Loose Ends weaves together life stories

Local knitter completes project left unfinished after death of beloved matriarch

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Whether expected or sudden, when people pass on, they often leave behind unfinished projects — be it an unpainted room or a sweater still on its knitting needles. Those half-done jobs can become a tangible representation of loss for loved ones, which is where the nonprofit Loose Ends comes in. 

The organization helps to ease grief by connecting more than 34,000 craftspeople with families that have unfinished textile projects, from needlepoint to crochet. Local knitter Vicki Reich is one such volunteer, who recently received her first project: An afghan begun by Maria “Mary” McDonnall for her great-grandchildren.

“I signed up to volunteer with Loose Ends two years ago, and then I signed up again because I hadn’t heard anything. I just figured that I was never going to have anyone contact me,” said Reich.

With a 10-1 ratio of volunteers to projects, it’s harder to find the work than it is to gather the volunteers to finish it. Meanwhile, a short drive away in Naples, McDonnall’s daughter, Anne Armstrong, had been searching for more than a decade for someone to finish her mother’s work. Loose Ends united Armstrong and Reich in June; and, by mid-September, the afghan was complete.

“[For] 14 years, I’ve been hauling this around all the different places we’ve lived, and I almost was going to donate it,” said Armstrong.

Armstrong remembered her mother as a voracious knitter, who made everything from bedspreads to hats to slippers for every child, grandchild and great-grandchild.

“She had been knitting since she was 5 or 6 years old. She was born in the Netherlands,” said Armstrong. “They wore wooden shoes. Have you ever had a pair of wooden shoes on? I mean, they hurt. She was knitting socks for the whole family, because they took them [the clogs] off at the door, and put them on when they went out again.”

McDonnall moved with her parents and eight siblings from Holland to Canada, where she enrolled in school at the age of 8 to learn English. She was quickly fed up with her education; and, since her parents were cattle wheat farmers who needed all the help they could get, McDonnall soon found herself staying home to knit and help with the farm.

She didn’t pass on her talent for knitting to her children, who Armstrong says have all dabbled unsuccessfully in the art. 

With McDonnall around, no one else needed to take up the needles.

“The last six months of her life, she called me and she said, ‘Will you knit me a scarf?’” said Armstrong. “It’s butt-ugly. My brother took a picture of it, and she died about a couple of weeks later. I still have the scarf. Do I wear it? No. But I have it because she begged me.”

Shortly before her death, McDonnall began working on the afghan, inventing the pattern as she went with only a few notes to guide her. She was also in the beginning stages of dementia, which meant she left behind a beautiful but tricky puzzle for Reich to solve.

“I sort of took some liberties and came up with something that looked very similar,” said Reich. “It took me a little while to figure out exactly what it was that she intended.”

“In defense of my mother, my father forbade her to speak Dutch in our home,” Armstrong said. “She would get confused counting in English, so she would probably switch right over and start counting in Dutch.”

No one but an expert would be able to tell that either knitter had any issues with the afghan — and Reich clearly matched McDonnall’s expertise. She’s had her own decades-long love affair with yarn, beginning in the ’80s when she first attempted to learn to crochet. That’s easier said than done when you’re left-handed in a right-handed world. She eventually moved to Moscow, where she took up spinning and, after accumulating her share of yarn, found a left-handed knitter who offered to teach her. The rest is a history of hundreds of hats, sweaters and other useful art that decorates her home and the homes of her loved ones. 

Now, her work will bring warmth and comfort to a new family. 

It was clear from their reactions when Reich unveiled the finished afghan that the project was a gift to both women, bringing as much joy to the knitter as it did to the family.

“More people should know about Loose Ends. There are so many unfinished projects out there and it’s such a cool organization,” said Reich.

To volunteer or submit a project to Loose Ends, visit looseends.org.

Disclosure: Vicki Reich is Reader Editor-in-Chief Zach Hagadone’s stepmom.