For the Love of “Fibers”
Written by Dr. Judy Weinstein, M.D.
My mother taught me how to knit when I was
7 years old. I have vivid memories of that moment…..sitting on our living room couch together,
watching her face as she mumbled to herself out
loud, intensively thinking through transposing her
left hand technique for me, a righty. She could
not have known then how that loving mother-todaughter lesson would have one day impacted
my life so much!
box I made in that class and gave her for her
birthday some 40+ years ago!
By college, I was such an addicted knitter, that I
would sit in class knitting, and I was not the only
one! In the 1970’s, we saw the introduction of
over-sized hollow, light-weight aluminum knitting
needles, heralding the popular knitting fad called
“Knit a Dress a Day”. Working with size 40 – 50
needles and very thick yarns, each stitch was
Living year-round in a beach resort area in New
huge, and every project went pretty fast. I admit
York called “The
I made a few of those!
Rockaways”, the
By then, I was also doing
only time there
complicated lace designs
were any friends
in knitting, designing my
my age in the
own sweaters without a
neighborhood was
formal pattern, and makduring the suming such ambitious projmer. Although that
ects as a lacy, king-sized
made my childbedspread for a friend’s
hood somewhat
wedding! I admit that I
lonely, my insightwas tempted to keep that
ful and talented
one for myself! Eventumom brought me
ally, I added to my craft
up with a heavy
repertoire counted crossdose of arts and crafts to while away the time
stitch, hairpin lace, tatting, Tunisian crochet, and
alone. She would occasionally recall to me how I other general arts & crafts, in my insatiable quest
would sit quietly for hours, listening to music, con- for expressing my creativity.
tentedly working at the project at hand, forgetting
my feeling of being lonely.
Given all my craft-based hobbies, I instinctively
knew that some of my greatest talents lay in my
She also taught me how to crochet, to make
hands, as if my inner soul spoke through them. I
cords with knitting spools, (we called them “horse had great confidence in what they could do, but
reins”, due to the similarity in the weave pattern
I was also a good student, fascinated by foreign
used to make horse reins!), and needle point. By languages, especially French. Thinking at first I
the time I reached high school, we then moved
would learn several languages and become an
to the South shore of Long Island, where I dove
interpreter, by the last two years of high school, I
right into pottery/ceramics, and enrolled in the
had also developed a love for science and biolfirst “all girls” shop class on Long Island! We
ogy. In addition, I knew that I wanted to pursue a
learned wood carving, mitering, inlays, and the
career through which I could help people.
like. My best friend, Ileene, still has the jewelry
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