Chanel jackets and Sindy dolls

Thankfully not everything about knitting is new to me. Would I find knitting relaxing if I had never done it before?

I'm not really sure how I learned to knit. I learned to sew on my mother's treadle singer sewing machine under her guidance but I don't remember her being a knitter. If she did knit it would have been out of necessity not desire.

My maternal grandmother knitted and crocheted; the annual Xmas box sent from Cardiff was a treasure trove of her year's output and included hot water bottle covers, bedsocks and other essentials for a chilly house in Lancashire.

I seem to remember that some of my early knitting projects were fashionable 1960's flared trouser suits and Chanel inspired jackets - for my younger sisters' Sindy dolls.

In my mind's eye I can still see the lime green suit in a fine moss stitch. But they were never as glamourous as the fur trimmed evening dresses - dolls sized - that my grandma had knitted for 'the little ones' (my sisters, as well as their dolls) and that appeared from the aforesaid box.

Starting a whimsical scarf pattern today I was instructed to drop stitches ... And then make more by the backward loop cast on method. What?

There's more than a small amount of daring and overcoming of resistance involved in deliberately dropping stitches. My upbringing was more make do and invisible mending than the later decades of ripped jeans and laddered fishnet stockings.



Dropping the stitch was easy once I had dropped the rules of upbringing. But what about backward loop cast on?



Easy with google! Within 90 seconds I'd viewed a YouTube tutorial and I was away again. Perhaps learning from scratch wouldn't be so hard.