Crooked Sticks

Hive detail 6"x6" (2002) Patricia Chauncey


My first inkling that I could make something festered in my small brain for days. I was four or five years old and visiting my grandmother's farm. I sat, like I always did and listened to the stories the old ones told by the greenish glow of the kerosene lamp. Insects surrendered to the flame and filled me with horror and awe. I tried to save them or pushed them closer to peril depending on whether they were deemed to be “good” bugs or “bad” bugs.

I looked at them so carefully and studied their structure, colour and eventual demise. I looked so hard at the flame that patterns emerged on the scorched retina of my eye. Eventually I noticed the tiny sock or lamp mantle that was so carefully knit. Doll stockings! I would sneak them from the lamps or beg for them after they were discarded.

My patient grandmother knew my games and curiosity. She gifted me with two crooked sticks and some kitchen twine and told me to keep my fingers out of the lamp and knit my own. I sat, tongue hanging out, and twisted and twisted the twine and sticks for hours trying desperately to create a cloth. Sometimes the twine would twist itself into a shape.Sometimes it would ravel and unravel despite my compulsive effort. No sock developed but determination and passion did.
I would invent garments and plan carefully the patterns the sticks would make. I brought the sticks to everyone I thought might understand but they just saw sticks and not the hope they created for me. They certainly didn't understand the little socks.

My parents gave me a tiny doll's undershirt and two doll socks for my birthday when I turned five and I welled up with gratitude. That year my grandfather taught me to thread a needle and sew a running stitch. He patiently explained to my very anxious mother that I was old enough to hold a needle and operate the scissors. My chest swelled up with the pride that big girls feel. Unfortunately I immediately dropped them and had sharp scissors lodged in my tiny foot marking it even now. But I can use scissors and thread needles when the light is bright enough.
Sometimes I still sew and knit tiny clothes.

I taught all of my children to sew a running stitch and watched as little tongues hung out in concentration. Recently I revisited knitting with crooked sticks. It is challenging but I think if I try hard enough I'll get it!