by Charlie Rainbow Wolf
The deeper we get into our magical lifestyle, the more we realize that everything is intertwined. This allows us to delve even further into our beliefs and start to connect the mundane with the magical on many levels. For me, my favorites are gardening, cooking, and knitting.
Knitting—or crochet, or any other type of needlework—isn’t just making an article when it is approached from a magical perspective. The number of stitches, the colors used, the patterns interwoven—they can all be chosen to mean something. This creates an even stronger bond between us, the item we are making, and the person for whom the item is being made.
When we create a piece of needlework, we put our own energies into it. We each have an energy field, an aura, and when we work with our hands, we are moving our energy field to manipulate the yarn or thread to create a stitch. That stitch then holds a residue of the energy that we used to create it. Psychometrists work with this type of vibration all the time. By holding something that belonged to a person, a psychometrist can read the energy signature on that item and tell you about the person that owned it.
It’s not just about what we put into the item with our manual creativity. We can take it much farther than that. For a start, the colors can tell a story. Red speaks of passion, warmth, and vitality, while pink’s message is of love and devotion. Greens are healing and blues cooling, while yellows are uplifting and communicative, and oranges are encouraging and protective. Purple is a very high spiritual color, white brings purity, and black brings grounding. Of course, people are always going to have a favorite color, or one that is associated with them. Embellishments for the item being made for them can always consist of complementary colors, each contributing their own color-encoded message.
The numbers are important when including magic in needlework, too. Every number means something. Ones symbolize new beginnings; it’s not hard to see that one! Twos represent the duality in all things, which often comes with a choice. Threes indicate union, where things are starting to come together. Fours relate to foundations—the four corners of the earth, the four seasons, the stability of what we know. Fives bring with them changes, and often growing pains. They represent the realm of manifestation. Sixes have no real balance; they are three twos, or two threes, but have no real stability of their own. In numerology, sixes are a positive number and indicate a kind and loving nature, but there is not much strength or stamina here. Sevens are considered to be very magical indeed. There are mystical tales about someone being the seventh son of the seventh son, we talk about the Seven Wonders of the World, we hear about seventh heaven. Eights are very karmic. The symbol for infinity—sometimes called the lemniscate—is a number eight lying on its side. Eights, like fours, relate to foundations, but eights are not as rigid as fours. Eights also bridge the gap between the magical world and the material one. Nines are very mathematically unique; the three threes that multiply to make the nine create a geometric triangle. The energy of the number nine is humanitarian and forgiving.
Using the above paragraph as a rough guide, it is easy to see that we can work the magic of numbers into most patterns. I enjoy working with stitch repeats, trying to get as many different combinations as I can into the piece being created so that I can include as much math-magic in it as possible. Planning the size and shape of the item to be made in this way can be fun, although somewhat challenging! That’s usually not the end of the journey, though.
Once the size and shape have been determined, it’s time to start working with individual stitches. These can be just blocks of color, random changes every so many rows or so many repeats, or they can be meaningful in and of themselves. Aran knitting has a very rich history of stitch patterns, with such wonderful names as “five-fold braid,” “wheatsheaf,” “tree of life,” “blackberry stitch,” “coin stitch,” “moss stitch,” and more. It’s been said that these patterns were once a closely guarded secret, preserved and passed from generation to generation. Each of these pattern combinations was unique, so that the wearer of the garment could be identified by those who knew how to interpret the patterns.7 It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to see how these can be planned into the needlework to convey messages of their own. A lap blanket for someone on hard times might include the wheatsheaf stitch, the blackberry stitch, and the coin stitch to wish the recipient enough to eat and a coin to spend. The tree of life might be worked on a prayer shawl for someone recuperating from an illness, so that they might be reflections of the prayers for recovery and longevity.
Even when working with color, numerical values can be important. It’s very easy to use graph paper to design stitch patterns. Traditional Fair Isle, or stranded work, uses this method. Like the cabled patterns, there are popular Fair Isle patterns that have stood the test of time, including trees, diamonds, and snowflakes. The beauty of designing from scratch is that it is possible to include anything in the pattern. Names, dates, planetary symbols, runestaves, and more frivolous—but equally magical—items can be drawn on graph paper and used in the construction of a needlework item.
Both the traveling cable stitches and the stranded colored stitches take a bit of patience to design, because we’re working with multiple sets of numbers. Try to get numbers that are divisible by many factors. For example, a pattern worked over 28 rows can be divisible by 2, 4, 7, and 14. That means that another pattern worked over four rows would fit seven times in one pattern repeat, or that a pattern worked over 14 rows would fit twice over three pattern repeats. It sounds complicated, yes, but once you start working with it, it gets highly addictive!
Knitting and crochet are not the only ways that we can create magic in our needlework. The numbers and colors can be incorporated in pieces of embroidery, crewel work, beadwork, or cross-stitch. I once had a friend who made little framed cross-stitch caricatures for all her friends. Yes, they were whimsical and fun, but she also used the math-magic and the colors to enhance the piece, so that the recipient was given a truly unique work of art.
The magic doesn’t stop when the piece is finished and with its new owner. I still use my mother’s knitting needles, the ones on which she knit me a cape when I was eight years old. Every time I cast on a project, I feel her energy close, her hands holding mine as I manipulate the wool into a garment to give to a loved one, or a toy to share with a child.
All things are in all things, and the more magical our lives become, the more we realize that everything is connected. The energy that we put into making something stays with it long after it is complete. Whether it is yarn work or thread work, whether it is a garment to be worn or a decorative item to be displayed, the finished piece is a lingering reminder of the affection that we put into every stitch. With a little focus, we can turn this into a powerful prayer that has the potential to continue sharing the gift of love, long after we have departed.
7 Hollingsworth, Shelagh. The Complete Book of Traditional Aran Knitting. London, England: B. T. Batsford, 1982.