A loom built with love and care. Spools of threads kept as if they were a treasure, skeins of cotton acquired in the last haberdashery in the neighborhood, sheep wool carded and spun by herself in an artistic room. Cotton and strips of fabric dyed by hand that still retain the aroma of homemade potions, skeins of hemp, ropes, natural fibers, bushes and wild herbs collected on various walks. Searching for the material that will shape the tapestry is a ritual, where each thread, each strand and each fiber hides a story.

Lara learned to weave without realizing it, observing how other hands did it, looking and listening with respect, always attentive. She learned to read the scraps that remained, constructing her own in an intuitive way. In each of the silent movements of her fingers, she honors those who taught her, those who came before and found in the act of weaving a refuge and an expression of humanity. Her studio is a place where time stops and only the touch of hands working with patience and skill remains. For Lara, knitting is like writing: each person has their own handwriting. There are those who press the pencil harder against the paper, those who join the words, those who let the letters flow freely, and those who tangle the typography until it becomes illegible. The same thing happens with thread; if you know how to read the stitches, you can understand what the person was writing while knitting. The hands become narrators of untold stories, weaving dreams and memories in each fiber. The loom is her canvas, her blank page, where the patterns invent a new text in each tapestry.

Carmenar is more than untangling, unraveling, carding and cleaning hair or wool; it is learning to see in the apparent tangle, it is discovering the texture of each fiber. It is repeating the action knot by knot, thread by thread. It is starting over and knowing that order can be found in chaos. It is remembering that our hands have the power to create, to heal, to transform and to feel.

Knitting is a dance of fingers and fibers, it is turning chaos into order, a silent dialogue between thread and time. It is the art of weaving stories in each stitch, of braiding memories in the weft and the warp. It is knowing how to listen, accompany and establish relationships, transmit knowledge; an act of love and patience, of stillness and self-absorption. Gestures and movements that reveal the passion for care. It is the manifestation of beauty in the simplicity of weaving. It is tradition and modernity. An underestimated technique for having been exercised mainly by women in the domestic sphere. Ancestral but contemporary, old but new. It is simplicity, sophistication and commitment.

Our everyday language is full of words related to knitting: not to give a stitch without thread, point in mouth, the plot of the story, hang by a thread, make a ball, sew and sing, tejemaneje, hilar fino, al hilos de… These expressions are so internalized, so intertwined in our daily lives, that even if we don’t realize it, they reveal the historical importance of the textile world.

For Lara, knitting is thinking, it is narrating, it is an accumulation of gestures, it is a tool, it is a language, it is the common thread, it is a way of life. Her pieces are not only observed; they are read and felt. They invite a deep introspection, to question what we take for granted and to find beauty in the minute details and imperfections that make each piece unique.

Sara Vilar Garcia
Universitat Politècnica de València