Needles at the Ready!
Ever since I was a young child and when my father taught me to knit (I have no idea how or why he could knit!) my hands have itched to be busy making things. But it wasn’t until I was eighteen and I was living in digs in Oxford and my landlady taught me how to follow a knitting pattern that my knitting obsession really took off. During the mid to late 80s, and when my sons were quite small, I progressed from handknitting to machine knitting. I started designing my own jumpers and then selling them at craft fairs, which was great fun.
But life changes and while living in Brussels, I decided to abandon my knitting hobby in favour of writing a novel – I think it’s fair to say that was a smart move on my part! Never one to be idle though, I then took up needlepoint which was something I could do in the evening while watching the television.
Having decided I’d then had my fill of needlepoint, (there are only so many cushions a house can accommodate), I tried my hand at crochet. To be honest, I can only crochet granny squares which I sew together to make throws. I have yet to learn how to read a crochet pattern, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I need somebody to teach me how to unlock the code of what all those abbreviations mean.
But my first love – handknitting – made a resurgence in the last few years and once again I had a go at designing my own patterns. I was tickled pink when my Norwegian publishers, knowing my love of knitting, asked if I would pass on one of my designs for a cardigan I’d made so that it could be turned into a kit for Norwegian knitters. That was such a huge honour for me. View an article in the Norwegian magazine, Hjemmet, about me and my love of knitting.
When I said before that I’d had my fill of needlepoint, that wasn’t entirely true, because my love of doll’s houses has led me to doing teeny-tiny 12th scale needlepoint. While the finished result is very pleasing on the eye, it’s certainly a challenge on the aging eyesight!
