knitting history

Recently I've been teaching a couple of children how to knit. 1 of them my 8 year old cousin and another is a 10 year old child of a friend. to each, I gave a pair of spare needles and a ball of extra yarn.

Which brings me back to my first pair of knitting needles...

I first learnt how to knit from my maternal grandmother. She's actually not my real grandmother, but rather my grandfather's first wife, men being allowed to marry a couple of wives back then. She was a meticulous, smart, medicine shop heiress ex-communist feminine movement village group leader. She knew how to sew stuff on pillow cases and knit complicated sweaters. Too bad the only thing I managed to learn from her was knit (not even purl).

It was a once a month event that my parents would bring me to the huge bungalow house that my grandmother stayed with my uncle and his family. I had 4 cousins from that uncle and 2 of them girls and knitters. Between the 2 girls I learnt how to start a row of loops and my grandmother came in to teach me how to knit.

When I got home I was so intoxicated with the new knowledge that i searched high and low for some twig that i could substitute as knitting needles, not daring to ask my mom to buy me a pair.

That was how I started knitting my first hair band... with a pair of disposable chopsticks. I'm the lucky one... living in the right time and the right place where such commodities were easy to come by... snigger snigger.