What do you do with the loose ends?

Adorable, right?

Recently I have started knitting again. This is something I learned to do when I was in grade school and belonged to 4-H.  (Does that club still exist?)   I have picked up the needles from time to time over the years but I admit, it has been MANY years since I have taken the time to really enjoy choosing a project and completing it.  My daughter gave me a starter set for my birthday this year (her birthday is today-HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARISSA) and I promptly knitted a hot pad.  The first one looked more like a Chief's arrowhead, but I quickly got back in the swing of things and have been very successful since.  Guess who my inspiration has been??



One thing that comes with any knitting project is loose ends.  At first, I didn't know what to do with them.  Erroneously, I thought one should just cut them as close to the finished piece as possible.  This would be WRONG.  If you clip a loose end short (and hope for the best) at some point in time, it runs the risk of coming unraveled.  This is because you haven't dealt with it properly.  A loose end must be woven into the finished piece so that it becomes a PART of the piece.  I had to buy a tapestry needle and learn how to do this, but it was really quite easy. 


Blest be the tie that binds.

It made me think of all the loose ends we have in our life.  Some of these we create on our own - and we can leave them dangling for quite some time.  Maybe looping around to revisit them from time to time, never quite finishing the work as it was meant to be but always having a knitted stitch where a purl should be in the pattern of what was and what is. 

And then there are the loose ends that happen suddenly - no warning and many times caused by no act of our own.  Now we too are left dangling, caught off guard and holding on tightly to this thin piece of thread.  Wondering how this rough interruption happened in our planned piece of work we call life. 

So many things I don't know, but this is what I do:  Sometimes we wonder if we will survive at all but  we must remember; the loose end cannot be cut lest we unravel completely.  All loose ends, good, bad or indifferent, must be woven into the tapestry of our life so they become a part of who we are and not just who we are.   

Until next time,
#iamapieceofwork

your pal,
Kari