Sharing Skills

I don't excel at many things but I can do a pretty good job at most of them. The age old 'Jane' of all trades, master of none! 

A wise woman once mocked me saying "Of course you have lost interest in it, you have figured out how to do it, so it is no longer a challenge!" I think this really hit the nail on the head. 

I love learning how to do new things. Racking up the skills, feeling that if I needed to I could make most things for myself, without the need of the shops.

I also love sharing these skills, learning from others, teaching others. I have a strong belief in crafts and cooking skills being passed on from one person to another. Usually through shared experiences and communal moments. 


Learning to cook something new while sharing wine or having a bench full of little bottoms, all eager to nut out how to crack that egg without getting shell, or crank the pasta machine and see the spaghetti come out.

Sitting in the sun or around a fire with a pot of good tea and teaching someone how to crochet or read guitar tabs. Sitting side by side and mosaic-ing with someone, continually learning from each others techniques. 

The world is full of teachers and those eager to be taught.

Orlando has asked me to teach him how to knit. I have been waiting for his interest and with me doing quite a lot of knitting of late, I was not surprised at the request.

I have a delicious memory of my Grandmother teaching me to knit. She had a little poem that has stayed with me through many 'non-knitting' decades ready to be recalled as soon as I picked the needles up again. It went:

"In the rabbit hole,

round the tree, 

out the rabbit hole,

and off!"

So Orlando selected his wool, we choose some bigger needles to begin with and set to work. 

He took a movie of my instructions to remind him later if her needed (talk about techno-native generation) He settled himself in the crook of my arm and off we went. Hand in hand to begin and then just that little poem being repeated over and over.

He caught on really fast, seems interested, has come back 4 times in 2 days. I am loving that he is at an age where he can start to comprehend these more complex tasks and his fine motor control is developed enough to achieve what he needs.

Another skill shared in the beauty of a communal experience. One that hopefully Orlando will teach someone else one day.

Nutting out Knitting

I've known how to knit since I was a kid. But only VERY basically. I can cast on, knit, purl and that's about it! If everything goes right I can knit something, but I often end up with more stitches than I am meant to and a random hole or two :) Needless to say it isn't a skill I pride myself on.

Crocheting on the other hand I can do quite well. I can read patterns, do a few fancy patterns, numerous different stitches and can often nut it out if I don't already know. If something goes wrong I can see why and fix it.

So the problem I have is that often I find these beautiful patterns that I would adore to make. As they are knitting not crocheting I have to leave them or convince someone else to make them for me. This came to a head the other day as I was in a book sale and there were two yarn books for sale. One was for crochet and was rather boring, the other was for knitting and was very inspiring. So I brought the knitting one.....

Yarn crafts are a winter thing for me, I love to sit on cold winter nights with the fire on and create woollen wonders. So I have set my self the challenge of nutting out knitting.

I passed by a stall at the markets, who were selling beautiful home spun, home dyed wool. So I set myself up with a ball, ready to make one of these beautiful knitted hats for Orlando. I sat down with my new wool and new book and set to reading the pattern...

"Cast on 80 stitches, divide evenly between a set of 4 double pointed needles and join"...... RIGHT! I can cast on!!!!

I love yarn crafts being handed down from one person to the other, I know the Internet is a great source of tutorials but I think some age old crafts a better shared. So I took my wool and book to my mother-in-law's house. She is a great knitter, whips things up with style and does all sorts of fancy stuff. She assured me that it was actually quite simple, once you knew what they were talking about. She showed me as I went, and I was off! By the end of my busy week I have finished my first knitted beanie. Knitting seems much faster than crocheting.

Now with my little hat complete, I have learnt many new knitting skills. I now know how to use circular needles, knit in a round using 4 needles, and knit a cord! Simple for some, quite and achievement for me! Apparently I have perfect tension and it looks like a machine. I think this is because I go so slow :)

The only problem ended up being that I was making the hat for Orlando. For some reason it is much smaller than it should be, so I thought it could be for Matilda. Once finished a (7-8 yr old) hat will fit about a 1 yr old. So looks like it will end up a gift for one of the many babies we know that are currently 'under construction'.