make a balaclava, so as to stay warm, she realizes the activity’s purposeful distraction, the mindless concentration, and it calls her to continue. 

I’ve always admired a crafter—someone able to sit down, continue with intention and purpose. To learn a skill like that from scratch is a talent I have never obtained. 

So, as I watch the repetitive process now—she picks up both needles once again, weaving a continuous intersection of loops—fascination consumes me. The needle contains and continues the stitch. She weaves without hesitation. Soon, the patch grows longer, the once singular thread now formed into a textile. 

She picks up a different ball of yarn, weaving the moss green into the bottom of the off-white yarn. I watch as her hands slow to become accustomed to the addition, then pick back up until another section emerges. 

The green situates into the textile, rhythm steadying, her expressions slackening. Yet, my heartbeat quickens, watching her hands move rapidly. There’s a balance: the faster her hands move, the softer her features grow—eyes lowered, half-closed. She looks almost asleep, the way her mouth hangs loosely open. The sound of the metal knitting needles brushing against each other puts me at ease. 

Observing a crafter in their element is an art of its own. 

Later, when we’re lying beside one another, my face tucked into the opening between her chest and shoulder, she tells me how it feels.

I picture an end goal, she begins.

Walking into the yarn store, choosing among the different fabrics displayed, is an art. I watch her pace around the small, enclosed store. With yarn pooling from every edge of the wall, I wonder how she’ll ever make up her mind.

Yet, as she holds each skein of yarn in front of her, she’s comparing the color to the image formed in her head. She switches the murky shade of white for a lighter beige, then exchanges the forest for an olive green. 

After minutes of deliberation, moving on to the other side of the wall, she curates a final selection. Walking out of the store, my curiosity is brimming. 

What’re you making? I ask. 

I begin to work, she says. 

She rummages through different patterns, drawing from images she’s remembered or saved before, deciding on familiar patterns or something new. 

Yet, I recognize complexity only through the craft’s texture. Before I even look, I feel for the intricate markings. She gently takes the patch away. 

If you play with it any longer, you’ll figure it out, she says. 

 I reach for some loose yarn to hold instead. Using my two index fingers as knitting needles, gluing them together as flexible wire, I pretend I am working hard, to craft something she can enjoy. 

Sitting in the library, resting on her bed, or temporarily sitting on a bench outside, in her hands, she always holds her yarn, her needles. 

It’s been days and I still haven’t figured out what she’s making. I peek into her bag, looking for designs or scraps or any trace of a planned-out project. With no clues, not even the colors guiding me to a guess, I slump back.

She nudges me with the edge of her shoulder. 

Come, she says.

Taking my hands in hers, she places a needle in each and slowly mimics weaving. While my eyes follow the rhythmic movements, they’re too sudden to understand. I watch as one needle goes under while the other needle goes over, twice. Then, before tightening to loop the entire stitch together, she moves the left needle again, then the right. Before long, a single stitch is formed. 

 

Close your eyes, she whispers in my ear. 

Through the yarn, the stitching, the misplaced textiles, I’m searching for an art of my own to begin. 

Perhaps it’s also been here, weaving the mismatched sentences and spaces between words.