In school, we learned Amo, Amavi, and Amabo. I love, I loved, I will love. In my case, it is I knit, I knitted, I will
knit. I tell you this, it is partly
through an old school friend, that I have fallen in love with knitting again.
I was always a knitter, I come from a long family of knits. I learned to knit when I was 4 years old, it
was almost an extension of me. Girl
Guide knitting badge was like taking candy off a baby, not of course that I
would ever do that!
At university, I
used to knit my own clothes. I remember
an illicit weekend in Dublin and I was knitting a dress to take with me. Time was against me, I was knitting blue
Donegal tweed and silk on a circular needle. I kept knitting until I stepped into the magic
circle, and, I thought it covered all the requisite bits. A pair of pink tights, and white ankle boots
and I was ready to go! And I am sure I
was lovely. Looking back, it was a
little on the short side!
For me, when I had children, it was great! Now I got to knit children’s jumpers. There was a brief halcyon moment when I used
to design my own jumpers for my twin boys.
And then came the Julius Caesar dagger in the heart moment. Twin one was whispering to twin two. “Can you
knit school trousers?” asked twin one. “No,
you can’t” I replied. The relief in the
voice was tangible as twin one whispered to twin two “she says you can’t, we
will be buying them in a proper shop”. Et
tu Brute.
So …. That was the end of the knitting, and a heart broken
mother.
Fast forward 25 years and twin one marries a girl who not
only knits, but spins her own yarn. Result!
But talking to the young is a whole
different language these days, yarn not wool, cake not ball, (cake – I eat
cake!), indie dyers not wool shops, ravelry not patterns in a big folder. This was all a foreign land to me, then my
daughter in law took me to Unravelled in 2016.
Unravelled was my epiphany. I had no idea what was going on, mostly, but
it was ever so exciting. I walked round
and round in a state of confused awakening. I love all these skeins, but what do you do
with single skeins? Why does everybody
knit shawls, or wraps, or even stranger, haps? What is a hap? How do you know how much wool to buy if you
don’t have a pattern book to flip through? Where did all these “young” people come from? They all knit? I came home enthused but emotionally
exhausted. I spent hours reading
knitting blogs and trying to get to grips with Ravelry. I started buying random amounts of wool, sorry
yarn, but no clear idea what to do.
And then Heather contacted me. I had left a comment on this Hookery blog, Heather and Elaine had a conversation about this lady who had posted a comment and how there could be connections. Elaine, realised we had gone to school together and that our fathers had been friends for years and years. And then I was contacted, I was invited to join the girls in their meet
up. And …. It all clicked. I had come home again. I could see why folks knitted more shawls and
scarves than there were days in the week! Knitting in the round and having cake on the
needles was where I was meant to be! I
spent a lovely summer with the girls, and set off to our very own Yarnfest at Whitehead in
August fully prepared.
This time around, I knew where I was going. I was buying skeins with a purpose. I knew what BFL high twist was, I knew what
fingering weight was, I even knew what sport yarn was. And, no it isn’t a jumper you wear when
playing cricket!
So, back to my declensions. I knit, I knitted, I will knit. I DO knit! And I look forward to spending time with the
girls again, and seeing the eventual completion of Bernard. And, would you believe it? I have even mastered brioche! Yes, this time last year, I thought brioche
was a French bread too.
Helen x
