THE KNITTING BUG

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE KNITTING BUG

an infectious complaint HOW THE WORM TURNED By M.F.G. With the advent of chill winds without and cosy fires within, the knitting season has officially opened. Once more feminine heads, from the most modern coiffure of artificial curls to the most old-fashioned " bun," are bent over intricate patterns and difficult directions. Once more it becomes unsafe to speak to Granny in the evening for fear she loses count of her stitches; once more the girl who sits beside you 111 the tram spends half her time fumbling on the floor for dropped stitches and wool; and once more picture-goers are infuriated by the infernal, eternal clickclackings of some wretched woman who can knit in the dark. The Knitting Bug is again at large, and only the fearless will dare to defy him. Let us admit at once than though 1 proved myself at last to be fearless, did not always defy him. My knitting career began at the tender age ot seven, when, under the supervision ot my grandmother, I completed countless rows of "plain," without.ever achieving any desirable result. A little later, however, I began, in deadly earnest, a pair of baby's bootees. I used the finest of steel needles and the finest of pale pink wool. Every few years a new arrival in our circle of friends and relations would spur me on to the extent of a few more rows, until, in my late 'teens, I was able to present a pair of greyish-looking tonnis socks to the poor. Mother, as she stuffed the grimy and ill-knitted objects into her charity bag, was heard to murmur, iroor indeed 1" A Husband Takes a Hand After this, my wild enthusiasm for knitting began to wane a little, and indeed it might have slumbered on forever, save for the untoward circumstance of my marriage to one of the few men who still believe a cardinal virtue among good wives is todb able to turn a heel and knit a cable-stitch pullover. One of the few, I emphasise, because of course most husbands know only too well that as a tyrant in the home the Knitting Bug is only to be surpassed by a warlike mother-in-law. My husband, however, had not learned this and would always complain when my hands lay idly turning the pages of a book or flicking the ash ott a cigarette, instead of popping to and fro in that maddening and incessant jiggle which finally produces a magnificent muffler, a peerless pullover or a perfect pair of socks. He would draw my attention to the noble efforts or