The essay "Yarn" by Kyoko Mori expounds upon an everyday hobby that was firs thrust upon her as a home economics project, with plenty of trial and error. Reflecting on the project, she writes, "Yellow was a color I never liked; perhaps I was conceding defeat before I started." (Pg. 219) In part one of her essay, Mori chronicles her own story of knitting beginning with that home economics project.
In the second part of the essay, Mori tells the history of knitting dating back to Egypt. This part of the essay is peppered with a myriad of facts that are at the same time disconnected and cohesive, as she weaves them together in her writing. She writes, "Mary, Queen of Scotts, wore two pairs of French stockings-one plain white and the other patterned with gold stitches-on the day of her execution; the stockings were held up with green garters." (Pg. 221) Mori takes the reader through the history of knitting from stockings to sweaters, "they did not become popular as "sweaters" until the 1890's when American athletes wore heavy, dark blue pullovers before and after contests to ward off the chills." (Pg. 221) Mori's descriptions of the history of knitting engage the reader with quirky facts and imagery, keeping the mundane far from boring.
She starts part three of her essay comparing knitting and knitwear to having a resilience similar to that of people, more plastic and forgiving than other crafts, "As with people, so with garments: the strengths and weaknesses are often one and the same." (Pg. 222) She traces the meaning of the words "thread" and "yarn" concluding that to tell a story by way of weaving yarn is much more engaging than a thread of fact, "It is infinitely more relaxing to listen to a yarn than to lecture whose thread we must follow." (Pg. 223) In this part of the essay, she also weaves in her own personal story of knitting, marking the metamorphosis of her style of knitting from "casual" to "formal."
In the fourth and final portion of the essay, Mori notes that the craft of knitting was not always relegated to women. However, it did become a field dominated by women as she recounts a story about Latvian girls who lived prior to the 20th century creating a marriage dowry through the many garments they knitted. At the end of the essay, Mori concedes, "i don't know what to do with the history and the way it affects our daily lives." (Pg. 226) Through her years of knitting, she has learned to be creative and independent with her craft, yet when she attempts to make a pair of mittens for a friend thirty years after her home economics project, she has to go back and teach herself how to do it. This shows Mori coming full circle in her craft, being pleased with even the things she cannot perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment