Guest Post: Never Give Up

You might know Sue (Mac’s Girl) from her lovely nature blog, where she takes us along on seasonal walks and shows us both vistas and details, and also shares observations of the nature in her backyard. Her photos bring out the beauty in even grackles and starlings!  And perhaps you have even found her blog of childhood memories of growing up in England, and the influence of those memories on her thoughts today.

So when my recent post about Knitting for Victory in the 1940s struck a chord with her, I took the opportunity to ask her to do a guest post, and she graciously agreed.  So here it is — all text and photos are copyright Sue Farwick, and I thank her for sharing them here!

When Gwen very kindly invited me to write a guest post for Deep In The Heart Of Textiles, about my mother’s knitting, I was happy to share some fond reminiscences of Mum’s favorite hobby.

Since she had no natural aptitude for needlework when she was a schoolgirl, back in 1924, the teacher suggested that she try knitting instead, and the first job that she had when she left school was as an assistant in a wool shop. It was there that she learned to crochet, and part of her job required her to sit in the shop window and demonstrate both knitting and crocheting. She always said that if she and Dad ever won the football pools, she would buy a little wool shop of her own but sadly this plan never came to fruition.

During the war, when London was being bombed, Mum found knitting to be a very calming pastime. Often the family could be found sheltering under the big dining room table with Mum busily plying her knitting needles. She wasn’t about to let a few bombs get in the way of finishing off a sweater for Dad or some gloves for Grandma. (Dad was away at the time, serving in the RAF in India so she thought he might feel the cold when he came home.)

I was born a couple of years after the war ended, and you can bet I was well kitted out with shawls, matinee jackets and bootees. I still have a pair of bootees that she knitted for me more than 75 years ago. The only thing she made for me when I was a child that wasn’t a success was a knitted swimsuit. It itched like crazy and sagged embarrassingly when it was wet.

Mum was one of those people who could knit a sweater or whatever while watching the TV, and I think almost everyone in our family received, at one time or another, a gift of her handiwork. She also did the most beautiful embroidery and needlepoint and even dabbled in rug-making for a time.

She rarely made anything for herself. I suspect that much of the pleasure she got from these pursuits was in the giving. Our house is full of reminders of the hours she spent on these crafts, from crocheted doilies and embroidered tablecloths to framed crewelwork on the walls and latch-hook rugs on the floor. She crocheted miniature tablemats for my daughter’s doll house and snowflakes for the Christmas tree. But knitting was her favorite pastime. And when the work was complete, one of the things we enjoyed doing together was going to the store to pick out just the right buttons to finish the job.

But by the time she had reached her late eighties her eyesight started to fail, due to macular degeneration. It was heartbreaking to see her frustration as she was eventually reduced to knitting scarves, the only thing she could manage without having to look at a pattern and even then, dissatisfied with the result, undoing all her work and redoing it time and time again.

Without her beloved pastime she was bored and miserable especially in the winter when we couldn’t go out for walks. She yearned to do something creative but was shackled by her inability to see properly or even distinguish colors. It was then that I suggested that she try painting.

At first, she threw up all kinds of objections saying, “I’ve never painted anything in my life! I wouldn’t know where to begin. I wouldn’t be able to tell what colors I was using. It would look awful!!!” And I argued right back, “It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter if everything’s the wrong color. It doesn’t matter what it looks like or what anyone thinks of it. It’s your work. Your creation. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. You are doing it for your own enjoyment!”

So, we went out and bought paints, canvas, and a smock. We already had brushes and an easel as I’d tried my hand at painting a few years earlier. We set everything up in the brightest room in the house and away she went.

She was hesitant at first and kept asking my advice. I set out the colors in groups on the table; blues, greens, warm colors like pinks and reds, so she would have a rough idea of which ones to use. But then I told her, “You’re on your own now. This is your work, Go to it.”

This gave her the kick-start that she needed to throw all caution to the wind. Every morning, after breakfast and the few little chores that she had taken it upon herself to do around the house, she would don her smock, open the paints and get to work. She set to with such ferocious energy that, in the evening, I would have to creep into her ‘studio’ and wipe the paint off of our beautifully finished wood floors and white walls.

The result of her efforts absolutely amazed me! She was reluctant to receive any praise at first, possibly feeling it unmerited, but I could tell that she was gradually becoming increasingly proud of her work. Whenever we had visitors, she would take them into her room to show off her latest piece. She even insisted on taking photos of her artwork to send back home to her few remaining relatives in England. We used to tell her, half-jokingly, that she ought to hold an exhibition. And eventually we did. When she passed away in 2010, just two months short of her 96^th birthday, her memorial service included a display of her artwork.

She used to have a motto taped to the wall by her bed which said Never Give Up and she lived up to those words right until the end.

 

I thank Sue so much for sharing her mum’s life of art and craft with us.  I am in awe of the high quality of her work in so many different areas!  And I love the way Sue captured that feeling of content and fulfillment that crafting provides for us.

I hope you will drop by one of Sue’s blogs, and also, if you have a textile story to share, I would love to hear about it!