There we were, five women and one man in a waiting room at Eye Center Northeast several weeks ago. We were waiting for our pupils to dilate before having eye examinations. We nodded and smiled politely to one another. One woman was holding a magazine at arm’s length attempting the impossible – to read as her pupils grew larger.

I reached for my knitting, my erstwhile dishcloth, the project I take along when I am obliged to spend time in waiting rooms and want to do a little mindless knitting. I’m using cotton yarn, an ombre of chartreuse, blue, yellow and white that I got at Wal-Mart. I hadn’t knitted more than 10 stitches before the lady with the short white hair remarked on it and the next thing I knew we were in a lively discussion about stitching. She said she is working on the most challenging counted cross-stitch project she has ever done – a peacock. The woman sitting across from me said she knits sweaters for children, and that she used to knit dish cloths, too, but had lost her pattern.

“Do you happen to have your pattern with you?” she asked. I did – a beat-up recipe card with handwritten instructions that my sister, Nancy, gave me years ago. I handed the recipe card to the woman and she copied the instructions in her own handwriting. The exchange pleased me. It was a small, private way to honor my sister’s memory, one more way to extend a few cells of her spirit’s essence into the grand stream of life. This is the pattern:

Dish Cloth

Cast on 4 stitches using size 8 needles and cotton yarn.

Row 1: Knit across.

Row 2: Knit 2, yarn over, knit to end of row.

Repeat Row 2 until you have 44 stitches on the needle.

Decrease row: Knit 1, knit 2 together, yarn over, knit 2 together, knit to end of row.

Repeat decrease row until you have 8 stitches remaining.

Next row: Knit 2 together 4 times.

Bind off.

The man in the waiting room said, “My grandfather was a farmer down to Waldo County and when he stopped farming, he and my grandmother knit socks and mittens. They set out on the porch sometimes and knit. He was from up in The County and he’d worked hard all his life. Then he had a chance to get this farm down to Waldo County during World War II and that’s what he did, he farmed.”

We all started talking together as if we’d known one another for years instead of minutes. Never underestimate the power of a simple act of knitting a dishcloth in public to spark sociability in a waiting room.

It’s odd, though, that for all I’ve heard about the new popularity of knitting and other needlework, I rarely see others wielding their needles in public places. The last time was in the winter at Scissor Excitement in Hampden, when a client was crocheting while having her hair permed. She said she’d learned to crochet only recently and each week she and several friends got together to crochet and watch “Buffy.” She was working on an afghan done in the traditional granny square design.

Other places to knit in public, besides doctors’ waiting rooms and hair salons, include public meetings, at the movies before the film starts, car repair shop waiting rooms and while waiting for the bus to arrive. Also on the bus.

Snippets

Weavers, rug hookers, knitters and spinners may want to visit www.halcyonyarn.com or call (800) 341-0282 for a list of their class offerings. Halcyon Yarn is in Bath.

For those of you who like to mix murder and mayhem with your stitching, author Monica Ferris has written “Hanging by a Thread,” the latest title in her needlecraft mystery series. Other titles are “Crewel World,” “Framed in Lace,” “A Stitch in Time,” “A Murderous Yarn” and “Unraveled Sleeve.”

Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.