LOIA FEUCHTER
People With MS and the Courage to Give
Chapter 12: The Knotty Knitters
AFTER MY DIAGNOSIS, I taught school for another twenty-three years. When the MS finally slowed me down to the point where I had to retire, I thought about what I might do next. I loved to knit, so I started a knitting guild. At first there were just six of us in my living room, but now we’re up to fifty-four members! We do philanthropic knitting, mostly. Lap robes for caring companions, preemie caps for local hospitals, teddy bears for the fire department to hand out to scared kids, scarves for the men on the Mississippi Riverboat, blankets for a local children’s cancer ward. I am so proud to have been able to use this age-old art to touch hundreds of lives. Without my MS, none of this would have happened.
When I’d been married just two years I was told I had a demyelinating disease, a deteriorating of the myelin sheath around the nerves. The doctors told me I would need a spinal tap for a more precise diagnosis, but since my only symptom was a tingling sensation when I bent my neck down, I decided to just ignore it. Six years later, in 1978, I was diagnosed with optic neuritis in my left eye. I couldn’t see for ten days. That was the first time the doctors said the words “multiple sclerosis.” Up until that time they had just kind of skirted the issue. But hearing those words it hit me, “Wow, this is it. I’m going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life.”
I didn’t let the thought last long. I did some research and discovered that not everyone with MS ends up in a wheelchair and that there are lots of ways to work around this disease. In fact, after my sight returned I went right back to work and continued teaching fourth, fifth, and sixth graders for twenty-three years!
But it was the MS that finally caused me to retire. I was just so tired. I had to get up at 5 A.M. to get out of the house by 7:30 A.M. to get to school. Then I would work my day. School was over at 3 P.M., but it would take until 4:30 P.M. to get myself together to leave. It was taking every ounce of my energy and I had nothing left for my family. School, home, and sleep. That was my life.
One day my neurologist said, “You know, Loia, there are other things in life besides teaching.” I hadn’t even considered quitting as an option, but we talked about it and, yes, it was going to be financially, uh, not such a good thing, but I just decided that having quality time with my family was worth it. So I retired. Suddenly I had nothing but time on my hands. Okay, I thought, now what? I’m not going to sit around here and feel sorry for myself, but what can I do with myself?
I may not have had school bells and alarm clocks to answer to, but teaching was still in my veins. Thinking about what I could teach, I realized that knitting was a skill I would love to share. So that’s when I started the Knotty Knitters. At first there were just six of us. We would get together at my house—my mother, my sisters, my friend Sandy, my aunt, and me. My aunt was a longtime knitter and she brought over all her Cast On magazines—the national magazine for the Knitting Guild of America—along with a trunk filled with her gorgeous handmade sweaters. Browsing through the magazines one day, we stumbled on an article about an upcoming conference for knitting guilds in Santa Cruz, California.
I said, “Hey, guys, wouldn’t it be fun to check out this conference?” So we flew up to Santa Cruz and met all these wonderful knitters and learned about their guilds and how to form our own guild. We started ours before we even left the
conference. I offered to be president because I knew I could organize the guild and I had an idea of how I wanted it to go and what I wanted it to be. My sister then offered to be the secretary because, as she said, “I like to take notes.” Sandy chimed in, “I’ll be the treasurer because you know I like to take care of money.” We decided then and there that our dues would be five dollars.
When we came back from Santa Cruz, I sent off all the paperwork, then ran a little ad in our local paper that read, “Knitting is not a solitary hobby. Come join the Knotty Knitters.” I listed my home address and invited anyone interested to join us the first Saturday of every month. That first Saturday twelve knitters showed up. They became the first twelve members of the Knotty Knitters. We decided on our first three goals:
- to learn new things about knitting
- to share what we knew
- to improve our skills
But we all wanted to do something philanthropic, too, so I passed out booklets I had purchased for that first meeting to give the ladies patterns and ideas about the kind of knitting we could do for others. That’s when we decided our fourth goal: to knit for others.
We agreed that our first philanthropy project would be to knit preemie caps for the St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton. That was back in 1995.
Today we have fifty-four members and we’ve knitted hundreds of preemie caps for St. Jude’s and others. When we outgrew my house, I called a church to see if we could use some of their space. The receptionist asked me what we did that had to do with the church? I told her that we knit lap robes for Caring Companions, preemie caps, hats for stuffed bears—Precious Pals—for the fire department. Before I finished rattling off all the projects, we had a new meeting place.
We don’t ever force anyone to do philanthropy knitting. Members know that if they want to do it, patterns are available. But once a member knits her first preemie cap or teddy bear sweater, she keeps going. I remember when we first started there was a member who said she only knitted for her family. But as she watched the others making the adorable preemie caps, she said, “Well, maybe I could do a preemie cap, but only one.” Well now she’s knitting sweaters for the bears and she just finished a lap robe. Knitting for those in need is kind of catching.
Our philanthropy work keeps us busy. We knit bright-colored scarves for the Seamen’s Institute in New York for the men on the Mississippi Riverboat. We knit blankets for Project Linus, which we supply to the Loma Linda Children’s hospital cancer ward. Then we have a pattern that’s called a Five-Hour Baby Sweater, which grew out of a project directed at families trying to break patterns of child abuse.
Then, of course, there are the Precious Pals—the stuffed teddy bears—we do for the Knitting Guild of America. Our ladies just go crazy with design— hippopotamus sweaters and giraffe vests and more. We give these pals to local fire and police departments and they take them on their runs. When they come across traumatized children, they give them a dressed teddy bear. One time the fire company brought their truck right to our meeting so we could load it with bears! We’ve knitted for the Fullerton Fire, Fullerton Police, Anaheim Fire, Anaheim Police, Garden Grove Fire, and Garden Grove Police, and now we’re giving to the Santa Ana Police, too.
It was so gratifying to know that I had started this and had increased awareness of MS at the same time, but at some point I had the itch to see this thing grow. So I applied for, and won, a grant from a company that manufactures a treatment for multiple sclerosis.
I invited seventy people throughout the Southern California Knitting Guild to an “MS Knit-In.” My neurologist spoke and presented a slide presentation about MS and followed with a question and answer session. Then, I passed around tote bags with yarn and patterns that I had bought with the money from the grant. Each bag had enough yarn for five philanthropic projects. I described each project and explained which yarns were to be used for each, and then instructed the knitters to return in two months with their finished projects. “We’ll have the Return of the MS Knit-In! You’ll bring your finished project, a representative from each of the philanthropies will be here to collect them, and then we will have another neurologist speak on the latest MS research.”
At the “Return,” we had sweaters for the Children’s Bureau, lap robes for Caring Companions, scarves and caps for the Seamen’s Institute, preemie caps, and lots of teddy bears dressed in new sweaters. You could feel the excitement. I knew I had accomplished both of my goals—to knit for the philanthropies and to educate about MS—when one lady said, “[You have] so much knowledge to give—not just knit one, pearl two, cast on, bind off . . . but relapsing, remitting, secondary progressive, primary progressive, and ABCR Drugs.”
Every member of the local guild knows that without my MS, the guild would not have been founded. The obstacles I have overcome have made others aware of MS and the need for more research to develop a cure. I am so proud to have been able to direct my positive attitude toward an age-old art that is touching hundreds of lives.
Anyone interested in forming a knitting guild can visit www.tkga.com.
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