The Trefoil Muse

“I am a weaver; a weaver of words.

Writers are weavers of words.

I am a writer. 

Oh, what tales we Weaver’s weave when our well scripted words are spun together into a magical yarn.

I am a writer; a weaver of magical yarns. 

I am a Weaver; a weaver of magical yarn.

I am a Weaver.”

I have always been a fan of folklore, myths and parables.  Recently, I came across the story of a Wise old Weaver woman hidden in a cave. Every culture has mystical tales that tell of Weaver’s hidden in places unknown or away from civilization.  Their only company a big black dog. They weave beautiful capes, robes or blankets with ethereal cords from the cosmos which are never completed because chaos (the dog) intervenes to unravel their work, at which point the Weaver’s begin again.  The myth is that if the Weaver ever completes their work, the world will end.  These Weaver’s have been creating this article of beauty since the beginning of time.

During the winter months, I began to weave.  It all started because of boredom.  I am an active person.  I don’t deal well with boredom.  Boredom led me toward the need to purge.  It’s astounding the amount of items that one accumulates and then holds on to for no real reason.  The time had come for me to remove needless items from my home – make more space – let’s say; in those dark, shadowy closeted spaces one like me hesitates to venture into.

I read a piece of prose by Andrew The Lonely Author at www.thelonelyauthorblog.com ; it started with, “love hung in her closet,” what an enchanting thought!

I am a little terrified of what might be hanging in my closets – cobwebs and skeletons.  But, there is proper timing for everything and the time for purging was now.

The linen closet has the scent of wild flowers carried in by a fresh spring breeze.  The single and double bed sheets were the first things to be pilfered from the linen closet.  I like to purge.  I also like to recycle or repurpose items and since I know how to weave, my eyes lit up at the prospect of turning these sheets into some nice new throw rugs.  I only needed a loom.

It took no time at all for my husband to craft one up for me out of wood left over from a recent renovation project.  Luckily for me, he is much handier in the wood-working department than I am and can only stand to watch my pathetic struggles with wood construction for short  periods of time before he takes pity on me then squares up or sturdy’s the project with screws and nails.

Enter the Weaver.

The first thing I need to do is string my loom – that means I need the yarn from another more frightening closet.  I know that the yarn is close to the front of the closet and snatch it out with lightening speed before anything can bite me.  The yarn to my delight is a blend of cotton so will go nicely with the cotton sheets I have ripped up to weave my throw rug.  Plus, cotton is durable so will hold up to rough treatment and multiple washing; important assets for a rug.

I had my first throw rug completed in a matter of hours.  My eyes were gleaming with pride at the result.  I haven’t weaved for many a year so was extremely thrilled with the result of this small project.

(Now, some of you who read my yarns do not know me personally.  Even some of the people who do know me personally; may not know this: I don’t know how to do anything small.)

I always say, “take small steps, just start small.”  However, when it comes to my projects, my small steps are more like gigantic leaps.  So, believe me when I tell you that while perusing my little throw rug, my body started to twitch; all the while the possibilities of more little throw rugs stitched together to make a larger one grew in my imagination like a revelation. Twitch, twitch…  I had to make more but I needed to retrieve more yarn.

It’s important to face one’s fears.  However, it takes courage to face those deep, dark closeted recesses.  It takes bravery.  I am brave.  With the confidence of a warrior, I flung the closet door open to expose any demons within.  Skeletons rattled and cobwebs shimmered when the light illuminated there very presence and to my utter surprise, I bent to touch them.

With little to no trepidation I reached in to take hold of the cobweb like bundle before me – an afghan I’d started and never completed a decade earlier.  The nubby heads of knitting needles rattled their dismay at having been ignored – they sounded like the hollowed bones of a skeleton.   The ball of yarn I had borrowed from for my throw rug weaving project was actually one of five skeins, waiting patiently to be woven into this afghan.  There was nothing at all in this dark recess of a closet to be feared except a piece of the past begging to be a part of the present.  It actually felt more like a long lost treasure, one that you would find hidden in the depths of a Weavers cave.  I lifted up the basket of knitting and carried it to my weavers chair as if it were a newborn babe, thinking it best to complete this project before continuing on with more throw rugs then flipped through the How-to-knit book for the afghan pattern in order to refresh my memory with the stitches.  Then, I picked up the needles and began to weave.

Loops, twirls, twists, turns and knots all furled together in an intricate webbed design of my own making but not one looked like the diagrams included in the knitting book.

Try as I might the afghan in my hands would not take the shape of the one in the book.  I started to struggle with my perfectionism. Should I unravel this piece of art?  It was chaos at its best.   I began to muse about the wise Weaver’s of the past.  The tales I most relate to are the ones where the Weaver’s companion is a big black dog who causes chaos by playfully unravelling the Weaver’s work when she gets up to stir her cauldron of cosmic stew which brews over a fire.

I too, have dogs but I also have a cat.  All I need do is shift my position in the chair for mayhem to erupt.  I don’t actually have to get up; just stir a little bit in my seated position.

My dogs are very enthusiastic about their walks. What happens next is usually an episode of catastrophic proportions for my project. It’s amazing how fast you can move from your comfortable seated position when you need to hurdle after a rolling ball of yarn which is being strung throughout the house entangled amidst eight dog legs to untangle paws or save a helpless ball of yarn from a cat.  (Judging by the murderous look on the cat’s face as she pounced, the wool never stood a chance.)

“I am a Weaver,” I sighed, surveying the mess. “Oh what a tangled web we weave….”   

The Wise old Weaver always picks up the yarn and begins to weave a new story.  So too did I. The knitting needles clicked away to a song in rhythm with heaven and earth while they turned the darkness of chaos into magic and beauty.

I gave up on my perfectionist tendencies at the exact moment of the first afghan unraveling, then let the web-like weave be what it needed to be.  In all honesty, perfection would have been a stretch anyhow! I keep losing count of stitches but, I also get distracted and forget which stitches I am working on.  Whenever that phenomenon occurs, I just choose a random spot in the pattern to continue from.   I also realized long ago that the stitches in this Afghan were not like those depicted in the book – this webbed weave of an afghan was a definite original. I did however take heart in the knowing that at least my knitted stitches were correct.  Or so I thought.

The abbreviation for knit in the pattern is (K), knit 2 is (K2).  I’m not sure when I started seeing a different symbol for these two abbreviations but in my head they began to appeared as (E) and (E2).   The symbols E or E2 in Chemistry and Physics are for energy or for the type of energy needed to split a molecule into an atom.

The structure of DNA molecules are described as double helixes.  This afghan contains semblances of my soul like DNA. I have a feeling that the true stitches of this afghan are double helixes which are strands winding and twisting around each other like a ladder.  They along with the loops, knots or twists and turns of chaos contain magical energy to change our very DNA through information and connection.  While I was knitting, I was placing within the fibres of this afghan, stories of ancestors and musings of the past, present and future.  There are wishes and dreams for family and friends but there is also song; the sound of singing and that of laughter.  In music, E is a tone.  I suspect this afghan has a magical vibration that only happens when you put love into everything that you touch.  It sings a lullaby in the tone of E.

As I near the end of this creation and begin to cast off my work, I wonder if this piece of webbed weaving will ever truly be completed.  Only time will tell if chaos will find a loose piece of yarn and unravel my work but as long as I keep spinning these magical yarns you read, I’ll be able to weave.  Until chaos arrives, may all those who wrap themselves in this afghan find the warmth that love brings.

True, love didn’t hang in my closet but I did find a basket of it there and, I am a Weaver!

To read the full poem,

“Love Hung in Her Closet” please visit The Lonely Author at (www.thelonelyauthorblog.com )

Or check out a woolly wishes site,

By: knittingjane at ( www.woollywednesday.com )