How did I learn to knit...

I was eight years old when I learned how to knit. We were fortunate to have a crafts teacher at school, who - with a lot of patience - stayed our crafts teacher during the entire period. The boys got lessons in handycrafts in that time. My first project was how to knit - simple small pieces of cloth in different colours of cotton. The needles were made out of aluminum, nowadays they have a plastic coating, but not in that time. Double pointed...

The first few items were knitted with many mistakes and holes in it, as I often dropped stitches in the beginning. My mother was irritating herself green and purple, she frogged it and I had to start anew.

Then we had to cut out different sizes of circles (out of an old box)- the pieces of cloth were sewed around it and later on hand sewed in the shape of a giraffe. I was so proud on my first knitwork, though since that time my knitting improved tremendously. I started to knit small sweaters, then later sweaters for adults and am now hooked on knitting socks and mittens. Children nowadays don't get crafts like knitting and crocheting at school anymore - I feel it is a shame and a missed opportunity to teach the children something valuable that they can use their entire life.