KNIT TWO, PURL TWO

Knitting really is enjoying a resurgence in popularity these days. Seems like everyone is doing it, from movie stars to high school home ec. classes. I even heard of an all boys knitting club in one school and they were the big, beefy jock types -- knitting is suddenly "cool".

I grew up with a mother who was an accomplished knitter. She knit socks and mittens, hats and sweaters, baby clothes and Barbie clothes. One Christmas my sister, Tara, and I received knit striped skirts with matching vests --Yikes! I think we were thrilled with them back then.

I remember Mom teaching me to knit when I was around eight or nine but I lost interest fairly quickly. I crocheted for a while in my teens and early twenties; even have one fourth of an afghan to prove it. I took up knitting again around the age of thirty with the birth my second child, daughter Taylie. And now she is knitting with me, as well as her younger sister, Tessa. It pleases me that both girls are doing very well and it looks like they've acquired a life-long skill. Tess knits while standing or walking around, which is a new one to me as I see knitting as an opportunity to put my feet up. Taylie has joined with me and a few other women in knitting preemie hats for babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at Rush Memorial Hospital in Chicago where friend Mindy is a nurse.

It's gratifying to knit with a purpose beyond just creating pleasing items; there is a need for these baby hats. As we knit, the words of Psalm 139:13-14 come to mind: "For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." The babies we are knitting hats for are struggling with illness, deformity, effects of alcohol and substance abuse by their mother, handicap, underdeveloped organs, and fighting for their very lives. Not all make it. But God knows each one...their frame was not hidden from Him when they were made in the secret place; when they were woven together His eyes saw their unformed bodies, and all the days ordained for them were written in His Book before one of them came to be. (Ps.139) The Hand of the Master Knitter is upon each one of those precious little ones and I pray for the tiny little heads our hats will cover. I pray that the families of those babies, and all who come in contact with them, would be drawn to the Father by His grace, mercy, and healing.