A Red Scarf

How fiber arts changed my life

Up until sixth grade, I was home schooled by my parents and older sisters. I learned all of the basics of math and the English language, along with things that I explored on my own time. One such thing started when I was eight years old, and would change my life.

My parents had a tradition of letting their children learn how to read somewhat independently. It took me until I was seven and a half to be good at it, but I never really liked reading. When all of my other siblings sat down to learn through the words of others, I felt left out. There was a gap in my education which was not expected by my parents because all my siblings loved reading. Why didn’t I? Well, I still ask myself that question today.

Since this gap of knowledge was only growing with time, my parents found a solution. Instead of reading, I was to find something I enjoyed and learn everything I could about it. I was only eight, and doing this was much harder than my parents made it sound. I tried a number of different things, learning about botany through nature walks and guide books; studying astrology with my mother; creative writing with my sister; and many other random but educational hobbies.

Halfway through my search for educational entertainment, I picked up a set of knitting needles and some red yarn. Like so many others, I started with a scarf. The needles felt heavy and unwieldy in my hands, the yarn reluctant to knit a stitch. I got about ten inches of the scarf knit, in its lumpy uneven glory. After that, I cast it aside to move on to the next option.

One day when I was rummaging around after being told to clean up my corner of the room I shared with my siblings, I found the red scarf I had started two years before. I was ten at the time, and had found other things to occupy my time. But something about that neatly rolled fabric around the polished wood needles drew me in. Suddenly I was pulled away from my cleaning and into the softness of the knitted garment. I made this. I thought, impressed with my eight year old self. I was given two needles and a ball of yarn, and I could make a scarf.

Something clicked in that moment, as I sat there looking at the ratty scarf. I was young, but that was the moment I truly understood the meaning of making something by hand. It was a turning point in my life, I started recognizing all of the things that I hadn’t appreciated before. The pickles that we had grown the cucumbers for and canned in summer. The quilts that my family had made to keep me warm at night. The nettle tea that we had gathered the stinging ingredients in spring for, that helped me recover from a cold. All of the lovely handmade things that I grew up with, transformed from things to gifts.

That unfinished scarf set me on a path that I am still traveling today. A path to finding ways to create a life in which I know from where everything comes. In which I asked where the ink in my pen was made; how the animals that were killed to feed me were raised; where the avocados in my taco came from; before I used or consumed it. That red scarf made me question my life as a consumer, and provoked deep thought about how other people lived.

I am fifteen now, and I have been knitting ever since. I make sweaters and socks and scarves, and hats, and gloves. I spin yarn with the wool shorn from my three Shetland sheep. Fiber arts was the educational hobby I had searched for in my pre-teen years. It has tought me so much more than how to make a scarf.

One of the most important lessons I have learned from my fiber arts journey, is the meaning of a hand made gift. Every year, I start making Christmas presents in October. I plan all the gifts I intend to make, buy the yarn, write the patterns. I ask what my friends favorite color is this year. I think about what each person would use and love the most. I spend hours knitting in my room, many people tell me I’m crazy. I know every second is worth it, because nothing in the world compares to being given a handmade gift.

Come Christmas day, all the people I hold dear will untie ribbons, and rib wrapping paper. Opening the boxes they will find a blue hat, a pair of pink mittens, a black cardigan, or even a red scarf. When you receive a gift that someone made just for you, just like when I found that red scarf when I was eight, it makes you question your life as a consumer. A present bought in a store will never compare to what you feel when you open a gift from me. That is why no matter what people say, I will always start knitting in October. Every stitch I knit, means one more person has a chance to plant a seed in their heart. A seed that grows with each article they read about corporate chicken farms, every avocado from Mexico they eat, and every pen they throw away after it goes dry.

An unfinished red scarf opened my eyes, and sparked something powerful inside me. The need to be respectful to the plants and animals on our earth; the need to know what being a consumer means; most important of all, the need to help others find their own red scarf in life.

~Ruby L. M. Johnson