The journey began around the age of 10 when my mum taught me to knit and I began by knitting squares for a small blanket. I remember having some help with knitting at boarding school, including my piano teacher (who was a keen crafter) helping me to knit a jumper … but I can't remember much more about it than that! My mum also helped me during an Easter holiday to knit a short-sleeved jumper, although she has no memory of this at all and is quite surprised that I did it! I still have the knitting pattern but not the jumper!
At the end of 1990 when I left college and also left home I thought that I wouldn't be able to do much knitting because I'd have nobody around to help with reading patterns, to correct mistakes or to sew up any of my makes. So I gave it all up, but I still kept my few pairs of knitting needles, and my two knitting row counters bought from the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People), so the desire to knit again one day obviously lurked in the background.
Jump forward 28 years, and I decided I wanted to take up knitting again! But I couldn’t even remember how to cast on! I enlisted the help of my Personal Assistant, a keen knitter, who reminded me how to cast on and how to knit the basic plain and pearl stitches. I did a little practice piece and it all quickly came back to me. Having bought a couple of balls of lovely blue and white yarn from a local wool shop, a week later and I'd knitted a scarf. Then I had the thought that maybe I should see if any local charity shops had any wool I could buy to practice with ...
A couple of days later, having voiced my thought to nobody at all … My mum’s cousin visited and asked my mum if she wanted any yarn as she was moving house an down sizing. My mum said “Yes”, thinking she was talking about a few balls of yarn. She returned from her car with several bags full! Of course I ended up with it all! I wasn't complaining though … but I then had to find things to knit! To my friends, I can say “The rest is history” because you know what happend next. !