The first question I am often asked by knitters who are at the very start of their journey is; “but what can I actually make?”.
I started to think long and hard about what I had made when I was a beginner; simple gloves as birthday presents for my friends, simple scarves that weren’t so long that they became a chore and “ballet bands” to keep the hair out of my eyes.
With this in mind, I put together a collection of these memories and updated them for the modern knitter with the assumption that they had already learnt the basics of casting on, casting off and the knit stitch.
Beginners are often encouraged to start with manmade fibres because they are robust but I find these do not always give the new knitter a real sense of the beatulus that knitting brings so I cast around for a perfect natural alternative. I wanted to use a wool with integrity, that was a joy to use and was not prohibitively expensive. The answer was, of course, Jamieson and Smith’s 2ply jumper weight pure Shetland wool. It comes in a myriad of colours; has a good crunchy stitch definition and blooms so beautifully when washed.
I was mindful too of cost. Knitting is not a cheap hobby but there are plenty of cost- effective yarns that do not cost the earth. I also wanted to provide 3 different patterns that complement each other in different sizes to suit everyone. All three patterns knitted in the largest sizes, can be knitted in less than 4 balls of Jamieson and Smith’s Shetland wool.
I wanted the patterns to be as clear as possible; teaching has taught me that beginners prefer an uncluttered format which allows the knitter to focus on the instructions.