The Knitting Factory
No, no, this isn’t about a club in New York. Rather, it is the quip of a woman trying to go crafty.
I have always wanted to knit. Sure, I could turn a few charms on the crochet needles (and my mother can produce animated figures while yelling ‘I can’t remember how to do this! I can’t remember how to do this!) but I have never been able to master the double needles. Knitting, the elusive frontier.
In 2000, I brought back umpteen skeins of lovely Merino wool in shades of black, grey and taupe from my trip to New Zealand. I also garnered an autograph from the man I was named after, Sir Edmund Hillary. But every year I open the wool bag and look at it rather forlornly. “This year,” I tell myself, “this year I will make something exquisite”.
It hasn’t happened yet.
I had almost given up on even producing something like a patchwork blanket, consisting of multi-colored squares, when I found this: 
We’re talking tiny knitting looms that allow for flat edged squares, and no coordination needed for the pointy sticks. One kit comes with the loom and needle, yarn, cd and written instructions. 
Although my son has now disposed of the written instructions, I at least have the cd, and was perusing the website to make sure I do this right. A friend, who is a knitting fiend and makes tons of infant hats for a preemie charity every year, took a look at this and told me: “It looks harder than regular knitting.” Then, in an attempt to not discourage me, she qualified it with “Providing you are any good at regular knitting.” That was quickly followed by a “Good luck with that!”.
My husband echoed with “He needs a scarf? Buy one!”.
My son, none the wiser, believes the board is where all hats, gloves and scarves come from, and already tells people I’ve made everything he wears. haha, let’s hope he can’t distinguish storebought from mom’s hands.
