My fascination with bridges began with my father’s favorite poem called The Bridge Builder (text below) by Will Allen Dromgoole. Will Allen, it turns out, was a WOMAN who was writing at the turn of the century, a successful author of books, poems and magazine and news articles. Will Allen was not a chosen pen name but the name her father penalized her with because she was born his 7th daughter… She used that penalty to her advantage, though, and successfully made her way through a man’s world, training as a lawyer (but not allowed to practice law because she was a woman), holding political office, and serving in the navy during WWI (one of the first women to hold her position) before concentrating on her prolific writing career.

I am sharing this chart and pattern with the handcrafting community so that as many people as possible can continue her tradition of building bridges. Hang it on a wall -- any wall (but if in a public place, please be sure to ask permission of the wall owner).

Feel free to use the chart for two-color double knitting or stranded knitting or even illusion or shadow knitting. Gauge is unimportant. The final size of your wall hanging will depend on the yarn weight that you choose. I used superbulky for a large wall hanging but you can make it in fingering if you want, and frame it under glass! Remember, to keep the stitches tight for better definition of the raised pattern, use a needle size smaller than recommended for your yarn.

Chart can also be crocheted or loom knit. Finished size will vary accordingly.

Skills required:
Knit
Purl
Yarn over
Seed Stitch
Kitchner Stitch

I framed this poem and gave it to my 9 year old granddaughter for her birthday last year, not yet knowing it was written by a woman. Now I know it is a gift to all of us.

The Bridge Builder
By Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.“