Yarn Knot Alone

When my friend Nayna invited me to attend the meeting of the yarn group she had recently joined, I couldn’t resist. Well, I’m not really a handicrafts person but the women of my family are, so I’d learned how to appreciate it.

What really interested me was knowing the charity focus of this group: Crocheting, knitting and looming beanies for premature and new born babies.

The group had started last October and the word had been spreading ever since. The initial team was made of eight dedicated women. The ladies met regularly and yarned while having their coffee.

But they knew that their efforts should be focused for the greater good. They contacted two hospitals in Muscat and learned that they were in dire need of beanies for the new born babies to keep them warm. The group decided to form subgroups of people they knew to help produce as many beanies as they can.

They started the “Yarn Knot Alone” group on social media and invited volunteers to join. In their first meeting last month, volunteers — including my friend Nayna — were taught how to make beanies using a simple round loom. Between them, the ladies were able to produce 225 beanies that were delivered to the hospitals.

When I walked into their second meeting at the Jungle restaurant in Qurum, I was welcomed by a sense of calmness and positivity as the ladies were busy looming and chatting on different tables. I met one of the founders, Clodagh Cahil who explained to me the initiative and how their work is required now by another two hospitals, making them four in total.

The target that the group had was to produce 300 beanies by next month to cover the demand. She’d also showed me a bag of beanies with the Omani flag colours for the babies who would be born on the national day tomorrow.

One of the group’s future plans is to introduce looming to schools as a social services skill. She also explained how looming was therapeutic and proved to delay dementia that it had been introduced to many old people’s homes around the world.

Clodagh was excited as today she was teaching a new skill: How to make baby blankets, something they’d be producing now along with the beanies. She excused herself and I decided to wander around the tables to see the ladies at work. I bumped into one of the founders who smiled at me wondering where my looming kit was and if I had any intentions of learning something useful today. I smiled back saying that I sucked at handicrafts and that my real talent lied in trapping sick stray cats. She gave me a confused look before walking away (naturally!).

I joined Nayna’s table who insisted that I should try it out as she found it so relaxing. Needless to say, it wasn’t as easy as it seemed. The knots kept jumping out of the loom and I had to tie them more than once. I did two rows and the end result was bad that she had to remove it and start over again (sorry Nayna!).

As a measure of damage control, I decided to keep my hands off the looms and went to have a look at the blanket making tutorial. Over their looms, the ladies were discussing different types of wools, scissors and the vegan menu they should have in their next meeting.

Looming was not the only therapeutic thing in this room, but being surrounded by these wonderful warm-hearted ladies made me sense the power of making a difference.

Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com