When I was in my early teens, my mother made or got hold of a white tablecloth that was covered all over with iron-on patterns of flowers and vegetables. It was big enough that the four of us (my mother, my sisters, and me) could each take a corner to work on simultaneously. I learned to make French dots, satin stitch, and what for lack of a better term I will call outline stitch. I loved watching the pale blue ink shapes gather color and form. I prided myself in filling every bit of space with yet another well-placed stitch, and I decided I wanted to emulate Mama and Aunt Kathy, who could make the back side of their work look almost as good as the front. Perhaps I had a greater stillness of soul then than now because I don’t remember ever accidentally yanking anybody else’s work out of their hands at the wrong moment. I believe sister Laura has that tablecloth, and that makes me glad.

My first foray into needlework, at around age 10, was learning to knit. Mama taught me the stockinette stitch and I set out to knit a striped case for a small throw pillow. Then I made the mistake of setting my work down in the middle of a row. When I came back, I spent quite some time knitting in the wrong direction, wondering what the heck was going on. As an adult I have learned the phrase “tink,” which is “knit” backwards, and it describes what you do when you figure out what you have been doing wrong. My early days were just as much tink as they were knit. Another concept I have come to appreciate is “lifeline.” When you are embarking on a difficult section of your knitting, say the toe of a sock, you first run a contrasting color of yarn through your row of stitches and tie it in a loose circle. That way, you can yank all your recent work out, and not wind up unraveling your entire project.

I also learned how to darn socks! My mother had a “darning egg,” which was a wooden egg shape on a stick, which you would place inside of your sock so you could have a smooth surface on which to weave your patch. One day I wore some darned socks to school. At some point I had occasion to take my shoes off, leaving my socks for all to see. “Gee whiz, Evelyn,” said the class brat. “Your family must be poor!” Despite the agony of that moment, I was proud of my mother’s ability to patch things. In my early twenties I decided to try darning socks. However, when I went to the craft store and asked for a darning egg, the clerk stared at me and popped her gum. I learned that a lightbulb makes a handy substitute.

I long ago gave up darning socks; now I prefer to knit them. It’s an expensive and inefficient practice, but it provides a modest dose of balm for my soul, and I like to think it earns me a few cosmic brownie points from time to time.