Shawls harvest is a gift of the seasons

WHEN the weather has been too grumbly or blowy, grey or wet, or an unpleasant combination of those, I look back at my blogs or journals for times when it has been worse. Oddly this cheers me: perhaps because it provides a perspective in which the drama of a day is reduced to a data point; more likely because it assures me the broad sweep of seasons in which I am a bit player will move in its own rhythm and carry me along.

Having traded pumpkins and cornfields for barley and neeps seven years ago now, I associate harvest with the hum of combines in the fields, animals coming in for the winter, and harvest celebrations in churches. Without actively embracing the changes of the seasons, we can forget our role is important, too, no matter how small it seems to us.

Sunday’s harvest celebration service in Dunnet Church helped me remember that. The front of the pew was adorned with shawls knitted by Northern Loops to be given away by the central churches ministry. The pews were also punctuated with shoe boxes for Blythswood. In our cynical times, it is easy to say a shawl is just a bit of wool; a shoebox of essentials, even a lorry load full of them, can do very little to stem the tide of poverty and want.

That is, sadly, inevitably true and always will be.

As I drove to the village yesterday, a little boy on the pavement lost hold of his purple balloon and it drifted across the road.

The anxious father made sure the child was safe and then retrieved that lost balloon.

To the little boy it was not just a balloon.

I like to think the shawls and shoe boxes are like that balloon to the person who receives them.

‘WHEN we use our churches wisely,” I said Sunday, standing on my tiptoes to reach the microphone, “they provide an opportunity for us to appreciate our own gifts”.

The shawls on the front of the pew, the harvest of a knitting season, represent not only a lot of work but also lessons in working mindfully, actively thinking about what we are doing and learning about each other.

I think of them as prayerful shawls because between the knit and the purl stitches is the thoughtfulness of reaching out to someone, the active choice to knit for a stranger rather than attend to any one of so many other things, and the faith a simple idea has power.

The inevitable weariness, achy fingers and annoyance with the wool, the stitch, the needles, the pattern is also a gift to the knitter and the recipient.

As with any harvest, the celebration is sweeter for having been well earned.

Northern Loops is the name a few of us gave to our all-age knit-for-charity group 18 months ago when we secured funding from NESTA.

For those of us who first conceived Northern Loops and have spent many hours in cold church halls unfolding and refolding tables, handing out leaflets and making partnerships with larger knit organisations, seeing the shawls was a confirmation of the value of that hard work and faith.

A handful of knitters can make a difference in their community. Northern Loops is affiliated with Project Linus UK and the international shawl ministry.

We are a tiny dot on the map of the international shawl ministry, but we are the only dot in all of Scotland.

This year’s harvest of shawls will be celebrated in a calendar of our original designs with the Caithness landscape we all cherish as a backdrop, and we are already at work preparing for next year’s harvest.

Get knitting!

Northern Loops meets in Dunnet Church hall on the first Thursday of the month (except December), and in the United Reformed Church, Thurso, on the third Thursday of the month (except December).

Experienced or beginner knitters of all ages are welcome to drop in.

More information can also be found on the blog, www.northernloopsknitting.blogspot.com

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