Adventures with Bex: The pleasant clickity click of knitting needles

That sound always reminds me of my Granny's. She hasn't knit for years now, as she has a repetitive strain injury and finds in arduous to hold up the needles for so long, as well as her difficulty in counting stitches and reading patterns with her eyes getting older. Still, once upon a time I had a whole wardrobe full of Granny's creations.

They were brightly coloured by nature, post box red and a bright colour which sat somewhere between yellow, gold and orange in particular come to mind when I think back. They always had that stereotypical cable design, and when I got to a certain age my wardrobe was coupled with a smaller wardrobe full of duplicate, smaller designs for my sister.

My mum was never much of a knitter, though she did dabble in it from time to time. She was more a tapestry and cross stitch kind of person though, and so there came a point where the pleasant clickity click of knitting needles wasn't heard in my house or Granny's anymore.

It seems that knitting has seen a bit of an upsurgance in popularity lately. I don't know whether this is just because I've become more aware of it as I extend my feelers out into the world at large or whether it really has become more popular in general recently. A few years ago I spied a new friend clicking away with her needles who proudly announced "I'm knitting Cthulu". It's certainly more amongst my, for lack of a better term, nerdier or geekier friends, and perhaps the rise of knitting is paired with the rise of geek chic. Now it seems there are more people than ever picking up needles and yarn to create everything from the practical wears my Granny used to make or hand made woolen gifts of every kind imaginable.

Anyhow, yesterday was, I am reliably told, "National Knit in Public day" and my good friend Becky who you never see without a pair of knitting needles or a crochet hook in hand invited myself and Dee to go to the knitting session that the museum where she works was holding. First of all, she said, go to John Lewis and pick up a free kit to knit a hat for soldiers on behalf of the British Legion charity. So I picked up the yarn and needles required, grabbed the pattern, left my name and number (a promise to bring the finished article back) and headed up to the museum to knit in public.

Of course, I haven't knitted since I was about four years old when I had a little kiddy kit and made a tiny tiny orange scarf for my barbie.

It's fun. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to cast on (it wasn't the concept, it was the excecution...my needles kept slipping everywhere without doing their job and pulling the yarn through where it needed to be) and then a while longer casting on each and every one of the 110 stitches required in the pattern. Then Becky (bless her, I'm probably the worst student ever but she displayed never ending patience!) had to show me how to rib stitch. This "forces beanie" pattern may be short and sweet but it possibly wasn't the best choice for a complete noob!

I got home and continued on the row of two knit two purl and thanks to the fact that my poor attempt at casting on had frayed the yarn which made it difficult to avoid sticking my needle point through the yarn as opposed to through the loops...anyhow, I unravelled it all and started again and it's looking neater...fingers crossed it will continue to go well!

Well, it's time to go and watch the Canadian GP. I shall have knitting needles in hand throughout. It's a mildly damp track, which should make things interesting. But you know what really likes damp weather?