This is Women’s Health Week. The emphasis is on educating women about the various aspects of living in a healthful way. Efforts are being made to get the word out about women and heart disease, women and breast cancer, women and mental health.

Knitting, needlework and information about them probably won’t be among the many activities agencies and organizations are sponsoring, but I think it should be. They are great stress reducers, dazzle the mind with color and texture, and engage the mind in following a pattern or inventing one. Paradoxically, they also allow the mind to relax and wander toward subterranean things that need thrashing out, especially when the knitting is plain and repetitious.

Knitting and other forms of needlework, such as quilting, are an impetus for women to seek their own kind to join a group or form one. This widens one’s spectrum of acquaintances and may lead to new and lasting friendships. It engages a woman in shared responsibility for the group and can propel her into service and leadership.

Knitting and sewing, crocheting and quilting are the means by which women practice the art of love by making something beautiful for a best beloved.

It’s the ideal way to live the idea that love is an active verb. The resulting quilts, sweaters, mittens, scarves, pillows or toys are love made visible. Expressing love, and receiving love in return, is surely a mark of good mental health.

A direct result of stitching for loved ones or for ourselves – we must love ourselves in order to be strong and healthy – is pride, pride of accomplishment, pride in an ability to start and complete a task, pride in the intelligence it takes to put old skills to good use and to master new ones. Stitching gives a sense of satisfaction at having met a challenge, proving that she can stay the distance.

If we work with natural yarns – wool, silk, cotton, linen – we are “threading” ourselves into the very heart of the Earth whence those fibers have sprung. That heightens our awareness of our dependence on Mother Nature.

This may be naive of me, but surely anyone who can master the intricacies of knitting an Aran Isle sweater or knitting a shawl in a complicated lace pattern on needles the size of toothpicks with yarn as fine as cobwebs is capable of dumping the worst of bad habits.

Building a sweater is a process that takes time. Building a new way of being and a more healthful lifestyle also is a process that takes time. Knitting a sweater or re-knitting a lifestyle requires others who will teach, support and applaud what we attempt to do.

Sometimes, the act of doing needlework can be the means by which we grieve for something or someone we have lost. The quiet time spent knitting or crocheting invites reflection and contemplation. Indeed, designing and stitching a mourning sampler to honor the memory of a lost loved one, or aspect of our lives, is a centuries-old tradition, one that ought to be revived.

Those in the throes of quitting something – smoking, getting out of a bad relationship, ingesting substances that are bad for body and soul – may discover that knitting needles give the hands something else to hold onto instead of the damaging substance – at least that is my theory. It seems to me that whenever the human hand is put to good use creating something useful or beautiful, it cannot be employed in doing something destructive and hurtful.

Thread and yarn are the primary components of knitting and needlework. They serve as a universal metaphor for linking things – a common thread, the thread of life, the warp and weft of humanity. To knit, sew or crochet is to tie one’s humanity to that of others. It places the needleworker in context – no better or worse than anyone else, a unique individual with talents and skills, with joys and sorrows, with family and kindred.

Needlework has a winnowing effect on those parts of us that need to be subdued and tamed. It enmeshes us in what is good, right and kind, and serves as a door into our better selves and as a door outward into the broader avenues of community.

Surely, such moments of grace are an important ingredient in cultivating the garden of health.

Snippets

The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America is accepting quilt panels for its gigantic, dementia-related Quilt to Remember that now contains 100 4-foot-by-4-foot panels. The quilt will tour major cities in the United States from May to November. For information on how to contribute quilt panels in memory of a loved lost to Alzheimer’s or suffering from the disease, and as a tribute to those caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease, visit www.alzquilt.org.

The Maine Crafts Association will hold a weekend of workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle. Participants will have the opportunity to dabble in paperclay, blacksmithing, quilting, cuttlefish casting, bookbinding and darkroom-free photographic processes. For more information, e-mail info@maine crafts. org or visit www.mainecrafts.org.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.