The joy, solace and frustrations of knitting told by everyday people
I got married and so I became Mrs Sample, the sample knitter. I sat knitting all day with yarn that came from abroad, that the Directors got from yarn fairs. They would bring new yarns like boucle cotton, or yarns with a coloured thread wrapped through them, or pure angora, all sorts of things were placed on my desk.
Whatever we were doing on Saturday we would stop at 5 o’clock and watch Robin Hood. We’d sit on the sofa, and if it was winter we would be covered up with a blanket and we would have something we’d been eyeing up all day; a little bottle of orange juice. Then we would be knitting, my sister and I, my mother too.
Even at a young age I remember the excitement of looking at possibility. I still feel the same when I come across materials like that now in a charity shop, vintage market or a haberdashery store, it’s like being in a sweetie shop.
I must have been the only teenager hand-knitting socks. I’ve knitted socks for years and years now. I knitted them for myself, I don’t think anyone else wanted any. I’ve been married for 30 years next month, and my husband just will not wear the socks that I knit.
I’ve made quite a lot of horrors for small children, all sorts of things: lots of hats and bootees; a few quite bad animals including a memorable wonky Donkey …
A few years ago I was the only frame knitter left, with 20 machines to use. It takes months and months of practice, slowly building up, to learn how to do one thing and gain control over the machine. I started building up a team of enthusiasts from scratch that’s now up to 7-8 people.
Now I want to knit with dusters, as part of the Domestic dusters project that I’ve been running since 2014. I chose a duster because it hasn’t been adorned like aprons or tea towels. I initially created a set of dusters with fairy tales on, then opened it up to see if other people wanted to contribute to the project. It sort of hasn’t stopped since then.
Trevor took his knitting box everywhere with him, when he was visiting family for the afternoon or weekend. He couldn’t just knit one of something. For Christmas he made everyone woolly hats, but not just one, he gave me five one year.
I made a polar bear rug for the first grandchild of a friend of mine at work. They’ve still got it and it’s the third baby using it now.
I remember knitting at University, knitting with my friends whilst we talked about the lads we knew or what cassettes we’d bought, Depeche mode and such like.
Knitted Lives 