Barrelhouse Presents My Weird Pandemic Obsession: Knitting Lips, by Tara Campbell

At the end of April, I stumbled upon fiber artist Yrúarí’s fanciful work reclaiming old sweaters with audacious red lips sprouting out from everywhere and pointed tongues snaking beyond imagination. I bought her pattern and ordered the right set of needles, as well as red, white, pink, and black yarn.

My mother taught me to knit when I was young; she taught all five of her children, boys and girls alike. She filled the house with yarn that turned into hats, dishcloths, mittens, legwarmers, etc., most of which she’d sell at craft fairs. When I was little I would go with her, and if I got tired I’d hide under her table and listen to her talk to customers about her baby sweaters and her hand-accented Christmas stockings. I still have my stocking, one with three sequin- and bead-bedecked Santas playing horns and a drum. When I got married she asked my husband to pick one out, and stitched his name into it so he could have one too. We hang them every Christmas.

But let’s talk about the “dark side” of crafting: Mom also had a bit of a yarn habit. You don’t want to know how many skeins one woman can squeeze into a series of closets all over a split-level home. At the garage sales (yes, multiple) when she sold the house and moved in with my sister, people kept asking if she owned a yarn store. Even after she moved into her own little section of my sister’s home, she kept ordering yarn. She’d gotten on a frilly scarf kick, and of course there were just so many colors to choose from. So she chose them all.

When I flew over for a visit during her frilly scarf phase, I wound up knitting some myself. She didn’t mind lending out her needles and sharing her yarn. As she got older, she found she didn’t have the energy to use them herself anyway. If you’ve ever sat in your mother’s craft chair knitting a scarf, with nowhere else you have to be, while she dozes off on her recliner with the TV on low, and it’s late, everyone else is in bed, and it’s just you and Mom, and no one needs to say anything, because the quiet click of needles is enough—if you’ve done all that, you know what the word “content” means.

I brought some of her yarn home from that trip, along with a pair of needles (Just one pair, honey? Go on, take another.). I came home, knitted more scarves, gave some away, and put the rest in a drawer, along with the rest of the yarn.

My mother passed away in 2017.

Sometimes, when I need to, pull out a skein of yarn and make a scarf, then put it all back in the drawer. I still have a few skeins left.

But now.

There isn’t enough yarn to deal with now.

At the end of April, I downloaded Yrúarí’s knitting pattern for lips and tried a couple of variations with different sized needles, or doubling-up a single strand of yarn. Then I got curious about what would happen if I tried black lips. Or vampire fangs. Or a forked tongue, or a gold tooth. I’m going to try a missing tooth tonight, and I've ordered more yarn colors for interesting new lipstick variations. I don’t really wear sweaters, though. I don’t know why I’m making lips. I just am.

I am my mother’s daughter. She knitted dishcloths and Christmas stockings; I knit lips.

Was it necessary that I stay up until 2:00 in the morning last night figuring out how to knit a split tongue? No.

But on the other hand: absolutely.