I’m sure that most of us here on the Knitterati are familiar with wool shops, even if their version features a stash of cotton and 8ply down past the lady’s undergarments.

And there would be a few readers here that would have been on the other side of the counter; wool shop workers and owners.

Oh, I know what most of you readers are thinking now – how wonderful it would be to sit and knit all day and be paid.

Well yes it is wonderful, but sometimes, well, let’s just say that it is dangerous to have knitting needles in your hand when dealing with some customers.

Like the woman who grabbed up a coat’s worth of wool and the pattern, paid and started walking off, barking the instructions that she would be back on Tuesday to pick the coat up!

But then in comes a customer that delights, like one woman who wandered in at the end of an unseasonably hot and therefore quiet day.

She had with her the front and back of a mohair jumper and the start of a sleeve which had been sent to her by her brother-in-law. It was the last project her sister was working on before she died of breast cancer. While the pattern was with the knitting, there were no extra balls or even ball bands to work out what particular yarn was used.

She wanted to finish that jumper, to work with the stitches her sister had patiently, and possibly painfully, worked on.

But an hour or so later with a few tears sliding down her cheeks she walked out. She was still holding that jumper but she now had contrasting mohair, a sleeve pattern that had been worked to be knitted from the cap down and two lifelines in the front and back at the half way mark. She was going to cut and unravel the bottom bits of the front and back and then recycle the mohair to start the sleeves, then knit down the jumper in the new contrasting colour and finish the sleeves with this deeper hue as well.

I didn’t see her again, but I know that somewhere there is a beautiful olive and navy 8ply mohair jumper, the result of two sisters and their love of each other and knitting.

Not too long ago I drop a bunch of stitches when my oldest child asked for a jumper – made by me! This was of course before the trip to the snow when he needed a jumper in the wink of an eye.

Now the eldest is 11 and has hit that I’m-too-cool stage.

Every hint or plea to knit him a jumper had been met with a no or a grunt.

So when he made his request I was so shocked that the stitches jumped as well.

“What colour, do you want skulls, stripes, a zip jacket, what do you want, I’ll knit it!”

He didn’t want skulls, forget strips, and he didn’t want it holey.

Holey it seems is 11-year-old speak for bulky, what he wanted was a dark blue jumper with little stitches, an 8ply not a bulky 12ply.

So the race was on before he changed his mind and I threw pattern books at him and raced out the door. If this isn’t a reason to hunt for yarn to put in the non-stash (the stash we don’t admit too) I don’t know what is.

I came home with enough Totem to knit an adult jumper, which is just as well as Foatboy had settled on what will be my most complicated knit to date, an Elizabeth Zimmerman fish trap jumper.

It has cables everywhere and saddle shoulders and like all Zimmerman garments, the directions are more like suggestions than a pattern.

So I’ve charted up a small men’s and started.

It has to be a man size because he and his sister keep interrupting my knitting with other demands on my time, such as the need for a jumper for the snow in a week. And as this pattern will be a complete labour of love, I don't think I'll be finishing before he moves from his tweens to his teens. 

Class details:

4 classes from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm from 1st to 22nd October.

All classes held at 234 High St, Northcote.

Instructor:

Chiara. Chiara is a local textile artist whose has been exhibited in galleries around Australia. In addition to teaching knitting and crochet, Chiara spins and hand-dyes beautiful yarns. CCCK stocks a range of Chiara's handknits and yarns.

Cost:

$ 110 (GST inclusive) plus cost of materials. Light refreshments will be available for purchase on the day.

Materials:

Participants will need:

4    4 balls of 8 ply or DK yarn. We suggest the Cleckheaton Country Silk for this project

4    one 4.0mm crochet hook.

Course content:

Participants will learn:

4    how to double crochet

4    how to shape (increase and decrease) double crochet