“Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit…"

"…and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either.” 


Last summer my work colleague Sacha convinced another of our colleagues, Sabina, to teach her how to knit. I was immediately very jealous as knitting is one of those things I’ve tried in the past and not really got the hang of. Crochet I could teach myself the basics, but I although I remember my Grandma teaching me how to knit, the art of casting on never stuck in my brain. 

As I am so super-cool, I immediately renamed this beginner knitting class as Knit Club. Which, as more members joined, became the Woolf Pack (hilarious, non?). 

Sabina is incredibly artistic and creative but more to her credit she has this seemingly unending kindness. Sacha and I must have driven her mad in the early days – constantly counting each stitch as we made it. Adding stiches and dropping others - always panicking and running straight to her for help, never able to fix things ourselves.

She didn’t get to knit anything for herself, poor thing, but she has a lasting legacy in Sacha and myself as we both fell in love with knitting straight away. I now feel odd if I don’t have a knitting project underway, or one waiting in the wings for the next time I have a few hours to kill in front of the telly.

Christmas was my time for publicly ‘coming out’ to my family as a knittist (as CB calls me). I successfully finished cardigans and elephants for each of my niblings:

 

 


And a matching scarf, mittens and hat for my sister:

 

Though that scarf was not how I wanted it to be - 4 months after knitting it that still irritates me...Grr…

I recently spent a month in New Zealand (more on that at a later date) and to my horror I discovered Singapore Airlines won’t let you bring knitting needles in your carry-on luggage. Thank goodness I checked before going to the airport, but still – what else is a Philly supposed to do on a 28 hour flight? In the end I didn’t take my knitting at all. I didn’t have any downtime while in NZ (too much to do!) so without the flights for knitting time there didn’t seem much point. 

Now I’m back in Blighty I can settle back into my knitting. It felt a bit odd for those first few stitches, but it must be like riding a bike because I’m already halfway into my sleeve! Hopefully I’ll have the finished object to show you before too long….


* Quote from Elizabeth Zimmerman.