Never underestimate a knitter. How much creepier does it get than sitting by a guillotine, working the names of the dead heads into your plain and purl? How much more lethal than Rosa Klebb with her poison-tipped needles? How much damage can be done to your dignity by a hand-knitted jumper from a relative who doesn't like you? The Australian media and politicians who have sneered and jeered at PM Julia Gillard for knitting a toy kangaroo for the royal baby have no idea what they're messing with.
I learned to knit at primary school. I was so rubbish at it that I had to stand in front of the class by the teacher so she could catch my mistakes before they led to complete disaster. Eventually, I got the hang of it, but I never caught the bug. It was another 20 years before I discovered the joy of knitting as an adult.
It began as an act of defiance. I was a journalist cursed with a homophobic news editor who wouldn't give me assignments. When I brought stories in, he would pass them on to another hack. My days were spent trawling through local papers looking for possible leads for other people to follow.
I needed to find a way to piss him off that he couldn't fire me for. My cousin had recently taken up Icelandic knitting in a big way, and that reminded me of the power of plain and purl. So I bought wool and needles and a pattern and started knitting at my office desk. I went for simple patterns so that I could knit and read at the same time – so he had no grounds for complaining that I wasn't doing my job. Watching his little piggy eyes narrow in frustration was as much a joy as the creative pleasure in the knitting.
He cracked first and started sending me out on stories. I think he was only doing it in a bid to screw with my knitting.
The latest phase of my knitting life began when I quit smoking eight years ago. I needed something to occupy my hands while I was watching TV and so I took up my pins again. All my family now have scarves; the teenagers all have embarrassing sweaters. I'm at the point of knitting scarves as raffle prizes. My latest adventures in knitting involve translating patterns from Norwegian. Because knitting in English is for wimps.
Respect the knitters, I say. We are tough, we are ruthless and we know how to bide our time.
