Can knitting change the world?

Inescapably, we are beings for whom objects have spiritual weight.

Once an object is made, it becomes a physical fact of the universe, essentially unchanging in the scale of human time.

–Peter Korn, Why we Make things and Why it Matters

I believe that the simple act of knitting can change thew world. Not just knitting, but making things by hand. There’s something that happens to us as human beings when we make something. We quite literally make a change in our environment, in our world, in a physical way. But we also make a change in the world through our mental and emotional relationship to the physical. This is what I think of as being spiritual. The things we make are more important to us than meaningless objects. A sweater is not “just” a sweater. A hat is not “only” a hat. When made by hand, a sweater or a hat is an act of beauty and a prayer.

This is what I’ve written about in two separate stories in Stories In Stitches 4. By making quality items that have meaning, we are resisting the consumerist trend of buying disposable junk that ends up in the landfill before we end up in the grave. By wearing the sweaters my grandmother made and by making hats and shawls that I hope my nieces will pass down to their grandchildren, I am making a statement and I am making a contribution to creating a world that is more sustainable, more meaningful, and less disposable.

In “Knitting the World Together,” a fairy tale, I explore how making things can save the planet from destruction and I muse on the importance of having fewer, better items in our lives, surrounding ourselves by things that are worth making, preserving, mending, and passing on.

In “Praying with our Hands,” I hope to show that making things is a way to send prayers into the future in a  very literal way. Every thing we make, I believe, is a prayer and a message for those who will come after us. Every item we create can be an heirloom that sends messages of peace and love and creativity to our children and grandchildren (or our nieces and nephews).

I know I’ll be musing over these subjects for a long time, and I will share more thoughts on these topics with you here as I transpose them from my notebooks into the computer.

For now, cast on!

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To learn more about my book series Stories In Stitches™ and to read more stories like this, visit www.storiesinstitches.net. The first 4 books are available now. They feature knitting stories from “Around the World” and book 4 is all about “Knitting and Spirit” with stories about the spirituality of knitting from the perspective of many different faiths and traditions.