On Face Scrubbies and What Deserves the Wall
I have a little square of knitted fabric…
It's about three inches across — made in cotton yarn in a color I'd never personally choose. A muddy, not-quite-anything blue.
It sits on a shelf in my craft room, in a pink woven bucket that no one ever looks into, along with the rest of the test swatches I knit up to check color combinations and needle gauge before tackling an entire sweater.
It's not a test swatch, actually.
It's a face scrubby — the kind of thing you'd use to take off your makeup.
It's nothing you'd think twice about if you saw it. And yet, I've kept it for years.
Here's why…
At the end of 2021, I went to visit my friend Sammi in London for a month.
I'd never knit before, but I'd somehow gotten it into my head that knitting was a British thing — the thing to do on a cold, wet December afternoon. So I signed up for a two-hour beginner's class at a local haberdashery.
The teacher was a no-nonsense Russian woman in her sixties — abrupt in the way that lets you know she valued practicality over sentiment.
She never offered us her name. Instead, she peered at us over her wire-rimmed glasses and said:
“We start now. You will make face scrubby.”
I didn't really know what a face scrubby was, or why I'd want one. But I accepted the pair of aluminum needles she handed me, along with a length of understated cotton yarn.
She modeled casting on and knitting in two different ways — English and Continental — then said, “You do it.”
As my classmates and I fumbled with the metal and fiber in our hands, she circulated, peering at the cloth forming on our needles. Each time she spotted a mistake — a dropped stitch, an incorrect one — she'd point at it.
“Rip it out. We don't waste yarn.”
As I sat there casting on and frogging my knitting on repeat, it dawned on me that there was no fun project waiting at the end of this class. This was not the typical pick-something-you-love-and-we'll-work-toward-it kind of class — the kind where the excitement of the project is what carries you through being bad at it.
This was a class in accurate technique.
We were making face scrubbies, which I now think was her slightly dressed-up way of teaching us to swatch. A swatch is a small test square — a way of finding out how the yarn will behave before you commit. Most knitters skip it. Most knitters regret skipping it.
But really, we were just knitting squares. Tiny squares. And nobody — nobody — got to move on to anything else until they could make a perfect one.
Two hours later, I still could not make a perfect face scrubby.
I left with needles, cotton, and a hundred reps of cast-on, knit, rip out, repeat in my hands.
I took the Tube back to Sammi's flat. “How'd it go? Can you knit?” she asked me.
“Not yet,” I replied.
Each evening for the next several weeks, we gathered in her sitting room — Sammi watching Hallmark Christmas movies from the comfort of her sea-green velvet loveseat, me cross-legged on the floor in front of her, hunched over and muttering expletives at my knitting needles like they had personally wronged me.
Cast on. Knit. Make a mistake. Tear it out. Start again.
Over and over again.
Until one night, I glanced down at my hands and realized I was holding a fully completed face scrubby.
“I think I finally did it,”I said to Sammi, tentatively holding up my square for her to see. She paused Christmas at Castle Hart, and we peered at it together for errors. None.
“I think you did,” she said, nodding.
This is the scrubby I kept.
I've since become a prolific knitter.
I knit colorful pieces, intricate ones, in color palettes I love and fiber combinations that cost real money. And these projects are the ones that people ask about. They are the ones I photograph and post on Instagram. The ones that look like something.
My face scrubby looks like nothing.
And yet when I hold it, I know what it is and what it isn't.
It isn't three inches of dull cotton yarn.
It is every torn-out version that came before.
It's hours on a friend's floor in Wandsworth, being bad at something I would one day be good at.
It's the night all the practice came together and got realized into something I finally figured out.
If I hadn't made this ugly little square — well, none of my beautiful sweaters and shawls would exist.
Why This Story
I'm sharing this with you because I've been thinking a lot lately about what I deem worthy of my time and attention. What I celebrate publicly. And what I tend to hide away.
Because this month at Art & Alchemy, our reflection theme is “What deserves the wall?” — meaning: What in our lives is truly worthy of our attention?
And what we're making is: frames.
By hand. From whatever's already around. And then we're putting inside them the things we might have overlooked that truly matter to us — as a way of saying, “I'm proud of this. It deserves to be seen.”
I think the reason I've kept my face scrubby for so long is because it means something to me.
And I think the reason I've kept it hidden away is because the world doesn't usually celebrate the things that look like nothing.
But I want to. Because this is my life — and I want to celebrate its contours fully. Not just the parts that look like something.
I know what my scrubby is. I know what it's made possible.
So this month, I'm taking it out of the pink woven bucket no one ever looks into. I'm building it a frame from whatever's already around. And I'm putting it on the wall.
Not because it's beautiful or worthy in the way we've been conditioned to think about these things — but because it's beautiful to me.
And I get to decide what's worthy of the wall.
So do each of us. So do you.
Come Make a Frame With Us
This is our May Art & Alchemy gathering. A small group, a Zoom room, a few hours of making something real with our hands while we think together about what gets to matter.
Before May 17th, I'd invite you to wander a little — in your heart and in your home.
Ask yourself: What are you giving your time and attention to these days? Is it what matters to you? What are you celebrating publicly and in the quiet of your heart? Is there anything in your life that you've been keeping in the closet when it really deserves the wall?
Open your drawers and doors. Look through your memory boxes, the shoebox under the bed, your own version of the pink woven bucket no one pays attention to.
Ticket stubs. Recipe cards. Handwritten notes. A drawing from your ten-year-old self.
What are your face scrubbies? The things you've kept because you knew they mattered, even if you weren't sure anyone else would understand why...
Bring one with you on Sunday.
We'll build frames together — from cardboard, twigs, fabric, beads, paint, glue, whatever your house offers. And then we'll put inside them the things we've been quietly carrying. As a small act of reclamation. As a way of saying: “I get to decide what's worthy. And this is.”
May Art & Alchemy: What Deserves the Wall
Sunday, May 17, 2026
2:00–3:30pm EST / 11:00am–12:30pm PST
on Zoom
Come as you are. Leave feeling full and with something framed that deserves to be seen.
What is Art & Alchemy?
Art & Alchemy is the monthly heartbeat of The Unlearning Studio — a small group, a Zoom room, and 90 minutes of making something simple with our hands as we chat about what’s real in our lives.
Each month, we choose a question worth sitting with and a project worth making. We gather, we reflect, we create together, and we leave with something we made and something we noticed.
No experience or artistic talent needed. Bring your curiosity, your craft supplies, and a hunger for a bit of reflection and creativity and in a virtual world.
