Stitching a little peace into the holiday season

All I want for Solstice, Christmas and Hanukkah is peace on earth. I want it stitched firmly and forever into the fabric of life upon the fragile blue-green planet we call home.

Knitting, crochet, embroidery and other needlework don’t have the power to save the world from its folly in places like Iraq and other political hot spots, but they do have the capacity to provide ease in situations fraught with angst, discomfort and mayhem.

Whenever people anywhere are confronted with illness, loss or catastrophe of any magnitude, the simple urge to help surfaces strongly in those of us unaffected by those events, and what many of us do in response is knit, crochet and sew.

Almost as soon as the World Trade Center towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001, needleworkers began designing and making quilts to commemorate the lives that were lost and to honor firefighters and police officers who were there doing their jobs.

For years, the Quilt Project has raised awareness about AIDS and serves as a way to remember those who were victims of the disease. The quilt is so large now that sections of it travel the world and football fields are needed to accommodate its ever-billowing, ever-growing folds.

The Ships Project is still sending knitted caps, slippers and other items to U.S. military personnel serving on vessels stationed throughout the world. As of November, 79,412 handmade items have been sent to the troops.

Locally, knitters and crocheters have assembled at yarn shops to make caps for those undergoing chemotherapy, have gathered in their own homes to make layettes for newborns, and have sat down at Meals for Me to eat lunch and to knit mittens for schoolchildren in their communities.

Quilters have pooled their collective talents to benefit the Linus Project, which provides blankets for children in crisis. At the session I attended several years ago, more than 100 handmade blankets were either created or donated in one day.

The common thread that runs through such efforts is the desire to comfort, to spin a strand of warmth to promote the advent of healing. It’s love made visible, for love is what we do. We do and love becomes an active verb.

Is it possible that the key to world peace is as simple as gradually replacing all the weapons of the world with skeins of yarn and the tools to fashion it into sweaters, blankets and caps? It’s hard to argue or disagree with your neighbor when your attention is focused on keeping track of the 16 rows that comprise just one cable pattern in an Irish knit sweater containing five or six such complex patterns.

It’s not easy to lob a bomb at someone if your hands are occupied with winding yarn into fat, colorful balls or tending the sheep, alpacas and plants from which the fiber comes.

And if one is busy embroidering an ornate border on a child’s dress or hooking a rug to make a dark room brighter and cozier, it’s difficult to be peevish on general principle.

If all countries factored into their military budgets money for yarn, embroidery floss, linen and looms, I think peace, like a well-made pair of socks, would take shape and grow. The soul seeks itself in the beauty hand and mind create.

Snippets

Many thanks to the reader in Ellsworth who sent the vintage knitting pattern booklets.

A reader from Hermon e-mailed that knitters and crocheters travelling by air this holiday season may take their projects along. Airlines have eased restrictions regarding knitting needles and crochet hooks.

The Living Water Spiritual Center in Winslow will hold a Faith Book scrapbooking class Jan. 9 and Jan. 10. The focus of the book is on God, not on self. To learn more about the center and its programs, visit www.e-livingwater.org, or call 872-2370.

Ardeana Hamlin welcomes comments, suggestions and ideas. Call her at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.