 | When I was eight years old, my family moved from a suburb of Sydney to a small town in the country. To begin with, we lived on a farm, but when this went down the gurgler, we moved into the town. From 1956 until 1960, I went to the local primary school. For me, it was very much a culture shock. School was not the be-all and end-all of life for the kids from these parts. It was something to be done with as soon as possible. Sport, however, was totally different. Unbeknownst to me, I had a hole-in-the-heart, so I had no endurance to run, could not breathe and swim at the same time. And I did not have the winning "smarts" necessary to play netball. Nor the height. |
| So, I veered toward more sedentary pursuits. I was quickly the helper-librarian. And, I quickly took up knitting. This form of knitting. Knitting we called "French Knitting". I have no idea why we called it that. We certainly did not call it "spool" knitting. However, we did use cotton reels. Non of this fancy commercialised product that I have had to resort to. It is nigh impossible to hammer four nails into today's cotton reels, being plastic, and mostly full of holes. Although, I noticed that there are wooden cotton reels available on eBay. |  |
 | I want to do some sort of craft with wool with my grand-daughters. However, this I think will be beyond Alannah for a couple of years yet. Gives me time to get better at it. I have found some knitting books for using the product of French Knitting. I thought it was only good to wind around for a beanie. But nope! The first photo shows the model of knitter that I purchased from Lincraft in York Street, the other day. The little pins, although stylish, are not as good as those small nails, with their little head, at keeping the stitch on. |
| I was reading something that said varying the number of "pins" and varying the width of the hole through the centre of the reel, will both alter the size, and compactness of the "sausage" produced. I had no idea about the mechanics of this style of knitting. So ... I am now going on to eBay to see if I can find some cotton reels, wooden, of course, to start doing some variations upon a theme. I believe it is called "modelling". The girls will see me doing it, and will ask a million questions, and BINGO! Or something like that. |  |