Firstly thank you to those of you out there who suggested that I must read Handywoman by Kate Davies. I have been following Kate Davies for several years, saw all the pre-publication publicity but had wondered whether I really wanted to read it. Well of course I did, I have and am filled to the brim with admiration and much-to-think-about since I turned the final page.
Now the non-knitters amongst you, and even the knitters amongst you who don’t move in online knitting circles like Ravelry might be wondering who Kate Davies is.
In fact some of you might now be wondering what on earth Ravelry is...
To explain. Ravelry is a splendid online knitting community inhabited by many of us as a source of patterns and advice on all things woolly, and by gazillions more for camaraderie and a shared love of knitting. If you haven’t discovered it you might want to check it out; thousands of free or paid for patterns to download. You'll find me on there as Tamarsocks.
Kate Davies is an academic with a PhD in 18th century history which adds depth and insight to all of her writing. The knitting pattern books she has published come with thoughtful essays on things like lighthouses, and landscape, and the history of a garment and I always find them fascinating and informative. It was whilst walking to catch a train in Edinburgh seven years ago, that Kate felt the gun go off in her head before collapsing and finding her left side paralysed. After a traumatic misdiagnosis of stress-induced paralysis, Kate was eventually found to have suffered a stroke and spent the next six months in hospital re-learning much that she had previously taken for granted. There will be loss and grief, humility and elation, despair and exhaustion, revelation and determination, perception and discovery as Kate battles and confronts the demons of her post-stroke life, but she writes about it all with a narrative that both engaged and challenged me.
Not least as a retired (thankfully) health professional and how disturbed I was to read of the differing attitudes of the staff and others involved when it was finally discovered that Kate's paralysis was not 'psychological' in origin, but a manifestation of an acute and life-threatening cerebral bleed caused by an un-diagnosed hole in her heart through which rogue clots had passed en route to her brain. Brusqueness and off hand irritation became attentive sympathetic caring.
'Yesterday...I had been an over-achieving, attention-seeking hysteric. But today I was a tragic 36-year-old stroke victim... the right kind of patient.'
I can think back to situations I have been in as a nurse when those challenges have arisen. Working with mothers with post-natal depression was a big part of my working day and how well I remember one farming family who paid for a private brain scan for their daughter-in-law in the hope of finding that she had a brain tumour rather than a mental illness. Attitudes remain seriously entrenched and judgemental and Kate dissects and analyses her own experience with candour.
We say 'suffered a stroke', the words acknowledging the degree of seriousness, but I wonder how carefully anyone thinks about this sort of thing unless they, or someone they know has experienced it. It's a bit like us (but ultimately nothing like) and the recent Broken Leg experience. It took all our combined ingenuity and support to sort out the day-to-day needs of the Gamekeeper and his immobility. Kate and those around her had to figure out how best to support her in her recovery, and shining like a beacon throughout the book is her husband Tom. Patient, loving and supportive, and let's not forget Bruce the labrador...those of you who have followed Kate's blog will feel as if you already know them.
In the aftermath of this experience and the salvation and recovery that knitting facilitated, Kate has established a hugely successful knitting design business, published a selection of highly sought-after books and patterns and is now venturing into supplying wool and knitted garments. She has forged strong links within the knitting community who she praises to the hilt for their support and encouragement in recent years.
Handywoman is a multi-faceted book with a useful guide at the beginning directing readers to chapters that they may find of most relevance depending on their interests and reasons for reading. Me, I've just read it cover to cover and been both humbled and amazed, neither of which, I suspect Kate will be impressed by given her claim that she has no wish to be 'an inspiration to others'. It is inevitable, like any book published and sent on its way into the world, that reader reactions are safely out of her hands, and we can all be inspired as much as we like, and I was.
Inspired to make the most of what I have been given...
Inspired to understand and work with limitations rather than fight them...
Inspired to be sheer bloody-minded should the need arise...
Inspired to reign in fear when it feels overwhelming...
Oh and so much more...
But above all inspired to get that flippin' Rams and Yowes blanket out of mothballs, overcome the Terror of the Steek and finish it. It's five years since I cast on the flock, it's almost at the halfway point, this whole unfinished thing is a disgrace and I must sort it...
I feel I have barely touched the sides of Handywoman (the book has a dedicated website here) and the depths it fathoms in this blog post, but I can commend it to the house unreservedly. There is wisdom, learning and encouragement herein and I for one will be dipping back into it on a regular basis.
Meanwhile...do you think it would an unforgivable sin of commission if I were to turn the Rams & Yowes into a really lovely cushion...
I mean just look, it's about the right size isn't it...
Wouldn't it look lovely...
Somehow I think I know what you're all going to say.
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