Picking up Muth's Knitting

A tender poignancy following Muth’s death is the passing on of knitting projects she started years ago but put down once she was no longer able to navigate the intricacies of handwork at which she previously excelled. My sister Joany has taken up a sweater Muth started for a baby who is now several years old. Other works-in-progress are in the hands of Muth’s church’s knitting group.

While up in Maine this weekend, I visited a friend of Muth’s whom I met recently and to whom I felt drawn. Over tea and lemon water, we talked about Muth, and dementia, and death, and community. 

And art! 

Lida is a doodler! A creator! She has a desk. Shelves of supplies. Pens, markers, paper, envelopes purchased at yard sales, scissors, off-cuts from a printer, little color-sample booklets from Pottery Barn, colored pencils, bendy doodads, yarn samples, Sherwin Williams color sample sheets—yes!

In short order we picked up stitches that dropped when Muth died and started knitting and purling new rows to that sweater of friendship, interlocking ourselves to Muth while also knitting up something a little new all of our own.

Uplifted, I pulled from my travel art kit a sheet of canvas paper, Faber Castell PITT artist pens, watercolor pencils, and pastels. Doodled freely and effortlessly. Joyously.

Sitting at Lida's Doodle Desk
4.5x6", mixed media on canvas paper
landscape
2015
$28