Of loss and love and renewal

We’re two weeks into the New Year already.

And now that my new and improved Bríd shawl sample is complete, it’s time to get cracking on Ard Rí.

Now, despite the gorgeous colours and stunning texture of Tara St 4-ply by Townhouse Yarns, I have found myself reluctant to get going.

Firstly, losing the original was a real blow. I loved that shawl. I loved that exact shawl. Not just the pattern, not just the look of it; the physical piece that existed in my universe.

Because you see, I have a lot of emotion wrapped up in that first Ard Ri.

Firstly, there’s joy. A lot of joy.

It was one half of a two-shawl collaboration with a wonderful knitwear designer named Julie Dubreux (she who Knits in Paris I’m certain you’re familiar.) We got together, decided to make two shawls – hers knit, mine crochet – using the same exact yarns and a similar starting point for inspiration. Julie was a wonder to work with. Encouraging and enthusiastic, open and creative. I started us off, she kept us going. I 100% love this lady. Top class human. No notes.

So, whenever I took my Ard Ri out of my trunk during class I’d thank my collaboration with her for its inception.

Ard Rí also embodied pride in my work.

During each trunk show and each class I could 100% guarantee a gasp from my audience when I fourished its folds away. Like a stand-up comedian taking a sip of water, I knew to hold for a beat as it was examined by the sea of eyes in front of me. Comments abounded; it looked like it was covered in wine bottles (truly a pandemic design, then), it looked like an art deco background, a halo, something vaguely pharaonic when held upside-down. It was described as Afro-futuristic a few times, too.

And I – theatre kid that I am – lapped up the commentary.

But then, there’s also a lot of slower, sadder feelings residing in its fabric, too.

It was my first creation mid-pandemic. My first project started and completed while cooped up in my home, vulnerable and isolated, cloistered and forgotten while the world around me grew more and more dangerous to my unprotected, diabetic body. Every stitch included a little of the thought “this could be the last thing I design”. Maybe that’s why I made it so grand and enveloping and mighty. Maybe it was my shield.

And to top it all off, we’d only just lost our beautiful dog, Rosie. So, when Townhouse Yarns asked me name one of the colourways, I named the golden one “Rosie’s Gold” in her memory. It’s golden, like the flecks in her brown eyes, and it’s warmed by the blush of pink on her chin.

I spoke to those original golden skeins and told them all about my lost dog, whispering into them as I wound them into cakes, and then I crocheted that grief straight into the fabric. I’m sure I’m not the only one who weaves memories of their life into their work. Intentional or no, I’m sure you do, too.

And maybe that’s why my Ard Ri re-make has been a tough project to start into; each stitch ahead of me on the road contains the loss of a beloved buddy, the fear of the first months of the pandemic, but also now, the loss of the original object holding on to all that emotion.

Perversely, this new one will also guard the newer grief at losing our second dog, Korra – no less dear than Rosie had been.

Grief comes in threes, they say, and though there have been other losses and shocks and trials between Rosie and the Pandemic and Korra, no others are so connected to this pattern. So maybe that’s it for a while. Parhaps Ard Ri can now rest and let some other, newer shawl take care of the future.

And maybe as these new stitches describe an old, retrodden path, I can use it like a spell to wrap and bind and dance around these three griefs, and maybe the shawl that results will be a new sheild, tempered by what went before.

And maybe, as before, when I unfurl it in class, the fascination and glee it inspires will prove to be just the medicine my broken heart needs.

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