Lavender-stained thread sits tangled on the floor as I twist it in small circles over a four-millimeter hook. The TV plays softly in the background to hide the sound of yarn being pulled so tight it squeaks as it’s pulled over the hook’s edge. I count out two hundred stitches and then recount because the inevitability of missing a stitch becomes second nature to the craft.
I watch impatiently as the project grows bigger, occasionally checking to see if the pattern I committed to memory turned out correctly in practice. It looks right to me, and when it doesn’t I pull it undone until the mistake is no longer visible.
My back hurts from being hunched over the yarn, but my fingers hurt worse from keeping everything in place. I have to keep the yarn taut, or else the stitches will be loose and unorganized, and I have to keep the hook moving to get everything done. I want so desperately for the project to look uniform and flawless, but I also want to be done with the whole thing. The payoff is what I care about. It’s the reason ten hours to spare on weekends are always used up in the brutal counting of stitches, undoing, and redoing.
Static fills my ears and my mind; the redundancy of what I’m doing washes every thought from my head and replaces them with the image of the final product, and hides the pain in the space between stitches.
If I stop, I doubt I will ever go back to it. More yarn woven together to sit idle in my closet. My fingers hurt so badly I can no longer count stitches; the project looks right to me. When I straighten out my back, I can hear it popping down the length of my spine, and both my legs have fallen asleep under me.
Soon the natural light that illuminates the yarn and helps me see the project grow is replaced by the darkness of nine p.m. in the summertime. I turn on my overhead light and continue, but not even the fluorescence can make my eyes stay open forever. One more round, and then I’ll be done. I don’t know why I feel the need to lie to myself in my own head.
I think I missed a stitch somewhere. I should go back and redo it, but if I keep going, will I even notice the difference in three rounds? My hands are shaking to the point I can barely pull the string to undo the stitches. I redo what I’ve undone, each blink of my eyes lasting longer than the last, and even though I realize that at four a.m., my ability is obsolete, I can’t put the hook down.
My fingers are screaming at their inability to function. The yarn has rubbed my first finger raw, hours of running yarn over the same spot and wrapping it around the hook, wearing down my skin like weathering rocks.
But it’s not done yet.
Creed Taylor is a student.