Knitting/Crocheting Do Define Who I Am. So there.

Two chemo hats for a special friend.  The one on the left followed the pattern; the one on the right followed my imagination using the pattern as a guide.

A prayer shawl made for the same special friend as the hats.
Again creativity overcame the written pattern.

In an earlier, much earlier blog, I related how a woman on staff from my church came into my safe room aka my creation centre where I proceeded to show her various aspects of my personality: my photography; the things I knit and crochet. The things that define me.  The things that I am building my recovery from workplace abuse on.

A special Christmas Tree hat for a special grandson

Very early on in the process of recovery, I started learning to knit.  Although I'd crocheted for approximately 40 years, I never thought I could knit.  It was beyond me.  Or so I thought.

And then someone mentored me on knitting.

Knitting quickly became my primary right brain therapy in the process of recovery.

It became a source of pride.

Although both knitting and crocheting involve yarn or thread and implements - a hook for one and needles for the other, it seemed that each one exercised different parts of my brain.  My creativity went wild with crocheting, but I felt calmer with knitting.

Various buttons to make it his own

Therefore it was quite a shock when this woman stood in my room with her arms across her chest and stated emphatically "This is not who you are."

It's not?  If it's not, then who, pray tell, am I?

And that was the question I was in the process of answering at this time in my life journey:  Who. Am. I?

My first (and only) knitted in the round dish cloth

Early one, a friend who is also a Christian repeated a well known verse in the Bible to me:  "And you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free."  She was talking about knowing what the Bible says about me, while I was thinking in a different way.  What is the truth about who I am?

That night I had a dream.  Not in the Martin Luther King Jr. sense of I. Have. A. Dream.  But still a dream.  One that caused me to think - and still think.

A basket of dish clothes - plus one scarf

This dream morphed from one scene to another.  In the last sequence I was suddenly in a room with mothers and babies - and a few fathers.   There were also all sorts of knit and crocheted things.  Each one looked familiar.  Each one was something that I had made and gifted - some to people I never met or knew.

One mother looked at me and said, "I was new in the area and didn't know anyone and you gave me this...."  The others were nodding.

When I woke up, I remembered that dream - which doesn't often happen.  And I thought of it.  I thought of all the things I've made and gifted over the years: baby blankets, baby dresses, scarves, dishcloths, etc.

I've given not to get back, not to get praise or money, but because this is a huge, positive part of Who. I. Am.

A very creative gifted person who uses her talents to bless others.