Slip One

Slip one, knit one, purl two…

“Nan, I think I’ve dropped a stitch again.”

The clickety-clack of Nan’s needles pauses, as she stares at me over her thick glasses. 

“Not again, Rose.  You need to learn to pick up stitches - you manage to drop enough of them.”

“Sorry,” I say, as I pass the half-finished scarf over to her.

The gas fire is on full blast and I’m glad to have some respite from the stifling layer of knitting.  It makes me think of Rapunzel’s hair, it’s so long and heavy; a tangle of fibres that make no sense to me at all.

My nan is an ace knitter.  She can knit, drink a cup of tea, smoke a fag, do the crossword and watch Emmerdale Farm, all at the same time.  Which is what she’s doing now.  I wish she wouldn’t blow cigarette smoke near my wool, though.  I’ll have to put a bar of soap in the bag to make it smell nice.

“You might be able to knit better if you took some of that jewellery off – it sounds like you’re playing the tambourine,” she says, looking at my arms full of bangles.  “And I don’t know how you can lift your head with all those bloody earrings in.”

Nan does NOT approve of the way I dress.  “Girls tried to look pretty in my day,” she says with a tut and shake of her granny permed head.

“I don’t want to look like a Barbie doll, Nan.”

“That’s good, because you look like the Bride of Dracula.  You gave Mrs Williams the fright of her life when you answered the door to her!”

I laugh.  Mrs William’s face had been an absolute picture.  I thought her false teeth might fall out.

“Who are you knitting this for, anyway?  The colours are bit conservative for you.”  She weighs me up with her eyes.   

“Stop fishing for information, Nan - we’re just friends.” 

“Friends!  You don’t knit scarves for ‘just friends’ – not if you’re as bad at it as you are.”

“He took me bird watching on Sunday.”

“Good God.  I bet you frightened all the birds away, clattering about like the rag and bone man!”

I laugh.  “Nan, I’ve got to go soon.  Do you want me to make you a drink before I get off?”

“No, I’m fine, Rose.”

She looks at me fondly.  “I tell you what,” she says, holding up my knitting.  “Why don’t I do this for you?  You’ll never finish it in a month of Sundays and it’ll only take me five minutes.”

It’s sorely tempting.  Knit two, purl two rib became an exercise in monotony after about ten inches.

“No, Nan, it would feel like cheating.”

She hands it back to me and I wrap the scarf carefully around the needles.  I realise that it’s more than just a length of woolly loops and stitches;  over the weeks it’s become part of me and I’ve knitted all my daydreams, hopes and feelings into it.