Knitters, Natters and Empowered Hand Batters




Brianna knits and natters.

 The email came through from a friend who works with a local charity called Life Start:

A KNIT AND NATTER HOUR !
This is a knitting group where Luong, one of our very talented craft
ladies will teach anyone who is interested to knit.
For the first few sessions we will be making a blanket that can be
used by one of our recipients but later on it is hoped that people can
make something for themselves.
Please bring your own 8 ply wool to make a square that will end up
being a blanket. You will also need to bring size 5, 5 1/2 or 6
needles. Apparently you can get all of these from the market.


I thought, "Fantastic!"  Brianna likes to knit.  We'll make a special mother/daughter date on Saturday mornings to meet these Vietnamese women, practice knitting and socialize.  Never mind that I am hopeless with knitting needles, wouldn't know a piece of 8 ply wool if I were flossing my teeth with it, and had no idea that the needles come in sizes.  Did I also mention that my Vietnamese skills suck?  If I were to go into a knitting shop in Vermont with a list of what I needed, I just might come out with the right tools to participate in this little group.  Sadly, the "market" in Hoi An is that place where you find everything from pig heads to bicycle pumps.  The prospect of finding a knitting needle and some yarn in that enormous covered cacophony of junk is like - well - trying to find a needle in a haystack (or in a bucket of live snails, or in a pile of chicken feet, or in a pail of squirming squid, or in a heap of pig hearts...you get the idea). Hopeless.

Fortunately our friend Ruth offered to do the dirty work and source the supplies (she was obviously desperate for participants).  Brianna and I simply showed up at the appointed hour on Saturday and sat down to learn from Luong.  One of the goals of this knitting hour was to empower the Vietnamese women who work with Life Start by turning them into teachers for a day.  I am happy to report that I did my part to "empower" Luong beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Luong doesn't speak English.  I've already discussed my Vietnamese skills.  Luong, in slow exaggerated motions, showed me how to "cast on" (nifty little knitting word for those of you in the know). “Casting on” involved putting thirty stitches onto one needle. Luong modeled the process for me twenty-seven times.  Apparently I am fairly dense or uncoordinated.   There was lots of clucking and head shaking going on before I finally jumped in to do two stitches of my own before Luong changed all of the rules and tried to teach me how to actually knit.

I got the hang of the "knitting" thing more quickly than the "casting on" thing.  Before I knew it I had a row of thirty-two super tight stitches on my needle - so tight they could barely move (apparently this has some link to personality...can you say uptight? tense? type A?...hard to believe, right?).  The bigger mystery apparently was how thirty original stitches turned into thirty-two on the very next row.  It really wasn't a mystery to me.  Sometimes when that little stitch of yarn didn't cooperate and just wanted to split in half, I just went with it (Who's an uptight control freak?  I can go with the flow.).  Apparently in knitting (as in life) there are times when it is good to be uptight, tense and rule-governed (when you are counting stitches this is evidently important) and times when you need to relax and go with the flow (evidently not when you are counting stitches).  I could write a whole book on the Tao of knitting (and probably complete it, find an agent and get it published before I complete one blasted square of this blanket).  But I digress...

Luong repaired my damage and got me started on row two.  I tried to relax, go with the knitting vibe, and just let the stitches run together.  At the end of row two I had twenty-nine stitches and one small hole midway through the row.  For this performance I earned a shriek from Luong, a hand slap, and, horrified, I watched her pull out every single one of my stitches.  Does empowering someone else always make you want to cry?  Luong had a huge grin on her face, so I could see that she was really enjoying her "teacher" role.  I would have been happy to don a dunce cap and go sit in the corner at that point, but Luong had rapidly reloaded my needles and was handing them to me again.  Ugh.

Evil Luong with the big grin

Quietly, across the table from me, Brianna had befriended her own Life Start employee.  She was already on her fifth or sixth row of perfectly even, loose (but not too loose) stitches and was well on her way to making a very nice blue blanket square for a premature baby in a hospital in Danang.  There had been no shrieks and no slapping from her corner of the room.  She seemed to be perfectly confident and content to knit and natter away.  I, on the other hand, had decided to use my needles in self-defense if Luong saw fit to start beating me again.  Once I had completed my row and counted my stitches (yup...thirty-four this time), I decided it must be almost time to go.  I discreetly stuck my needles into my ball of yarn and hid it in the pile in the middle of the table.  There will be one more chilly preemie in Danang thanks to my efforts, but at least I left knowing that I had given the gift of empowerment to Luong.  I will spend this week searching for my self-esteem and trying to decide if I can muster the courage to go back for more punishment.  Who knew knitting was a contact sport?

Sticking with power eating as a mother/daughter sport -
we both look much happier don't we?