I learnt to knit when I was 6. A teacher at school called Mrs Harris ran a lunchtime club and I was invited to join. The youngest member by far, I was deemed bright and bored by my class teacher and so they decided to stretch me in interesting ways. I also learned to read music and play the recorder at the same time. If only schools developed children like this now... But I digress.
My mum taught me to sew at around this age too and I found that easier than knitting. I sewed and knitted clothes for my dolls, cross stitched pictures, stitched my own clothes, curtains and blinds in my trusty sewing machine. I still enjoy sewing and occasionally dabble but my love of knitting and yarn grew when I had my twin boys.
I discovered that if you placed lanolised wool trousers over cloth nappies, they acted as a wrap and stopped the nappies leaking. The only problem was that wool trousers were inordinately expensive and I couldn't afford them for two. So I took up my needles; watched many videos on You Tube; and got some scraps of wool from my mum. I practiced different stitches and refined my technique making small squares for a dolls blanket. When I was satisfied I might be able to make something, I bought wool for some trousers and away I went.
I follow patterns line by line rather than reading the whole and panicking that I can't do it. If I hit a bit I don't get I phone my mum or if it's a stitching technique I go back to You Tube. So those first trousers involved a slow process of 'getting it'. They were knitted flat and I also discovered that I hate sewing up at the end. I find it tricky and it never seems to do justice to my knitting. The solution? Knitting in the round...
Lots of people I know say they can't knit in the round, they just don't get it. I never had to watch a video to knit with circulars or double pins, I just got it. After endless trousers, I moved onto a jumper for my daughter. It was beautiful but she wouldn't wear it. I have no idea why but it's now passed on to a friend and her daughter who does wear it.
My first dabble in double pins came with some mittens for the boys and then fingerless mittens for me and as Christmas gifts for our childminders. And then more trousers.
Eventually though the boys stopped needing longies and I had to find a new love... Socks!
