It’s not often that you get to make a link between the lyrics of an anarchist punk band hit from the 90s, the spirit of hand knitting, and a shop window display. Perhaps this is a tenuous one but hear me out. There’s this thing that happens with our knitting – especially sweaters, and especially in the rows and rounds… Read more →
I think it began with the Azor, a 4ply cardigan that I started last summer. I’d sped through the beautiful colourwork yoke in less than a week, but something about the on-and-on-and-on of those tiny same-same stitches in the body turned it into a sweater that trawled through treacle to get finished. So that got me to thinking that if… Read more →
If you ever take a 106 bus north up Cambridge Heath road towards Clapton you’ll know to expect a little delay when the bus pulls into the stop after the bridge over Regent’s Canal. “This bus will wait for a short time for a change of drivers to take place” says London Transport’s disembodied voice over the tannoy. The door… Read more →
The summer holiday knitting project dilemma has become as familiar as the smell of cocount sunscreen in my getting-ready-to-go-away story. There’s an irony here given just how much of June, July and August I spend researching and peddling advice to others about what will work on holiday. Surely mine should be a well informed surgical strike at the perfect project?… Read more →
A knitter walks into a wool shop. They undo their jacket to reveal an astonishingly beautiful and complicatedly cabled cardigan which has the look of espaliered apple trees interlaced with roses. They take off their delightfully fairisled beret and unwrap a deliberately unevenly striped scarf and lay them on a chair. Both are patterned with complementary shades of left over… Read more →
By all accounts Sisyphus was a pretty crafty guy and not in a nice way: He plotted to kill his brother, seduced his niece and then twice managed to scheme his way out of dying and exiting through the underworld as he was supposed to. Not surprisingly this didn’t go down well with the gods which is how he got… Read more →
What kind of knitter are you? You’re 6 rows on from the row where you did a series of 2/2 right cross cable twists, and you notice that you forgot to twist one of those cables down there. Do you: A: Think that no one will notice and carry on merrily knitting, telling yourself homilies about Persian rug weavers and their… Read more →
Yesterday evening I left the shop with a plan to sit down and write to you all with a rather marvellous centuries-old story about a wool maker in central Spain. But by the time I got home a bit before midnight, the plan unexpectedly got up-ended. In the intervening hours I found myself in an audience at the British Library… Read more →
A textured sweatered guy sits silouhetted by light coming through a misted up window with a glimpse of the sea in the distance. A weathered wooden table groans with delicious festive food and foliage, dimly lit with the glow of a couple of candles. A handily nearby piano hints at the promise of a tinkle later on. Warm, wholesome, with… Read more →
