There is a legendary kindness among knitters. It is a kindness that lasts year round, but is in keeping with the spirit of the religious holidays many of us are celebrating this week: compassion, thoughtfulness, helping others without any thought of help in return. Knitters specialize in this kind of behavior year round. So it should be no surprise that when I was struggling with finish details on my Glacier sweater, knitters reached out to help me. Finishing really shouldn’t have been an issue for me. Glacier wasn’t the first sweater I knit than needed seaming. But it did have a couple of issues, the one that concerned me the most being my interpretation of the pattern direction to “increase in pattern” on the sleeves, which involved some pretty complex cables. My seam edge wasn’t straight, but rather bugged in an out with the cross of the cables. And it had me worried. So I delayed and delayed finishing, always finding another project to jump to the front of the line.
Jess, a/k/a Fascine on Ravelry (make sure you go check out her finished projects, she’s amazing), volunteered to do the seaming for me. I shipped off all of the pieces to her, with an apologetic note about the “issues.” In record time, I had a lovely box back from her with a perfectly seamed sweater and an incredibly nice note. When I opened the box, which I wasn’t expecting to receive back so quickly, it came as a surprise. It was like having a candle lit in the dark. It was a touching kindness and it came right at a time when I need it and suddenly, I had a path forward, at least with the sweater. Gratitude.
Yesterday was my day. A few quiet moments and a wonderful way to spend the late afternoon. I picked up the stitches for the neck and wove in (ok, endlessly wove in because this was a low yardage/bulky yarn and I used a lot of skeins!) ends. I can’t wait to share the finished sweater with you. I’m super-grateful to Jess for giving me just the nudge I needed. The gift of kindness is a wonderful thing, and one of the special super powers of knitters.
