Lela Nargi is the editor of a wonderful book for knitters and non-knitters alike called ‘Knitting Through It: Inspiring Stories for Times of Trouble’. A collection of writings from contemporary authors as well as some taken from the WPAs Federal Writers Project in the USA, the book brings together stories of knitting through adversity. The hardships faced are diverse - from war or the Great Depression to personal or political anxiety, a prison term, even struggles experienced by Native Americans over the centuries.
The idea for this book came to Lela during what she calls a “very gloomy year and a half” when her family was living in a rural spot and she was feeling cut off from friends and community.
“I spent a lot of time in a local yarn shop chatting with the owner and thinking up new projects so I’d have an excuse to go back,” Lela explains. “My isolation must have had a large part to do with it... and also wandering around the Internet as a way to feel connected to the outside world.” One day she says she “ stumbled” upon a website for The American Memory project, an archive in the Library of Congress (the USA’s national library) that assembled into one easily researchable database photos and documents related to the American experience.
“Just for the sake of it I typed in ‘knitting’ and up came hundreds and hundreds of pictures and texts,” she says. “Many of them were interviews with regular Americans, conducted during the Great Depression by writers hired by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. (The WPA hired many people to do many things at a time when unemployment was staggeringly high in this country; the writers worked under the auspices of the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project, which itself had many tentacles, including one in which the poorest members of society - sharecroppers, for example - were interviewed in an attempt to understand their predicament and how best to assist them.)
“There was such a wealth of excellent materials - great writing, beautiful photographs - I felt compelled to use them in some way. Considering the nature of the WPA and my own particularly unhappy circumstances at the time, I think it was a natural progression to think about hanging these stories around contemporary knitters’ tales of knitting through times of trouble."
‘Knitting Through It’ is not Lela’s first literary outing when it comes to needles and yarn. In fact it is her third. The first was ‘Knitting Lessons’ (published by Penguin and recently released as an audio book) and the second was ‘Knitting Memories’ (published by Voyageur Press and available on audio book). “I love the idea that people can listen to tales of knitting while they are actually knitting,” says Lela. She has also published a number of knitting related essays for anthologies and magazines.
Describing herself as first and foremost a writer, Lela says that, in 2001, in the aftermath of September 11 and the coincidential decision to quit the world of magazine journalism, she found herself in “sort of dire straights” career-wise. “A friend of mine asked another mutual friend to teach her to knit. I had the very distinct, urgent sensation of not wanting to be left out of this small event,” says Lela. “I’d learned to knit as a child, from my mother, but couldn’t remember a single practical thing about it. Later, when I was roaming around the country interviewing knitters for ‘Knitting Lessons’, many of them told me they’d learned to knit on the heels of September 11, searching for community, comfort, solace,
something to do with their hands, at a time when so much about the world seemed tenuous and sombre. That connection sort of took me aback and I tried not to make too much of it; now I realise I had done the same thing myself. As I write this I also realise that, perhaps, herein lays the deeper roots of ‘Knitting Through It’... ”
It wasn’t long after the practical knitting lesson period that an opportunity to write a book about knitting came knocking at Lela’s door. “I didn’t know how I was going to tackle it... the only way I knew of to begin was as a journalist: setting up a question - in this instance, why everyone in the country suddenly seemed to be knitting like crazy, and I thought I might attempt to get to the root why that was so - and then posing it to a bunch of people. Since I was learning how to knit at the time, too, this project also provided the opportunity for me to explore my own adventure through the process.”
After her first book Lela thought the knitting topic would dissolve. In fact, many other occasions to write about knitting cropped up. “I’ve never approached any of them as projects about knitting, strange as that may sound,” she says. “Rather, I write about knitting as I do other aspects of my life - as a means to explore larger questions about the world and how I fit into it and try to cope with it.” After such close examination of the role of knitting in people’s lives, has Lela come up with a theory on why this craft form provides such solace? “It works differently for different people, depending upon why they’ve called up knitting to begin with,” she observes. “The woman who knits to quit smoking was able to use it to redirect her focus. The woman who, as a girl, knit gloves for soldiers during WWII could feel useful and important in doing something that she knew would help others. The women who make hats while serving their prison sentences gain a modicum of self-confidence and also manage to leave behind their sadness for a short time. The woman who knits in her community where no one else does affirms herself in the face of isolation.
“The reasons are as varied as the knitters themselves, which is why I chose to do this book as a collection of other people’s essays rather than, say, an exploration of my own experiences with knitting. There aren’t just two or five or 10 reasons. That’s what so interesting and also endlessly relevant about knitting.”
In Lela’s day-to-day life the writer says she is seeing men and women of all ages discovering, or rediscovering, creativity and not just via knitting. “For some people it probably began with knitting, because that was the first craft to have recently become so immensely popular again, but it’s moved on to all aspects of making things - crocheting, spinning, weaving, sewing, cooking, canning and preserving (I just edited a cookbook on this - so many people are suddenly really keen to make their own jams and pickles) recovering chair seats, building bookcases,” she says.
“As a native New Yorker, and a 15-year resident of Brooklyn, I’m tempted to say that I just happen to live in a creative wonderland surrounded by scads of fabulously creative people.
But that would be smug and not especially accurate. Well before the knitting craze hit here, Martha Stewart’s magazine, for one example, was addressing this perhaps innate desire in many, many people to make things. Whatever you may think of Martha Stewart, good or bad, she really tapped into something that struck a chord.”
Lela’s creative and professional life continues with verve. She writes a newsletter/blog that she hopes to utilise to conduct some “fun, interactive things with and through”. For example, to coincide with an article she wrote for ‘Knitter’s Review’ about French/Icelandic designer, Hélène Magnússon, she offered an exclusive scarf pattern by Hélène that proved wildly popular. “I’m hoping people who bought the pattern will send in photos of their completed scarves,” says Lela. “I’m also hoping in coming months to offer more unusual patterns by other less-known (for the moment, anyway) designers out there. Through my books and the many, many wonderful knitters I’ve been privileged to meet over the years, I feel like I have an opportunity to help foster a community of truly creative people. Hopefully the newsletter will get this going. I’m always looking for new people to connect with and write about, and new stories to share, so I hope your readers will look me up and get in touch!”
Find out more about Lela
www.lelanargi.com [lelanargi.com]
Her blog
lelanarginews.blogspot.com [lelanarginews.blogspot.com]
Lela’s audio books
www.knittingoutloud.com [outloudaudiobooks.com]
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