Ruth's Reflections

Many years have passed since I tried out knitting, armed only with some stringy red wool and a couple of old mint stalks, stripped of their leaves. The lumpy results smelled really fresh, but didn't look too good.

Does anyone remember the prediction, about 1972, that we were definitely heading towards another ice age? I do, and the thought that we shall all freeze in nothing but lycra jumpsuits has haunted me to this day, and I have been knitting ever since.

If you work it out, all the knitters before the SPE, (shiny pattern era) knew how to do it themselves.

Ok, so the yarn they had to play with was not FASHION YARN but, in the ethical '70's I wanted stuff to knit with that would still look ok and cool man twenty years down the line, and actually, still do.

Then there were the terrible years of knitting decline, when I really thought that all the knitting generations behind us, male and female, would collectively turn in their graves as they watched the final sock, lace shawl, gusset or bonnet being made. It seemed that knitting had fallen into a collection of funky wool, not real wool, made into nursery shapes and sewn up, suitable only for draping tall thin models with moody looks and bare legs.

The real knitters just made it through, and the sheep and some of the small woolen mills that supplied them did too.

When, with a dear neighbour and true craftswoman, I went to a local exhibition and saw a wonderful array of knitted vegetables, mainly in nylon, I thought that we should have a knitting group. Even I, I hoped could share a sock heel or an underarm gusset before it was too late.

Amazingly, people came along, not all stayed, but those that did are a huge inspiration, as knitters and as survivors in the great human race.

It is the group that has taught me so much about the great comfort of being with others, of sharing ideas and skills, of receiving praise and acknowledgement for our work and invention.

It is the work that has come out of knitting group that has become Ellasknitting, and it is Joyce's beautiful big wool blanket that has been the start of the Blanket Box Scheme, more about this later.

So, thanks to the knitting forebears, we still have a craft that keeps us warm and noticed.

I like to send my husband out to work in a jumper that shouts " someone looks after this man".

I like the fact that knitting has transported so well, did you know that China has a huge home knitting industry? Perhaps knitting is one of the better things that travelled with trade and colonisation?

Ruth, who makes things for Ellasknitting.