KNITTING

Knitting really took a long time for me to learn. I could do a basic scarf and a hat but anything that required more shaping was out of the question for years. As a teenager I would visit my grandmother every summer and each time she would try to teach me the heel of a woolly sock!! She even promised me that she would not die before she had taught me how to knit at least one pair of woolly socks!

Then about five years ago, as I had just been bitten by the crochet bug and convinced myself I could make socks with a hook rather than needles, my mother gave me a knitting book for Christmas. I looked at the book thinking, “is the universe telling me I shouldn’t give up!? “. So step by step I went through all the technical info and instructions. Increases, decreases, cables, multicolored, lace stitches, everything. I even had a few Skype calls with my grandmother to discuss the terminology and pictures I wasn’t sure about.

Then in December 2013, I finally finished my first ever pair of woolly socks. It felt pretty amazing finally cracking the code, though sadly they didn’t last very long as I had made them from alpaca yarn and the heels wore through pretty quickly.

Now I know to pick yarns better and my knitting project list is just never ending. I seem to be on a mission to wrap my son in as many woolly things in the winter as possible, but I still treat myself to the odd pair of gloves or a hat every now and then.

And I should mention that my grandmother has many other wonderful things she finds worth living for so her existence isn’t affected by me finally learning to knit a bleeding woolly sock!