Earlier this week my Mum and I went to the theatre to see my older sister in a show. We met her friend in the foyer and went down to the bar where the tail end of a workshop was taking place. I was admiring the knitting and in turn my sister’s friend admired the woollen poppy pinned to the lapel of my coat. “So, how did you get into knitting?” she asked. A very good question that I’m not quite able to answer but am always happy to talk about. Here is what I remember:
I was 7. My Grandma (my Mum’s mum) was a knitter and I think that Nanny (my Dad’s mum) was too but I think it was my Mum herself who taught me to knit. I don’t remember wanting to learn or deciding to learn or asking to learn. I just remember learning. I remember sitting in the back of the car on the way to Nanny and Grandad’s house, knitting with some rough, old, yellow wool. I remember going wrong and passing the needles to my Mum in the front seat. She corrected my mistake, passed it back to me and I carried on knitting…in the wrong direction. Sometime later I noticed the not insignificant hole I had created and the needles and wool were passed to the front of the car once more.
I think I remember sitting knitting on the settee at Nanny and Grandad’s house and also in the spare room of our own house though I’m not sure why I would have been in there. I think our friend from down the road was over. She and my older sister may have been knitting as well. I remember the enjoyment I felt when my knitting formed a little “bridge” between the two needles. I still get that enjoyment now.
One day my Mum produced some patterns and a few chunky balls of wool in vibrant colours called things like “peacock green”. One of the patterns was for “Teddy’s Hat”. My older sister may have attempted it but I think that, aged 7, it was a little beyond me. Instead I knitted squares.
The first 2 squares were pink and yellow. I’m not even sure they were both mine. I’m pretty certain I knitted one but the other was more likely found and appropriated as my own. I sewed them together and…it began.
Grandma made numerous gloves and school cardigans but her signature creation was the “Magic Blanket”. These were knitted squares (or long knitted strips) in pastel shades, sewn together to make vast pieces of fabric, edged with a silky, pale pink ribbon. As babies they enveloped us and helped us drift off to sleep, hence the name “magic”.
Teddy may not have got his hat but, along with those first 2 squares, the vibrant chunky wool formed the basis of my very own Magic Blanket:
There is, however, one thing I love above all others. My Magic Blanket is a piece of living history. It’s a record, not only of that specific point in my childhood, but also of the years that followed it. I can chart my progress square by square. A favourite is the red-blue chimera. I finished a tapestry kit and had a lot of blue strands left over. Enough to knot together and make a blue square…or so I thought. Chunky red wool came to the rescue half way through a row. This taught me a lot about estimation and planning but also that things don’t have to go the way you anticipated in order to be enjoyed.
You can see where I graduated to stocking stitch to rib to knitting on the diagonal, etc and also how I learnt about needle size and tension. My Magic Blanket is both a portfolio and a timeline. I can look at certain squares and remember the period of my life in which I knitted them or how I was feeling at the time. I might remember where I bought the different types of wool or which kind soul gave them to me. It’s like a snuggly catalogue of memories.
At one time I wanted to move towards a more grid-like formation but decided against this. I’m glad I did because, as well as a record of the past, the uneven edges of My Magic Blanket are a suggestion of the future. They are a hint of what squares will follow. There might be an awkward space to fill or a difficult colour to co-ordinate but what there will always be is this: Possibility.
This might be how I got into knitting but what interests me more is why. Moreover, why am I still into it? That’s the bit I’m really looking forward to sharing with you.