I bought my first pattern, and the wool I needed. Mauve mohair, which I planned to make into a stylish batwing design jumper.

My friend’s mother helped me to decipher the knitting pattern, and I was off. Except it wasn’t as easy as when I’d practised knitting purl and plain with my mother. My sister’s friend, herself an experienced knitter, walked past and said with a raised brow, ‘You should never learn to knit with mohair.’

She was right. It was near impossible to see the stitches, and at the end of each row I would check that I hadn’t ended up with more or less than I’d started. Inevitably, I had. So each row, I would increase or decrease to return to the correct number of stitches.

The mohair had one advantage: mistakes were camouflaged in the cloud of fluff. And as the garment grew, my stitches became more even. I became adept at not missing any stitches, and not mistaking a clump of mohair next to the thread of the yarn as a stitch on its own. Miraculously, the jumper was made, and it didn’t look half bad. I wore it lots, those days. And I went on to make more jumpers, each pattern a little more complicated.

There were flops, and a few disasters, and some jumpers that turned out just like the picture, but that I ended up hating how they looked. Regardless of the outcome, I improved my skills and gained confidence.

Then something happened. I found myself at home for years while my children were little, and I needed to keep myself busy. And so I started knitting for them. Knitting little things was more satisfying, because they were a quicker project. I knitted so many different types of jumpers and cardigans, hats, and booties. And I knitted toys using those wonderful Jean Greenhowe books. Oh, how I loved her. There were also baby blankets, which I gave as gifts, and which were so loved by the new mums who got to wrap their babies in them. There’s nothing like real wool, after all. When my children went to school, they had a school jumper, knitted in the right colour, and so much better than a windcheater or fleece that paraded dirt like a neon sign. Dirt just does not stick to wool. You can wear a wool jumper a lot of times before you need to wash it. I discovered that the washing was no big deal, either. New yarns were increasingly machine washable, and I soon worked out my favourite was 8ply crepe, which always gave a great result, and could be chucked in the wash on the wool cycle again and again and again without any shrinkage at all. Bliss.

There was something intensely comforting sending my children to school in the knowledge they were wrapped in that unbeatable warmth, and more importantly, cocooned by something I had created so lovingly with my own hands through a process that had given me such pleasure.

I know I’m writing this at the danger of sounding like a housekeeping guru, but I refuse to be embarrassed by my love of knitting.

Cause, you see, during those years I spent at home, a ten year professional career behind me, were challenging on a personal level. It became easy to forget what I could do, and what I’d been good at, and only see myself as an appendage to those little people I’d created.

As my knitting projects became increasingly complicated and impressive, I was repeatedly surprised that I was managing to pull them off. Others marvelled at my creations, I started to feel proud of my accomplishment. I remembered what my mother had told me at the outset, that I wouldn’t have the patience for it. It felt good to prove her wrong. In the battle between these opposing versions of myself, my version had won. It turned out I had more than patience. I was good at it.

But realising I was good at knitting was not in itself that important. The real revelation was that I was good at learning. What becoming a great knitter taught me was that I could learn to do other things I did not know how to do, and if I kept persevering, I could potentially be pretty damn good. I saw myself in a new light. When I went back to the workforce, I tried new things. I expanded my horizons. It wasn’t as scary as it might have been because I’d been there before with my knitting. I knew you had to start out small to have any chance of succeeding.

I collected knitting books. Far more than I needed. Some I never even used. But I liked to plan, imagine, and just drink in the beauty of some of the projects. I still have all these. A few years ago, I bought a book of knitting socks. Still haven’t attempted one design, but I love having that book, because it’s a promise of a future project. Some day when I am less exhausted by life, I will return to knitting. Knitting in front of the TV, or the fire (it is essentially a Winter activity). It’s pleasant and soothing, and very creative.

All this reminiscing was brought about by this article I just read in The Age. Read it. You might like to start knitting yourself…