14th December
Last night, I came across my favourite ever so far yarn bombing things. Look at these penguins! So many little penguin stories in their faces and various attire. So much woollen fun in the woollen snow. So much joy over a little woollen fish.
Stealth knitters (or crocheters…? Apologies for purists that I don’t know….) of St Albans bearing hope to passers by. Tiny penguins bearing joy to the world.
I’m noticing how they are on the way somewhere. Haphazardly balancing or mid slide on top of a postbox, each one about to pilgrimage somewhere. Off to skate through the night, scarf flying behind. About to do a little dance of joy over a stripy fish. Subtly rocking to private music. Inwardly dancing in glee at being a snowperson successfully masquerading as a penguin. Undertaking the serious task of showing the word an amazing new multicolour felt ball hat.
And I’m thinking of other people I know who bear hope like these yarn-bombers. Bring beauty into the world through yarn and multicolours and Often Small Good Things. My generous and glorious friend Phoebe Foxtrot, faithfully filling her part of the world with kindness and glitter and hopeful stories. And loveFibre. My mum. Bearing hope to herself and others and me, by making. Bearing hope and making hope as each fibre is held in her fingertips and forms into yarn. Bearing hope as it fuses into felt or the shuttlecock flows on and on until something is woven that wasn’t there before. Bearing hope in looking for and finding and sharing beauty, in each tiny thing she sees and holds and each incredible thing she makes.
Thinking how each making bears hope, and each maker bears hope to be able to make it.
How this year I made Christmas cards after Failing At It for a few years. How the paint meeting the paper, the wool twisting and tangling its way into a new shape, colours combining, words going out into the world, each step of each pilgrimage, making or walking or any of the ways we keep going - how all of these bear hope. To ourselves. To friends and daughters and passers by looking at penguins.
[Image description: four yarn penguins and one yarn snowperson on yarn snow, topping a postbox. One wears a red hat with ear flaps and carries a white fish with red stripes. One has a long red scarf. The snowperson has a top hat and blue scarf and carrot nose and genuine smile. Penguin number four has a multicoloured scarf and hat (or hood?) made entirely of tiny felt balls. And number five seems to be the cool one, a different grey to their friends, ear phones, bright yellow bill, and a purple scarf which if you look closely, is a bit sparkly.]