I really admire people who knit. It's one of those skills I did not acquire. In any case I am all thumbs with all kinds of needlework.
In school we had Needlework and one of the things we had to do (at the age of 13, that too!) was to knit a set of booties, bonnet and baby sweater.
Are you kidding me? Firstly I could barely hold two knitting needles together, then the intricacy of those start up stitches had me in knots. All I could do if I tried really hard was a long strip of maybe ten stitches with some holes for dropped stitches (which I pretended was 'design'). If anyone asked me, I was making a hairband. In fact, I was perpetually making a hairband. My grandmother had pity on me. At some point of time she saw me struggle and felt sorry for me. So she made me a baby sweater and booties and a bonnet. I remember it clearly, it was baby blue and very pretty.
When I saw it, I was delighted. I thought I could pull it off. So I wrapped it in cellophane and submitted 'my' work.
The teacher was delighted. 'Ah, so beautiful," she exclaimed, "did you make it?"
"Me?" I said, "Make this? No way, my grandmother made it."
The teacher sighed deeply.
I was given passing marks for honesty.
But I never learned to knit.
Hahahha fab honesty. As you know I love to knit now, but as a child I was perpetually knitting a scarf. The line my mother and grandmother used to tease me with was "still 20 stitches?". I never learned cast on, or off, or purl. And I never had much interest. Now I teach kids aged 8-12 to knit, and most of them have tangled, holey rows, but they improve, slowly, on just half an hour a week, of mainly chatting but some occasional stitches. And some of the girls produce wonderful little items.
ReplyDeleteI taught myself via YouTube aged about 35 and I find it wholly rewarding to knit for pleasure.
But I can't draw anything with any degree of accuracy. So we're even ;)
Hugs, darling! :)
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