I've had a horrible day, fighting with software and computer settings and such rubbish, and I'm thoroughly sick of it all. Dang technology!! Curses!! I am going to turn it all off (I still have the ultimate upper hand on the power switch) and go upstairs to do something completely low-tech. I'm going to knit the pair to this sock, which I finished last week. So there.

Mum taught us to knit when we were six, she must have been a patient woman. We began asking when we were five, and Mum put us off by promising that when we were six we would be old enough to learn, figuring we would have forgotten by then. Hah! I remember following her around the garden, the only place where she was truly happy, and pestering her. "But you promised!!" Finally she got sick of it and gave us needles and wool and showed us what to do. Bliss!

She was the fastest knitter I've ever known, her fingers flew and whatever she was knitting grew at a great pace. I loved the sound of her needles clicking as she sat by the fire, and the murmur of her counting stitches. If we tried to interrupt, the counting GOT VERY LOUD until we stopped and waited for her to be finished.

Meredith should photograph the blue knitted lace dress Mum finished as a young woman; she was sooo slim that it never fitted either of us, even when we were tiny slim things ourselves. Mum's 1940s kitting books are a treasure, full of memories for her and for us. I knitted many an item from them and they were fashionable in the 70s. Now they are all back in style.

Mum has arthritis now, so no more knitting. She would be amazed to know of the huge knitting revival that's happening now. If I wasn't a mad keen quilter I'd be a mad keen knitter....