Thursday, October 28, 2004

Kerknitting

I knit. I like knitting. I am quite good at it, until fairisle comes into the equation, in which case I pretend I don't know what it is. My mum is a fantastic knitter. Queen of knitting in fact. We were chatting about it tonight. I thought it was a bit of a dying art, until I went looking it up on the www, and it's not all old ladies with cats you know. It's young ladies with cats as well! Just not very many of them. It seems to be more prevalent in America, or maybe that's because its BIGGER, but most of the knitting sites and rings are based there. Girls aren't taught to knit as a matter of course anymore. It's a terrible shame because you can listen to music or watch telly (or read, if you can find a passing cat to sit on the book and hold it open for you) at the same time, its very relaxing and you end up with something that you may end up handwashing for the rest of your life but at least YOU made it!
I am not left handed but I knit left handed, because my mum is left handed and I learned from her. Sometimes this has an interesting effect on armholes when you forget to reverse things!
I can also crochet a bit as well, but I have big problems doing circles (I think I have mentioned this before), so everything I crochet has to be square. Last winter I crocheted a lovely multi coloured Afghan for the cats. It's only taken them 12 months to work themselves up to sitting on it, so I feel very honoured.
Maybe it's a sign of our times, but I think it's very sad that hand knitting has gone out of fashion. Look at the current mad craze for ponchos - one of the easiest things to make and yet people prefer to buy "nylon fall apart after one wash cost £2 from the market" jobs, when they could have fun (yes, FUN) and satisfaction making their own and being a little individualistic into the bargain.
Go on, knit something.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:07 PM

    I used to knit and crochet constantly. Ask your old man about the Thomas jumper!!! I was known, in our house, as "The only woman who can knit, read a book and watch telly all at the same time". Time, computer and aching fingers means I haven't knitted for ages. I must start again.

    I am interested that you knitted an Afghan. Could you possibly knit me a Cocker Spaniel?

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  2. I knitted something once. It was purple and started out with about 40 some odd stitches across. It ended with less than 10. I gave it to me mudda. She said it was beautiful. I was about 8 at the time.

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