Friendship in the Making

There’s a special kind of friendship that’s stitched together over shared rows, unraveled mistakes, tangled skeins, and designs gone wrong. If you know, you know.

Fiber friends aren’t always people we see every day or talk to about everything—but they’re often the ones who understand us most deeply. They speak our language: a mix of pattern notes, color palettes, and that deeply rooted joy in making something with our hands.

Earlier this year, I lost one of mine.

Cara was a pattern tester for me. But more than that, she was a steady voice, a bubbly presence, and someone I knew I could count on to help bring a design to life—not just stitch-by-stitch, but soul-to-soul. After battling cancer a few years ago, it resurged this spring and took her from us just a few incredibly short months later.

Soon after her passing, I was sorting through a pile of design journals and loose notes, where I found a notation I had jotted across the top of one of the pages. Just five words, but they stopped me cold:

Wait until Cara finishes hers.

How do you wait for someone who can’t finish?

A few weeks earlier, I had driven to her mother’s home to retrieve some of Cara’s yarn and the WIPs she’d left behind. My plan is to slowly complete them so they can be returned to her friends and family for safekeeping. I consider it a great honor to be able to do so, but I also am braced for the incredible anguish I will feel with every stitch. She should still be here—working away, turning every three-color design of mine into a blanket-sized wrap with nine colors.

The truth is, fiber friends become part of the fabric of our work, and our pattern testers are memorialized in every notation and in the photos we as designers release to the world.

Testers are the reason a tricky stitch repeat finally made sense. They are the ones who caught that sneaky typo. The ones who sent us messages filled with heart emojis and “I love this design so far!” They test our patterns, yes—but more than that, they walk with us through the vulnerable act of turning an idea into something real.

They are also often the ones on the other side of the phone during a sleepless night. They stand beside you each day in spirit when your life is upended by unexpected pain and turmoil. And sometimes, they laugh together until their cheeks hurt when one of them decides the best way to block a finished blanket with limited space is to throw it on a tarp in the yard, soak it with the garden hose, and let the sun do its thing. (Yes, Cara once did this!)

So many of my designs carry the fingerprints of others. And Cara’s are in most of them.

She won’t get to finish that sample. But I’ll finish it for her. And I’ll carry the memory of finding that note as a reminder that we do not make alone. We carry one another through the making—through the mess and the miscounts and the magic.

Through the grief, too.

To all my fiber friends, near and far: Thank you. Whether you’ve tested my work, encouraged my heart, or simply stitched alongside me in spirit, I’m grateful for every row we’ve shared.

Remember that meaningful making isn’t just about finished objects—it’s about the journey we take with every loop of yarn, with our fiber friends at our side, always cheering us on.

And to Cara: Thank you for every stitch. For every laugh. For every chat. I won’t forget.

With love and yarn,

Becca Goldthwaite

(Rosalie’s daughter)