Spinning a yarn

By Lazykate

Save The Children!

Now I know you will have seen the Shreddies advert, Shreddies - knitted by Nanas. How outraged were you on a scale of 1-10? 32? I have to say that I personally found the whole thing quite funny but you know, I've been on forums, I've seen the anger, the venom and the frustration of the knitters out there. It amazes me that anyone would want to anger a woman with a huge pair of needles but you know, maybe Nestle like to live on the edge. They obviously think knitting is a thing of the past.

So what is it - why don't people see what we see? How many of you have huge stashes of yarn or spinning fibres, books and beads, you don't use them all, right? Some of the time you just take them out of the cupboard and look at them. Do you put them in colour order. Dark to light or maybe rainbow... Do you squeeze them, smell them? What is that feeling? A flutter? Butterflies? Is it verging on truly, madly, deeply, love? Why don't they get it?

I love textiles, wool, spinning, sewing, machine embroidery. I love it, I love it, I LOVE IT! But I failed embroidery at school. I got a D. Our teacher was a tyrant and there was a student who was nice but I had to tell her how to thread the machine. There was no passion, no stashes, no smelling! I left school with three weeks to spare before I started my £28 per week YTS (Youth Training Scheme). So my mum asked me to join her in a little craft shop in Ormskirk for a sewing class. I reluctantly agreed and I discovered Cross Stitch! What a revelation! From there I did embroidery, attended textile artists' classes in Liverpool, I used wool threads and created 3D embroideries on canvas and from there started to spin my own. It's a passion, I love it almost as much as I love my nana.

Why did I have to wait until I was seventeen to discover my passion by accident? Where are the teachers with the training, the foresight to teach our daughters (and sons) the excitement that there is in textiles? The curriculum is completely lacking. So when our children grow up, no wonder that knitting and sewing are so far removed from them - there is no-one to teach them the excitement of creating something from scratch. Dyeing an item and not knowing what the outcome will be, knitting a garment that is rarely worn by anyone else, or even original. They are missing the flutter, the butterflies, there will be something amiss inside.

I attended the Knitting & Stitching Exhibition in Harrogate and one of the exhibits that impressed me greatly was the Bradford Grammar School. Here was a teacher with passion, there were design boards, inspiration from contemporary embroiderers and finished modern garments that women marvelled at. This is the type of teacher we need to teach knitting, but there is a renaissance in knitting and so we are all involved, all have a responsibility to keep the craft alive. So support your local shows, Stitch n Bitch next year, take along a child to your Stitch n Bitch class, spend an hour or two dyeing with a teenager or teaching them to knit. Who knows what seeds you will plant? If it saved me at seventeen (I was particularly nasty), it can save anyone!

To read more about Lazykate's world of spinning visit her blog at lazyblog.lazykate.net

Also in this issue: Lazykate's Alice Beanie and Scarf Set and Mimi Cushion patterns