Ah my knitting journey. It began as most did I imagine: grumpy sessions with my mother – whose needles zipped through the air like lightning producing piles of lurid 70s style jumpers at bewildering speed.

I ground needles into wool, splitting fibres, dropping stitches and sobbing over misshapen tangles for days before finally throwing the whole lot in the corner and stomping off. Never to pick up a needle again.

Until……….a child was born. Knitting, like giving up wild wine-fuelled nights and staggering into lamp posts, seems to take on a new appeal when the nurture hormones kick in and suddenly things you never cared about before are now very interesting:

Organic juices. Long-lasting bubbles that don’t pop before you’ve blown them. School catchments. Closeness of a muslin for instant mopping. Panicking over garden plants that you now discover are deadly when grasped in a pudgy fist and shoved into a mouth.

I enjoyed embracing the mundane. The minuatie. Having to plan everything around someone else is liberating. There is a need to create where before you bought. Plus knitting is something to do. It’s best to sit to do this. (Great). Is cheap (If you are Mean Mum and happy to unravel and rescue unloved items) and really, really does stimulate the brain cells unless you have decided to only make blankets for the rest of your life. In one colour….

There are lots of knitting blogs out there and I have very little to offer, technically speaking. I am heavily reliant on the vastly superior skills of my friends and have clung to them over the years, even going so far as to set up a weekly knitting group (children allowed) in order to keep their expertise on hand. For I still split fibres and drop stitches, the difference being I know enough now to chuck out a fairly decent garment.

It takes ages but parading your child in a cute little jumper at the baby group, to universal public admiration, is a great incentive, and one to cling to when you are faced with 20 balls of tangled up wool and a pattern full of hieroglyphics.

So keep an eye on posts in Crafty Old Mum where I will fling over the odd success or sob story. And if you want any truly horrific tales of knitting destruction, which, if you are a knitter will upset you deeply, keep an eye on All Dog Blogs for I am sure our pup has only just started on her passion for all things wool….