Each year, when we see my parents in the winter, my Mum gets dressed up to go out by putting on, among other things, a white wool scarf that was made by me when I must have been about 12 or 13 I think. She still wears it regularly and I don’t think that’s a “fake” wear regularly if you see what I mean. I don’t think she pulls it out of the cupboard, blows away the dust and cobwebs simply to please me by wearing it. I think she genuinely does wear it regularly.

Unfortunately it’s not knitted it’s crocheted. I learned how to crochet as a child and I’m pretty sure, although I’ve not picked up a crochet hook in about 25 years that I’d still be able to cast on and crochet my Mum a replacement scarf if I wanted to. I’m pretty sure I could make a hat too.

Although I was taught to knit at around the same time, I can’t for the life of me remember how to knit though. I think I could do knitted and perled stitches but I can’t remember how to cast on or cast off and unlike crocheting I don’t think I could make anything useful at all. I certainly never learned to use a pattern.

It’s a shame really because there is something deeply comforting about the clackety clack of knitting needles going along while sitting in front of the fire of an evening. It’s one of those primeval things for so many of us I suspect that “the youth of today” won’t be able to relate to at all. After all, don’t jumpers come from Primark these days?

My Mum and my Nan were both great knitters. My Nan had to stop when her eyesight and arthritis stopped her from being able to do it any more and my Mum just stopped. I think she got out of the habit of knitting and that was that.

One of these days, when I’ve knocked down my list of things I need to do, I’m going to learn this skill. I’m going to find myself a teacher (maybe even my Mum might show me) and sit by my own fireside knitting and perling and making useful things. In the meantime, I’m going to look at this picture of a basket of knitting stuff and dream of the day I make my first knitted thing. I think it’ll be a scarf for my Mum to replace the thirty-five-year-old one she’s wearing at the moment.