Inny's First Experience with Crafts

I think that most people will most readily associate me with being a knitter, but the thing is, I don't remember learning to knit.
Not at all.
I know that it was my maternal grandmother that taught me, but really that's just what my Mum has told me. My Nan, Myrtle Green, taught me to knit when I was perhaps four or five years old. She lived on the Isle of Wight and I would go across the water in the school holidays to stay with her and my grandfather. She was a prolific knitter and sewer all her life and could easily adapt patterns to fit anyone. She also crocheted and I think kept all this going to ease the pain in her hands from arthritis: the more she used her hands, the longer her joints would keep going.
She taught me garter stitch firstly and I knitted an awful lot of scarves for teddy bears out of the gaudiest wool I could find, on short green metal needles. Oh, how I loved those little needles. I soon progressed to making dolls' clothes and bigger things like bobble hats, but still have the orange scarf that I knitted for my teddy bear, Robert.
Nan seemed to be constantly knitting when I was young - she would make jumpers and cardigans for me with intarsia Mr Men, Smurfs or Care Bears on them, then later ones with Postman Pat for my sister. My Mum also knitted but with less enthusiasm (and probably with less time available). I remember her making a mohair cardigan for herself once and my Dad shrinking it almost immediately by trying to be helpful and putting it through the washing machine...
My Mum tells me that I was taught to knit to keep me occupied after I had read all the books available to me in the house, which really doesn't surprise me at all as I am still a total bookworm! Sometimes even now it is a struggle to know whether I'd rather read or knit. Huzzah for audiobooks, then!

You can get to know Ingrid better on her blog.