My mum was one of the greatest knitters I know. I may be biased, she is, after all, my mum. My Grandma (her mother) was also a great knitter and between them they knitted all our school cardigans and jumpers. My mum even doggedly knitted an Aran cardy for me when I was at college: a huge feat considering the complicated stitches the design required, and the size of the person who would be wearing it. It took 10 years to be completed (although I am sure other projects slipped in during that time), but once she had finished my work of love she then knitted jumpers for her grandchildren, with matching scarves and mittens. I couldn’t bear to pass on the jumpers once they had been grown out of, so they have been transformed into cushions for our seaside cottage. Upcycled!

The last woolly knitted for me was a beautiful wrap around cardy in gorgeous shades of purple. Unfortunately it didn’t wash well and seemed to grow each time it was laundered, but it was cosy and precious and kept for those days when I needed a hug. Living in a large Rectory with plenty of storage space I could do that, but then we moved.

Our house is not small, but it is smaller than before and with less storage space and I have had to minimise (just a little) what is kept. The purple wrap around cardy was on the danger list. I considered passing it on to a charity shop, but the yarn had gone a bit ‘bobbly’ and I knew that it would be rejected rather than loved. I considered popping it in a fabrics recycling bin, but that seemed sacrilegious considering the love that had been knitted into the garment.

And then on a retreat I was leading someone shared a picture of Mary, Untier of Knots, and I knew how to give a new lease of life to the yarn.

I had begun to provide a piece of knitting for guests to pick up and play with during Petite Retreats; it is an idea borrowed from the place I take myself to for retreats, and inspired by conversations during the course I am taking on Spiritual Direction. The knitting is simple so that pretty much anyone can pick it up, knit a few rows and then lay it down for someone else to add to. Knitting is one of those repetitive activities that stills the mind and the heart, and the end product is a scarf to be donated to the local refuge. The yarn in my wearable hug could be repurposed for the next scarf, but first I would have to unravel it.

Unravelling became an emotional (and sometimes frustrating) process. I am not a knitter myself: when I was challenged to make squares for a community blanket someone else always had to cast on and off for me and I managed to drop more stitches than I caught. Unravelling this cardigan knitted with love and care and a great deal of skill helped me to see just how talented my mother is as a knitter. Unweaving in and out of the stitches, unknitting, unravelling.

It has been a difficult year, and as I unravelled the wool I began to reflect, unravelling what had happened to us as a family. We have had to change our home, our community, our source of income. We have had to say farewell to our chickens and the fresh eggs they (sometimes) laid for us. We have survived catching covid, and GCSEs under covid restrictions. Three precious members of the family have spent time in hospital, and there are lingering health care concerns for them all. In so many ways it has felt that there are times when we could have completely unravelled. But we haven’t.

As I handled the wool, returning the cardigan to balls of yarn, I would come across a knot, or a tangle, or a particularly tricky part of the pattern which looped backwards and forwards, giving me an insight into just how talented my mum is. Sometimes I would persevere, other times I would reach for the scissors and take a short-cut snipping an escape route from the tangle.

‘Unravelling’ often has negative connotations, carrying a sense of falling apart, but it can be positive too. In fact, unravelling can be a really healthy exercise when we get to grips with the knots that shouldn’t be there, or are no longer useful. As painful as this year has been, we are in a good place and I can feel God leading us on. The Petite Retreats need to grow in order for me to make a living from them, I need to build my ‘customer database’ and for practical reasons I need to be able to fill every place on each retreat; but each and every person who has joined one of the retreats so far, either in person or online has expressed to me how they have been able to connect with God, or rediscover peace and rest, or simply find themselves in the midst of chaos that Covid and other events have caused.

The cardigan is now unravelled and I have a basket full of yarn ready for the next retreat. I have reached out to YouTube again to learn how to cast on, and I have even knitted the first few rows without dropping a single stitch (yet).

Much has been unravelled, but much more is being knitted together. For the knitting of the past and the knitting that is to come, I am grateful.

To purchase a print of the painting, click here