To be totally honest, I dont remember…..it’s like asking “When did you learn to read?” it’s one of those things that I’ve been doing so long that I don’t remember anymore when I first learnt.

I do remember sitting with my Nan when I was about 6 or 7 and her showing me both knitting and crochet (I could never get the hang of crochet back then!), I imagine that even before then I had probably used a knitting doll to do “French Knitting” or what I would call an i-cord these days

When I was growing up knitting was just one of a hundred crafts that I tried my hand at though. I was fascinated by learning new crafts, I would go to craft fairs with my mum where we would see corn-dollies, or macrame, or needlepoint and we’d look at them, consider buying things and then my mum would say “You could make that” so we’d go back home and get a book from the library, buy some materials and I would “make that”.

Over the years I tried everything - macrame, knitting, painting, scraperboard, calligraphy, corn-dollies….my Christmas and Birthday presents would invariably include “something to make”. I remember receiving a Spears Weaving Loom, a soap making kit, a kit to make cameo jewellery, a Red Indian (sorry not very PC these days) Bead loom (to make headbands and belts) and on one occasion I vividly remember receiving this for my birthday -

It was my sewing basket for years and has faded quite a lot! I definitely got this when I was about 6, I know I was at Infant School as we used to have birthday “show and tell” at infant school where you were allowed to bring into school your favourite 2 or 3 birthday presents. On this birthday I remember I took this sewing basket (which I seem to remember came filled with sewing articles) and a book “Down the Bright Stream” by BB. At the time I was probably knitting as well as sewing.

As I got older I started to get more interested in knitting to actually produce clothes for myself. When I was in my teens with only a limited clothes allowance from my parents I used to make a lot of my own clothes either sewn on my mums sewing machine or knitted by myself. At the age of 16 or 17 my “best outfit” consisted a black wool pencil skirt and white blouse with batwing sleeves and a huge square “sailor” collar and this cardigan which I knit in black

OK so that outfit clearly dates me as being a teenager slap bang in the Eighties!!! This may have been one of the first large garments that I knit for myself although I remember much earlier - aged 11 or 12 - the fashion was for jumpers with pictures on the front (remember that!). I really wanted a jumper which had the Willow Pattern (as in china) on the front and my mum duly got the pattern and started knitting. For some reason she gave up on it and I ended up finishing it. I have a very clear memory of standing in our LYS with my mum buying something and the ladies in the shop mentioning my jumper, mum proudly told them I’d knitted a lot of it myself and then I had to stand there whilst the ladies in the shop exclaimed over how neat my stitching was!

The oldest knitted item which I still have would probably have to be this

I can date this exactly as I was knitting it when I started at University in 1997. The day my parents dropped me off at the house in which I’d rented a room there was nobody else there. They stayed with me for a while but then had to get home themselves so left me alone in the house. A few weeks earlier my parents had been on holiday in the Lake District and my mum had seen someone selling hand-spun, hand-dyed wool and bought a huge quantity of rainbow coloured mohair for me. I had this with me along with a pattern and so being in a house alone I settled down in the lounge with the knitting needles….which is where my housemates found me when they arrived back.

Imagine yourself as an 18 year old away from home at University set for fun arriving at the house you were going to be living in to find a girl you didn’t know but were going to have to share a house with sitting …knitting! They told me later they were seriously worried about who they’d been lumbered with!

Knitting and sewing have always been part of my life, at various times they have dropped into the background or been more important but they’re always there somewhere in the fabric of my life. As a child it was all about learning something new, as a teenager it was practical - making clothes cheaper than I could buy them, and now as an adult it’s again the creative process and learning new techniques. This would explain why I have so many UFO’s, I love trying something new whether it be a new yarn, a new technique or a new garment type but once I’ve learnt it I lose interest and so the item doesn’t get finished as I want to learn the next new thing….

Last year it was socks, they were my new thing and I wanted to try everything - toe-up, toe-down, lace, cabled, felted - this year it seems like it’s lace

…I’ve always knit lace to a certain extent. Over the past 10 years I’ve knit about 10 baby shawls for friends new babies, now I’m branching out into mohair, silk, beads…..So, when did you learn to knit? What was the first thing you knit? Bring it on!!

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