September 2026 Substack: I knit, therefore I am

10 September 2026

This phrase came to me at a time when my three children were little and I was transitioning from physiotherapy and research into coaching. Parenting has always been deeply satisfying for me, and at the same time, as many parents would agree, it is wonderfully perishable work.

I would change a nappy and within minutes it was full again, prepare a meal and it disappeared or I picked up toys so that they could be scattered again. So much effort, and so little evidence that the effort had ever happened. But when I took up my knitting and saw through the rhythmical movement of my hands the triumphant mark of my physical existence: a stitch… I could lean back and exhale with a smile on my face. Dramatic? Of course, and funny.

A question that has been my companion for many years and that still moves me today is:

What conditions in our inner and outer world will give us a base to be and remain engaged in living a resourced life of integrity, creativity and connectedness?

This question arises out of my own life and my work with clients. I am worried. Many of us are exhausted, frantic, unsettled and desperate for moments of calmness, connectedness and ease. It frightens me to think that we live our lives individually and collectively out of a place of rattled disorientation when what is needed is a deliberate, intentional and care-ful engagement with the cultivation of a world that is alive for our children and grandchildren.

It is essential that we know how to gather ourselves, digest and distil what is essential in our lives and the context we live in.

Do you, dear reader, know what brings you back to yourself, your centre, your values and hopes?

We all have threads in our lives that will lead us back to groundedness and sometimes we don’t recognise them as such.

With this essay I explore one of my threads to groundedness in the hope that you too may recognise an unconscious practice or honour a deliberate practice that has sustained you, brought you back to yourself, to your values and purpose.

Knitting brings me back to myself but also connects me to the people around me. When my children were little they would complain and nag as soon as I tried to do a task on the computer. They saw me removed, into a world where they could not follow me. When I was knitting though they mostly settled themselves in their play. I was present creating a contained space for them to be in. I loved those moments of listening to their chatting and imaginary plays while unobtrusively knitting beside them.

Knitting does not always flow freely. Sometimes there are challenges and obstacles to overcome and I became curious in noticing how they affected my inner landscape. I observed my thoughts and feelings while translating a written pattern into my working hands, sometimes with ease, sometimes with frustration, sometimes not knowing how I would do something until it was time to do it and then it just worked. I perceived my inner movement and flavour when my hands worked forward towards accomplishment to be excited and eager to finish. And when I made a mistake: Do I undo and redo the stitches or do I just keep going, ignoring the mistake or working the mistake into a unique part of the work? There is no wrong or right here. But the one movement that was the hardest was the undoing.

An opportunity to practice undoing presented itself with a top that I knitted for my daughter but it did not fit her. While carefully undoing the stitches and rolling the yard into a ball, to my surprise I dropped into the same grounding rhythm and sense of calmness that I feel when I knit “forward”. Whether I am doing or undoing, my hands’ rhythmic dance gives me peace and a sense of ease. The uncoupling of knitting and an outcome was a liberating experience. My hands can dance for the sake of dancing and not only to work towards a product. This experience made my inner experience of knitting deeper: peace, ease, creativity in the predictability, a heart beat.

The sensual experience of knitting with natural yarn is dear to my heart. The thought of knitting a thread of nature into something I can wear makes me feel connected and enveloped by mother nature.

The textures and smells of the different fabrics and how they are best suited for knitting is beautiful: mohair, alpaca, cotton, bamboo. Knitting with pure raw wool for example gives a very earthy feeling. The smell of animals and outdoors, the feeling of lanolin on my fingers, the heaviness of the wool and strength it requires to knit is a full body experience.

Knitting with natural yarn and dye lets me remember my ancestors, groups of women and some men I am sure, sitting together, creating socks and jerseys that will keep them warm in winter or as an extra income as a home industry. Sitting around the fire, telling stories, singing songs while the hands were busy knitting, a collective activity of bonding, remembering and learning. A tight knitted family, what a beautiful expression of togetherness and connection.

Although knitting can be very structured when following a pattern there is also space for creativity that brings out the wild, reckless part of me, a part of me that often stands in the shadow of the systematic, planned part. My free and wild knitting project is a blanket made from patches of 10x10cm that I started before my son was born. Here I would let my body select the most unusual colour combinations and combine knitting stitches with crochet with the intention of crossing the line between knowing and emergent creativity.

These patches of work I would never undo. All of them are important and they are all one by one connected to the bigger whole of the blanket. It is a wild agglomeration of an emergent craft that has recently turned 16.

Knitting became my meditation practice, sometimes the rhythmical movements settled the whirlwind in my mind better than quietly sitting in a meditation practice.

I don’t make time for knitting in my life.

I knit between clients to centre myself instead of scrolling. Scrolling leaves me flat and removed.

Knitting leaves me grounded and connected.

I knit when I write so that the next thought may be formed in my mind.

I knit during talks and it helps me to concentrate better.

I knit while watching a movie.

I knit in coffee shops and I get many curious looks, some of the eye rolling kind, others send me a smile. I don’t make knitting important in my life, it just is.

I knit, therefore I am, fully myself, centred and open to the world.