Crocheting has, in many seasons, become the craft du jour—modeled on runways and practiced on subways. And that’s just fine with me… what took you so long? I’ve been crocheting most of my life, since my Grandma Dorothy taught me the fine art of single and double stitches when I was twelve.

“Hands,” said Pope John Paul II, “are the heart’s landscape.”

Grandma’s lessons were born of necessity—she couldn’t see well enough to join her granny squares with black yarn. So I learned to do it for her. Many, many hours we sat together, crocheting and talking, trading yarn and stories.

“Stories are medicine,” said writer Clarissa Pinkola Estés. “They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, or act anything—we need only listen.”

There is something remarkably comforting and balancing in the act of crocheting. I get lost in the stitching—in the progress, colors, and turns. On long trips, I love to crochet to pass the time. Each stitch is a stitch of goodness. As minister John M. Mason said, “As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every moment of time.”

The time spent on each crochet project is time well spent. I give away most everything I make. I think of the person I’m crocheting the gift for as I create my stitches. Each stitch, like a heartbeat, is a stitch of love—a celebration of heritage and heirlooms, a tribute, a promise, and a warm wish for all good things for the people you love.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” —Chief Seattle