Working with wool

Working with wool

Many years ago, when visiting a small fishing village towards the bottom of the Mani peninsular I watched with fascination at the fishermen mending their nets. This is hard work given the weight of the nets, the seaweed and rubbish that gets tangled in the knotted material and the constant smell of dead fish. Nevertheless I was fascinated and persuaded one of the fishermen to slow down the process so that I could follow what he was doing. After quite some time I plucked up the courage to ask if I could try. All the men laughed, for this was serious 'men's work'. Eventually one man stood up from his stool and handed me the net, perfectly positioned with a tear in it that cut both the cross and down threads over 4 holes. I took up the challenge. All the men put down their nets and just looked at me. The pressure was on. I started out quite confident that I knew what to do, but the weight of the net and keeping the tension took some doing. Getting red faced I fought the strong threads, but eventually, with not quite perfect tension, I mended the hole. The men were amazed but politely clapped and shouted 'bravo'. Little did they know that I was expert enough in the now little used skill of tatting. I even made a bed cover once, which took my quite some years I recall. I don't even know where it is now.

Because I was born before the days of TV in the house, let alone in almost every room. We did not have game stations and computers, mobile telephones; in fact on the farm we did not even have electricity until I was sixteen! So evening entertainment included talking to each other, playing cards and developing our skills in various crafts. My uncle listened to the radio, but that was in the morning for the farming news and in the evening for news. Apart from that and The Archer's omnibus on a Sunday, the radio was silent; saving batteries was a priority. My grandmother was a great card sharp who could have easily made a fortune around the gambling haunts of the old wild west! My aunt was always busy, washing the day's eggs and putting them in boxes ready for sale the next day; darning clothes, ironing, baking, salt curing hocks of bacon and generally doing the unending tasks of a farmer's wife. If I wasn't helping my aunt, I was loosing at cards to my grandmother who never believed in the psychology of letting a little one win every now and again - she taught me that to win you had to observe, learn, concentrate and persist. What a wonderfully sweet moment was the time I first beat her at cards! It was a sort of coming of age and poured upon me a new layer of personal confidence.

A maiden aunt of mine taught me to knit. She too was a hard task master. I spent years just knitting the insides of pockets which she fitted into what are now called 'boyfriend cardigans', for that seemed to be the only pattern she knew. She had ones in pink, blue, grey and something called 'oatmeal'. She knitted one for every female in the family in various pastel shades of green or yellow and a black one for my grandmother. The pockets were all mine. Once I had perfected the tension I was allowed a variation on the theme; I moved on to knitting pockets which fitted on the outside of the garment and so were actually seen! What proud moments I had pointing out to anyone who would listen - 'I made that' I would say as I reached out to any relatives' pockets. I did this quite often to the men who had theirs knitted in sombre colours of grey, brown, navy and green tweed. I had quickly learnt that by doing this, putting on what I considered to be a pretty smile and shaking my curly hair, the man in question would invariably reach into his pocket and bring out a sweet or a coin for me.

Sitting round the table, covered with a green chenille tablecloth, with my grandmother playing patience cards and my aunt with hands in some sort of food or housework, I would struggle with my knitting. Thinking back, my aunt must have only used double knitting for everything for I had a pair of what are now known as 4mm knitting needles which my father had patiently ground down to about half length for me. There were no such things as knitting kits for starters then, kids just did what the grown ups did and took up the challenge of small fingers and adult sized tools. But my perseverance paid off for I was about 10 years old when I knitted my first jumper for myself. It was yellow - a colour I never wear now - and I remember that I had made a mistake on the front neck shaping and so the top of each side had a few rows of reverse stocking stitch forming a triangle, but everyone said that it made it look different and it didn't matter at all that it didn't look exactly like the pattern. I was pleased that I had been creative and 'added' to the pattern. That must have stayed with me for I rarely knit completely from a pattern. I might use a pattern for the overall shape, but put my own blend of colours and / or stitches. Mostly I design my own knitwear and most recently I sort of make it up as I go.

For the past year I have been avidly knitting children's clothes: jumpers, cardigans and gillets. A year last March I watched the terrible pictures on TV of the Japanese tsunami and the devastation it caused. My heart went out to the people caught up in this terrible disaster. Some days later My heart froze as I saw pictures of some little children, orphans standing shivering in the snow. I immediately thought 'I have plenty of spare wool, I can make some sweaters and send to those poor children'. As a fast knitter with time, I had finished three sweaters in a week. Then it dawned on me; where do I send them, how do I get them there? It was then that I discovered that although aid was going into Japan, it was deemed by the West to be an economically viable country and so aid was restricted. This was further enhanced by the pride of the Japanese, not wanting to be seen needy. But those children did not know anything of politics; many of them had lost all they had ever known, except their class mates, they were traumatised, the were cold. At least I could do something about the latter, is nothing else.

Now, 16 months on, through the invaluable services of my relatives, friends, friends or friends, colleagues and indeed anyone who will listen, we have sent almost 2000 items of knitted children's clothes to Japan. I made contact of a friend from university and it was a total coincidence that Yuko had a cousin who is a priest in Kesen-numa City, Japan's main fishing port which was so devastated by the tsunami. In addition we have sent over basic clothes such as underwear and, at Christmas, toys for the children. Because of normal tidal surges most coastal places build schools and hospitals on high land. Thus in the tsunami many of the children, at school at the time, were saved but their parents working and living on the lower land were not. In one instance about 40 children who come over to the mainland to school were made orphans as the tsunami waves washed away the island and all they had ever known. With the facilities of modern technology we have been able to have photographs of the children and they, photographs of the knitters.

What I have found amazing about the project have been the unexpected pleasures. I have been really overcome with the generosity of people donating their time and skills to knit, but also those who have donated wool, money for postage and helped in all manner of ways; packing, motivating others to help, getting donations from wool shops, running raffles to raise money for postage. But a number of elderly people, who really do not have the money to spare for wool, have helped me out by using up my vast stash of yarns and that which has been donated. For some it has become an integral part of their social life; someone pops in to see them to give them wool and collect knitting and of course share a cup of tea and a chat. In one area a group who didn't really know each other before now meet on a weekly basis for a 'knit and natter' session; they share lifts, share cakes and sandwiches, exchange wool and patterns, help each other out with dropped stitches and have formed a great social network. As one grandknitter said to me 'It is so wonderful to be giving again, instead of receiving help'. Wow, what a win win situation has been created.

Here in Greece at the moment it is far too hot to contemplate working with wool, but I have even started to get a few knitters on the island to help me with this work. i have been amazed at how many young people here still knit. It has been a wonderful learning curve as I have studied and tried out new techniques of knitting. One old lady showed me the traditional Greek way of knitting whereby the needles are help slightly differently but the wool is either taken round the back of the knitter's neck or looped over a hook pinned to the front of her clothes just under the chin. This means that the wool is always held in tension and the knitting needle is rather flicked to catch the wool, rather than twisted round the needle. It gives a very even tension. But after years of knitting the British way, I cannot get my fingers around this method.

It does get to about 30'Cin the evening and I do then feel that I can pick up my needles. My cousin's daughter is pregnant and so I have promised to knit an heirloom christening shawl for the baby. My 2ply wool from the Shetland isles arrived last week. I've chosen three traditional stitch designs and will knit the shawl in three sections; a central square, a broad edging taken out from each side and a more lacy triangulated edge knitted at right angles to the inner edging.

When I've finish it and when I've learnt how to put photographs into these ramblings words and pictures will give a better view of life on a beautiful Greek island.