What is nourishment? The Collins Gem Dictionary tells me it’s the noun for nourish: feed, nurture, tend, encourage.
For as long as I can remember I have crafted. My mum taught me how to knit but it was teaching myself how to crochet and weave that truly opened the world of crafting to me. I make things. Blankets, rugs, scarves, cushion covers, cowls, hats, jumpers, tea cosies, coasters, bags, purses and placemats. After watching Coraline I wanted a small Coraline doll so I crocheted one for myself. One of the nicest things about crafting is being able to make things you want on a whim.
A book about van life first introduced me to weaving. A young woman living in a 1980s Roma caravan spoke about her environmentally conscious, seasonal lifestyle of summers spent at music festivals, fruit picking in the autumn and weaving in the winter on looms stored at her studio. Included in the photos about her caravan were pictures of her woven blankets. This single entry sparked a keen interest in me about weaving and over the course of the next few years, my loom collection would grow from a modest loom I fashioned out of cardboard to frame looms, round looms, rigid heddle looms and finally a semi-automated, Japanese Saori loom. I wish I could say that I am a great weaver but in all truth, I often feel I produce lacklustre results but this doesn’t lessen the allure of weaving for me. I keep trying and every time I dress or warp a loom, I feel a renewed sense of hope and optimism that this time, I will make something really wonderful.
The crafting I have embraced has always had a strong utilitarian streak. To justify the environmental and social cost of consuming resources for my hobby I try largely to restrict my crafting to making useful things rather than purely decorative items with doll making being the exception. Regardless of what one chooses to make, there is a silent beauty and magnificence in the humble, often inexpensive balls of yarn jumbled around various tables, baskets and work surfaces in my home. These balls of yarn represent the hope of what will one day be made. It isn’t the hobby itself that gratifies but it is the hushed joy of time spent doing pleasant work, of seeing something of material beauty emerge from your hands.
The thrill of starting a new project and witnessing it reveal itself is to experience a frisson of pure excitement that feels so unadulterated. Crafting nourishes me in a way food and drink does. It is such a part of me that it feels elemental and yet there will be a time when I will no longer be able to craft or hold pieces of yarn. Early onset arthritis will eventually take away my ability to make things. I fervently craft things today knowing that it will come to an end one day and most likely not of my choosing.
Some mornings I stretch my aching, sore hands and shiver about what life will be like when I can no longer hold the tools of my trade. Similar to life itself, for me, crafting and making things exists on a finite timeline. I see the end even as I am in the midst of the middle. It feels like foresight laced with a heavy sense of loss, foreboding and grieving even though things at the moment are still pulsing, full and bright. It’s odd to see the grimness of a most likely future in the serene joy of the present.
In the muted surrounds of my apartment, I hear the traffic glide past outside, the ticking of the clock, the quiet scrolling and clicking of the B’s mouse as he browses the internet as he sits next to me at our large dining table and I pass the shuttle back and forth on my frame loom, opening and closing the shed, allowing the yarn to pass through as the small project on the loom begins to materialise. I pause often to run my fingertips over the tabby weave I am creating, marvelling at how nice and orderly the weave looks now that I have finally learnt how to warp my frame loom properly. Time moves fast but also stands still in these silent moments of creativity and quiet work. The rest of life melts away as I only see the taunt, cool whiteness of the cream coloured yarn of the warp threads and the colourful, playful colours of the weft yarn that forms the body of my weaving. I drink in the simplistic beauty of the plain, wooden loom in front of me, relishing the moment as the shuttle passes back and forth, back and forth. In these moments I am at peace. I am at rest. I am nourished.
While the end is tangible and potentially a barren place for me, the present exists now and I make what I can, while I can and that is all I can do. I suppose at the end of the day, that is all we can ever do.
