The moment this pattern was released, I knew I wanted to cast on. The pattern photos featured tender details and bright pastel colors that immediately drew me into every design element. I’m not typically drawn to colors featured in the original pattern but I took the opportunity to explore new colors in my work, and attend more closely to the taste of the designer. I loved the low-key, yet completely brilliant design of this pattern. More than the tassels and the dropped stitched, I loved being a part of knitting for maternal grief. The designer, Safiyyah Talley @drunkknitter, experienced child-loss before becoming pregnant again. She’s donated 50% of every Touch of Joy Shawl purchase to Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc., a support community for parents who have experienced grief associated with pregnancy and infant loss.
Since my husband and I struggle with infertility ourselves, it is incredibly meaningful for me as a woman and a maker to support other folks who experience grief around childbearing, too. This grief can be acutely isolating and debilitating. One of my aspirations as an artist is to make space to discuss maternal grief, to express this grief in the organic ways it can manifest.
Since the release of this pattern, Safiyyah has given birth to rainbow baby. Although I don’t know her personally, I’ve come to know her from a distance through the Instagram knitting community. Her perseverance is inspiring. I am immeasurably happy for her and her parter.
As I knit, I could almost feel the grief of other women. Of course this sounds incredibly arrogant. I mean to only suggest that embodied grief is deeply personal while at the same time ubiquitous. But if maternal grief is so ubiquitous, why do we hide our pain from other women and our families and conceal our emotions in blogs and forums and copious internet searches? Why do we attempt to mitigate our pain in secret. So many of us hold grief differently. I’m attempting to knit my grief, because the act and repetition and the clicking of needles mimics the weaving of lives and pain and sadness and hope.
I’m coming to this shawl like I come to my experience trying to conceive: with the knowledge that nothing is perfect and sometimes I have to just let go and let what is going to happen, happen. That is all to say there are numerous mistakes turned surprising gems in this piece. I miscounted the first repeat section, but only realized my mistake a few sections after. This is normally a mistake I would tink back to fix. Even if a mistake isn’t noticeable, I can obsess over it because I know it’s there. I somehow talked myself into moving past this mistake and I’m so happy I did. The mistakes kind of snowballed from there, particularly when I got to to the bias. Basically, I just lost count and surprisingly adopted a “oh, forget it!” attitude. This shawl does not suffer for it, and the drape is wonderfully squishy and delicious.
Tassels!! As many pompoms as I’ve made, I have no idea why I’ve never made a tassel. I have been missing out. It was exceptionally easy after watching a quick YouTube video. They are everything when it comes to this shawl. They bring it to life—make it subtly whimsical and classy.
Knitting this shawl was a joy, and it knit up rather quickly. From start to finish, this was an emotional knit. Since I theorize frequently about the connection between knitting and women’s grief, I was pleased to see others relishing the same connection. Of course, I thought about my hope for a baby with every stitch. When we are faced with constant disappoints and bad news and failed IUI’s, it often feels impossible to have hope. But the knitting this beauty offered me a reprieve from my grief and sank into my guts with joy and hopefulness and love.