I learned how to knit when I was in Grade 8. I was about 12 or 13 years old, and it changed my life. I first learned to knit at a crafting club at school, it was a few other students from my grade and one teacher supervisor.

We would stay after school, and at first, we just learned the basics, the knit and the purl stitch. Later on, we made snoopy washcloths and attempted mittens. Only one of us got a thumb done, and it wasn’t even me. 

After my initial learning, I stopped knitting for almost a year. During this time, I started high school. I was a young Queer person in a rural conservative town, so clearly, I had a lot of angst, and this is when my depression started. I began to feel the impacts of being queer in a small town, the stares, the fear, and the invasion of privacy from others. I began to self-harm and consider suicide. The combination of high school and being Queer, became too much, and not knowing where or who I could go to, I turned to my friends, who were also coping in the same way. Over time we began to learn much healthier and safer coping mechanisms, such as knitting.

I used knitting as a way to distract myself from my thoughts of self-harm. This worked for years. I had an old project I started when I first started knitting. I had gotten the idea that I was going to knit an infinity scarf, as they were all the rage in 2014. I convinced my mother to buy me one skein of yarn, which I was convinced was enough to knit an entire scarf. It was, in fact, not. When I first started this project, I likely only finished about 20ish rows, then it sat in my closet for a year or so. When I figured out I needed a way to distract my hands, the knitting made perfect sense. So, I began knitting again, and eventually, I finished that skein of yarn. My scarf was nowhere near finished, but somehow, I had this crazy idea—I was going to knit a blanket with no pattern.

 “I love the idea that each centimetre of yarn is touched by me,
that each part of the yarn is knitted with care.”

At this point, I’d stopped self-harming, and focused on knitting. I was still grappling with my Queer identity, but at this point, I knew I was just a few years from leaving, from graduating. I developed a blanket pattern I still use today, six years later. I knit 17 blankets in my senior year of high school for my friends and teachers. I knitted. All. The. Time. During lunch, after school, into the night, and even during class at times. My record is one blanket in one week. I didn’t do any of my homework during that week, nor did I get enough sleep, but it was worth it to make a handmade Christmas gift for someone who deserved it.

Since high school, I’ve taken a few breaks from knitting to focus on my studies, but I’ve always found my way back to it. Knitting gives me a sense of comfort and accomplishment when I can see my project growing and when I’ve finally cast off and woven in all my ends. I used to take my knitting everywhere with me, and still do. Road trips, parties, gatherings, school, you name it, there is a good chance I’ve got my current knitting project in my bag. It keeps me going, thinking about finishing my current projects or bonding over current projects with friends. I love the idea that each centimetre of yarn is touched by me, that each part of the yarn is knitted with care. 

“I can say without a doubt that knitting saved my life, and without it,
life would not be as beautiful.”

Knitting has helped me slow down, to remember that not everything is go go go, that not everything needs to be as fast as possible and that there is beauty in slowing down and taking your time to put care into what you are doing. It also helped me through a really tough time in my life. It helped me stop self harming and distract my hands and brain from suicide. I can say without a doubt that knitting saved my life, and without it, life would not be as beautiful.

Main Photo Credit: Tara Evans on Unsplash