30 Days of Knitting - Day 4

Day 4: How did you learn how to knit?

I’ve been crocheting since I was about nine or ten – the by product of spending most of my holidays with my grandmother, who was always working on one handcraft or another. I remember sitting up on the lounge next to her, both of us crocheting away, as we watched old musicals all day long. It was something I always loved doing. She crocheted, she knitted, she sewed. You name it, she did it. I always associate craft very strongly with her.

Which is why I find it so odd that it was my other grandmother who taught me to night.

Where my mother’s mother is the quintessential grandmother, warm and soft, with cupboards and draws full of odds and ends, a lolly always slipped into the hand, my father’s mother is the the complete opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I love her dearly, but she is not the most maternal of grandmothers, and even though she taught me to knit – craft (especially crafting for pleasure) is one of the last things I associate with her.

This grandmother lived next to me my whole life and I remember going over to chat with her one day (and I had to have been around eighteen, since I had already left school at the time), and she was sitting in her armchair knitting herself a new red jumper. I mentioned that knitting was something I would like to learn and she showed me a few basic stitches. There were no long lessons, nor the days spent burrowing through wool and patterns as I would have imagined (even have done) with my other grandmother. But it was very her. She sent me home with a ball of wool, and a pair of needles and told me to come back when I had a square.

Oh the triangles I made.

I remember being so proud when I bought that square back over to her. And I like to think she was too. It’s one of my favourite memories of time spent with my Nanny, and I do so enjoy showing her what I’m knitting these days – even though I’ve never seen her pick up a pair of needles since.