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Hello! We’re two weeks out of infinity into Lockdown 3, and I would like to talk about knitting.
I hate knitting. Passionately. I have nothing but admiration for people who can knit properly, but my aversion to it is pathological. Why? Because school ruined it for me.
I hate knitting. Passionately. I have nothing but admiration for people who can knit properly, but my aversion to it is pathological. Why? Because school ruined it for me.
Every year at my all-girls primary school (age 7-11), we did a term of “knitting lessons”. I don’t know why, in every other way it was extremely progressive, but clearly at some point through the ages someone had decided little girls ought to learn to knit, so knit we did.
In every other area of school life, the ethos was just try your best, that’s what mattered. Not so with knitting. Knitting was competitive. The first year we had to do teddy bears which was mostly okay (although they were judged), but after that it was class blankets.
Everyone had a certain number of squares to knit and woe betide you if you didn’t make your quota on time. I never did. I was a clumsy kid with undiagnosed dyspraxia who had never knit before school and just couldn’t get the hang of it. It took me forever.
I was already bottom of the class for reading (undiagnosed dyslexia too), now I was bottom for knitting as well. The worst part was that everyone else thought it was great fun. They saw it as an art project. For a whole term each year, knitting was actually set as “homework”.
Oh, and if you dropped a stitch or even just made your rows too tight or loose, you had to redo it. I remember having rows I had painstakingly struggled over get undone in front of the whole class because they didn’t meet the standard. I was told I was letting the class down.
My mother, ever the pragmatist, stepped in halfway through the second year of this. She and my aunt finished my knitting assignments from then on, sparing me the humiliation. I never felt in the least bit guilty about it. And I have never knit again.
Until now.
Until now.
Now it is dark and cold outside. I spend the work day staring at a screen in my sitting room and don’t want to spend the evening staring at a screen in my sitting room as well. I’m drained by the news and don’t have the mental energy to learn a new language or write a book.
I need something to keep my hands busy, to stop me from feeling like I’m incapable of progress.
So as of tonight, I am learning to knit. I have rainbow wool and giant, friendly needles - and if I drop stitches or the cat gets her paws on it or I decide to give up, that’s fine.
So as of tonight, I am learning to knit. I have rainbow wool and giant, friendly needles - and if I drop stitches or the cat gets her paws on it or I decide to give up, that’s fine.
I’m not making anything, I’m just *making*. For me. To prove that I can. And to show my teachers 20 years ago that they didn’t win. They didn’t get to suck the joy and creativity and relaxation out of knitting forever. I don’t have to be perfect at this. I just have to knit.
