THE DAILY CHUM

The book Knitting the Threads of Time by Nora Murphy is a bit different from the other books I’ve reviewed so far. This isn’t a pattern book or instructional manual, its a novel, of sorts. The type of book I pick up in the evening when my hands are too tired to knit, or take with me to the hammock in the backyard.

When I first read the description for this book I wasn’t interested. A divorcee spends a year knitting her first sweater for her son. I imagined bitter complaining and self obsession. But upon opening the cover and reading the first few pages I changed my mind completely. Yes, the book is structured around this woman’s nearly year long struggle to knit her first sweater but that’s just the framework for what is actually a detailed history of knitting and the fiber arts in general. And the writing is beautiful. I am not trained as a writer and so I don’t know what the secret to good writing is. But this woman has that spark that all good writers have.

You may have noticed from my other book reviews that I really like for a book to teach me something. But it’s equally important that it keep me entertained and interested. I read enough textbooks in college to be weary of dry educational material. This book is packed with information. More than I could take in in one reading (I plan on reading it a second time for that reason). But it is delivered in a way that is beautiful and relaxed. Though I wanted to remember all the interesting factoids, I didn’t feel pressured to take it all in at once.

Every time the history lesson began to get overwhelming, the story smoothly returns to the woman’s journey through a year of life with her family and her sweater. Her sweater is, well, a first sweater. She is not an extraordinary knitter and may never be. But her experience with her knitting—the highs and the lows—are so familiar to me. And, I imagine, to most other knitters.

The only thing that I disliked about this book was its exclusion of male knitters. In an attempt to unify the knitters and fiber artists throughout history, Nora repeatedly refers to a “sisterhood” of craftswomen. And while it is true that women were often the one welding the sticks and string or tossing the shuttle, it is equally true that knitting, weaving and spinning have all, at one time or another, been under the domain of men. And in today’s knitting community men continue to play a strong role. So, while I do not discount the role of women in knitting’s history, nor the power behind the imagery of a unifying kinship of craftspeople throughout time, I would like to see our knitting family extended to include our brothers in the fiber arts as well. Perhaps when Nora’s sons are old enough to take an interest in knitting their own sweaters she will write us another book.

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