Saturday, April 14, 2007

how i learned to knit....

tina at teeweewonders.blogspot.com has told her knitting story on her blog. i will follow her example. i am born in to a family where lots of family members knit or embroidered or were doll makers or did other crafts. my mother's family were very meticulous in their way of doing the things where as my father's family were master's of their own knitting. i started taking needlework classes at school in second grade. the teacher was a hyena. not at all nice and no one wanted to learn anything from her because she spat. and she soon gave up on teaching me how to knit or sew or anything. so i had to turn to my mother who taught me the craft in a jiffy. at 13 i started getting seriously interested in knitting. there was a fad here with knitting things out of icelandic unspun wool and i loved the sweaters. at 13 and 16 i got nieces and i wanted to knit for them. at that time something called hønsestrik was very modern. men and women with relations to the feminist movement inspired us to knit sweaters with a political statement. and i followed their lead. i did a wee cotton spencer for one of my nieces which she now has passed down to her daughter alba. later i became a knitting teacher. i must say i really don't like when knitting becomes too established. at the knitting teacher college i went to most of the teachers were more familiar with sewing and hence wanted us to make paper patterns before we started to knit. for me it takes away the charm. i stopped knitting for many years after that. a few years ago i started and stopped again, but this summer my niece gave birth to her daughter and that sent me back in the arms of my old hobby again. and this time it has been so wonderful. i think the internet has put new perspectives into knitting and it is hard to stop again because you get inspired constantly by other bloggers. thank you for that inspiration.

1 comment:

Sally Webster said...

I'm a resurning knitter too after many years absence and agree with you, so good to be back. Your skill level is amazing!