Needlework stops me bursting at the seams

I was always a crafty child, in the creative sense of the word. I loved making things. My speciality was making little heart-shaped sachets out of felt, filling them with lavender which my mum would then receive for about a decade’s worth of birthdays. One year I even made her a miniature rocking chair completely out of clothes pegs. Don’t ask me why.

As I grew up, this creativity spilled over into altering clothes. I saw a hole in a top not as an inconvenience, but as a welcome challenge. I cropped a long gym top to a more flattering length. I jazzed up an otherwise boring black crop top with an embroidered red rose on the front, complete with a little green leaf sticking out the side. I rejected the trend for every top having small slits up each side, diligently sewing them up.

The feeling of self-sufficiency when you save a favourite pair of trousers by sewing up a hole has never gotten old for me. It gave me the confidence to buy items of clothing even if they’re not completely right, because I know I can alter them. The smugness that comes from knowing you have a completely unique item of clothing that no one else in the world has is unmatched.

I have tried to use a sewing machine, but in all honesty, they scare me. I prefer to do everything by hand, even if it takes a bit longer. Cutting things off, sewing bits up. Making it my own.

I also tried my hand at embroidery. I was able to give my treasured pair of sea-green jeans a new lease of life after a biro exploded in the back pocket during a waitressing shift, giving me an unfortunate black stain on my backside. Having always loved the look of floral embroidery on the back pocket of jeans, I decided to have a go myself. I embroidered a sunflower, using the round black stain as its seeds.

Though I enjoyed sewing in my teens, I would have thought knitting was seriously uncool. But in lockdown, I became a fully-fledged granny stereotype. I got into cross-stitch, favouring this mindless pursuit to writing my dissertation.

Now that my thesis deadline is safely behind me, I knit to stop myself going on my phone. These days, it’s hard to find an activity that isn’t screen-based, but knitting forces you to slow down and really take notice of what you are doing.

If I’m feeling anxious, picking up the needles and knitting a few rows is guaranteed to relax me. It is yoga for the fingers. You get into the rhythm of it. Winding the wool around the needle. Sometimes I’ll look down and realise I’ve knitted four stitches without realising, my fingers working independently of my brain. 

And you can see progress – tangible progress. I get great joy from being able to create something from nothing. A study by Knit for Peace found a number of health benefits including reduced depression and anxiety, lower blood pressure and slowing the onset of dementia. Pretty impressive claims for something you can do lazily whilst watching TV.

This being said, all I have managed to knit so far is a stripy scarf which has increased in width with every stripe, and a rectangle of blue wool which is too wide to be a scarf but too narrow to be a blanket. I have recently embarked on a new multi-coloured rectangle of wool just for good measure. I am yet to make a whole wardrobe of items from my knitting, but for now, I’m enjoying knitting for the sake of it. And enjoying the health benefits whilst I’m at it.

Check out our tutorials on TikTok for how to cast on and how to knit!