Like any knitting project, it started with a single stitch, but that’s the only singular thing about this story. Numerous balls of yarn, multiple knitters and countless caffeinated conversations later, a multi-coloured scarf was created by a small community in Dodson Valley. But for some, it’s a scarf that wraps around something much bigger than any one person.
Words: Britt Coker | Photos: Leonora Soares
It was Rory Hennessy who decided that he wanted to learn how to knit. Presumably, he could have just watched YouTube videos, but there was no reason to do that when he could receive firsthand guidance from friends at the Valley Coffee cart where he hangs out five days a week. It’s a regular gathering spot not just for Rory, but for residents living around the Marybank and Dodson Valley area. The walking group strides out from there on Mondays and Fridays, the cyclists fuel up as they pass by, and many people use it as their home office – or breakaway from the real one. On the cart’s shelves you’ll spy items for sale created by local craftspeople: mugs, beeswax candles, calendula balm – and wooden spoons, freshly whittled right there next to the coffee cart.
Rory began a scarf – a typical first-knit project – but the scarf was never his. He left it at the cart every day and over time at least nine other regulars would add their rows, picking up where the previous person left off. Some were more invested than others, but the scarf was, right from the start, very much a collaborative venture that, over the winter months, had numerous personal stories woven into it as well.
Ryan O’Connor is another regular who heads to the cart, and has done so for four years. He’s a talented painter disguised as a software engineer, who often works on his laptop at one of the coffee cart tables. Ryan watched the knitting for a while, then, inspired by Rory’s immersion into the hobby, eventually started his own knitting project too. “I was a bit unsure about it, but he [Rory] got a lot of respect from the community for just sitting there and knitting and not caring, he just did what he wanted to do.”
Ryan says one of the reasons it took him a while before he began his own piece was the judgement from people outside the group. Drivers would slow to take in the freakishly normal activity of a human being knitting. Rory also admits some people, “made snarky comments.” Society is suspicious of a knitting man, apparently. But Rory kept on doing what he was doing, and soon Ryan was knitting too. The practical element to a large social gathering like this meant there was always at least one experienced knitter in the group to lend two hands, or a reassuring voice, to a novice battling with skew-whiff stitching.
Meanwhile, Leonora Soares, a hobbyist photographer who lives across the road,noticed the hive of activity around the cart in June: people knitting…a woman whittling, “It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I said, ‘oh, there are a few other crafts going on’…and I just went over and started photographing everybody's hands and what they were doing and how busy they were there with all these colourful things, and showing their talents.” Leonara reflects further. “Somebody said, ‘wow, there is so much here. It's bursts of little things happening at the same time, but also in harmony.’ And the hazy sunshine was coming through, and it was just beautiful. I said, ‘wow, we're blessed.’ And the few moments that I had between my other jobs, I got to experience that; that relax you feel before you face the rest of your day. And you get to talk to amazing people.”
But while all the crafty action and friendship forging is happening on one side of the counter, Ryan thinks the success of the gathering lies with the owner-operator of Valley Coffee. “Toby, is quite a big part of it because he helps to facilitate it, and he's a bit of a connection between all the branches of the tree, being the barista there. He has philosophies that are probably counter to what most people in society have around things like money, and he has a view that money is just something that we use and we've decided has value. It's part of society, and we need to have enough money to get by and things, but for him, money is not the biggest driver or importance in life. This kind of thing is [connecting people], so he's actually set up the coffee cart, not as a business to make money, but to facilitate this, and then hope that he gets enough money to keep doing it.”
An inspection of the colourful finished product reflects the many hands involved. There are different stitching styles and some rows are knitted tighter than others. But Leonora says woven into the stitches was the stories. “There was somebody next to me, and we started talking about anxiety as well, and how we know just by watching someone knitting, not even doing it yourself, was already a good relaxation, and we were just talking about it and then suddenly our minds went off all our worries from that day; everything that happened to us earlier in the day or was going to happen later. It’s okay for now, just enjoy the hot drink and watch their hands going.”
Ryan adds, “there's something about knitting where you don't close off while you're knitting, you actually open up to people, and you become more present. And you're not thinking about things in the future or the past. You're right there.”
For the last four years, Ryan probably wishes he wasn’t always right there, as he has been experiencing chronic back pain, though the knitting has helped with the pain management. “For me, the colours are not as important. It's the texture, and that's what took me a couple of months of evaluating to understand what was appealing to people and what interest I might have in it, if any. And with my chronic pain, I've been going through some nervous system retraining as I release the muscle tension, and the knitting texture helps me to feel a sense of safety with all of that processing that I'm doing and reevaluating, everything around me, really. I've learned things along the way that have helped a lot too.”
Once he decided to try, he was all in. Of his knitting, Ryan says, “I'm quite ambitious, so of course, I go straight to a jumper.”
He shows me what he’s working on now, a flawless front panel, medium grey with mustard-yellow striped trim. “I put a little bit more work into the stitch so it has the texture over the whole jumper because I imagine wearing it and feeling safe in it.”
Ryan’s battling PTSD too, so safety is important for him. As is the coffee group. “For me, personally, I feel like I'm finally healing things from the past that I just left there in the back of my mind to deal with at a later point in life, and I'm finally getting the opportunity with the community to properly work through some hurts from the past and things that I've not wanted to deal with in life. So I think for me, it's really bringing out the fullness of who I am.”
“Part of the reason it took me a couple of months to pick up knitting and try it was because there's a bit of a stereotype with knitting being a woman's activity… For me, there was quite a tension between realising that it could be a really good thing for me with my nervous system and the textures and things, but then, wondering what other people might think of me, because I'm here in my community, and even though it's a good, trusted community, there's also random people going past all the time.”
“When I saw Rory not minding about that at all and instead being very, very relaxed and almost transforming into a new kind of person that we all really liked, I realised that I had to prioritise what's going to be good for me… I think I could have avoided that, but I didn't. I chose to just try it and for me, that's been a part of my growing journey. And, I'm really glad that I listened to that small voice that was curious to try it.”
Eventually, the knitters’ scarf grew and grew until finally it was done. Since Rory felt no ownership to it, who should they give it to? Leonora never picked up the knitting herself (“I’ve got too many hobbies already”), but it was decided she should be the recipient, in acknowledgement of her community involvement (she’s Dodson Valley’s Grassroots Recycling coordinator, and resident calendula balm maker as a school fundraiser). Leonora says she felt honoured. She offered to leave the scarf at the cart for others to wear if they got cold, but they wanted her to have it. As a small town coincidink, Leonora’s ex-husband originally started the coffee cart years earlier, with her eldest son a one-time barista there too.
Ryan says he’s planning to sell his house soon but he wants to stay living in the area predominantly because of the Valley Coffee community. He unravels the symbolism wrapped up in the scarf. “Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful in its own way, but what I see more is, when you remember conversations of people helping each other through mental health issues, and people who came along in tears one day to the coffee cart because they had nowhere else to go. And people were there with a hug and an open ear; that's the kind of place that it is.”
It’s surprising when something that appears to be the start of a simple one-person hobby turns into a collaborative effort that connects and heals. Life. Keeping things rewarding since ages ago.
Ironically, since Rory kicked off the whole scarf project, he is no longer interested in knitting, though he says he might get back into it if the cooler winter days motivate him. Whatever he decides to do next, if it can be done while drinking coffee and sitting at an outside café in the hazy sunshine, it could well turn into another project that the local coffee community joins in on.
