*Baby Me modelling some lovely early 70s knitwear*

It is a truth universally acknowledged that first blog posts are notoriously difficult to write! And yet when I sat down to write this one, it seemed to almost write itself. I just hope all my posts are so easy!

So, if you are sitting comfortably…

It’s amazing what we can and can’t remember from our childhoods. For example, I can’t remember when I started knitting exactly. I just know that I was very young and had always been fascinated by it. After all, I’d watched my Granny and Mum knit for as long as I can remember, and been wearing knitwear for even longer!

Knitwear seemed to be a staple part of my wardrobe (nothing has changed!) and as a child of the 70s I had everything from simple, textured cardigans to the lovely custard yellow jumper with a pink and brown yolk that has stuck so vividly in my mind!

I suppose it took me a few years to associate knitting with clothes even though I was wearing it! My first fascination was with knitting needles. I remember Granny’s blue zipped knitting needle case with its neatly ordered needles by size, needle gauge, stitch holders and a row and stitch counter that confused the hell out of me. To this day, I remain a pen and paper girl!

By contrast, there was also her grey (although it could have been beige) leatherette case with metal push in clasp and black handle. This contained myriad coloured plastic needles, aluminium and coloured metal needles with flat ends, metal or plastic ends which may or may not have shown the needle size. This bag would now be considered a vintage knitter’s dream!

But it wasn’t the needles that I remember per se. It was the feel of them, the sounds they made as they moved against each other when I put my hand in amongst them or when the bag was placed on the table. I often found myself helping Granny sort them out: putting the needles back in pairs and feeling a great sense of accomplishment when I found the exact match. And then I’d put them back into the bag in a higgledy piggledy fashion. Looking back, it was an obvious ploy to keep me out of trouble, but it certainly taught me the difference between UK and US needle sizes from an early age!

And somewhere along the line, I was taught how to cast on. And then how to knit and purl. I remember being told I had a good, even tension…whatever that meant! I still wonder sometimes! I remember Granny doing a cable pattern and being eager to get my hands on the cable needle. And then I saw the pattern, and I was rather put off! It was a bit like walking into your Maths classroom when you’re in the first form (Year 7 now, I suppose!) and seeing the board filled with differentiation formulas from the A level class that had been in there before you. The only difference is, now I can do a cable, but I chickened out on A level Maths!

My first foray into knitting garments was when Granny showed me some patterns for Barbie doll dresses thinking that they’d be a good place for me to start. I seem to remember Barbie had to wear sleeveless dresses because I messed up the arms!

Now for the record, I hated dolls…much to Granny’s disappointment. I was much more comfortable in a pair of overalls helping my Dad change spark plugs! I don’t really remember how old I was at this point, but I do know that I can’t have been much older than 8 because sadly Granny passed away a few months before my ninth birthday. But despite my hatred of dolls, my love of knitting continues to this day.

And also for the record, I am not some knitting genius. I’m a passable enthusiast at best and I’ve always enjoyed cosying up in the Autumn and Winter months with pattern books, knitting Christmas presents and the occasional piece for myself (just don’t ask my Mum to wash your favourite knit! But that’s a story for another day!)

But if these last few years have taught me anything it’s that knitting has been a perfect companion to my Netflix binges when life has been a little bit difficult. It allowed me to go AWOL from the harsh realities of not seeing my partner or my family because of COVID restrictions and from times of family illness. And I know that I’m not the only person who discovered or rediscovered their love of knitting and the yarny arts during this time, but for me it helped me stay calm and gave me focus when the worries in my life started to unsettle me. From a mental health standpoint, I have an awful lot to thank knitting for.

Only I started to realise that knitting was becoming more than a mere distraction. I’ve always been very comfortable in my own company simply because I’ve always been very creative and can always find something to do to amuse myself. But being creative and needing to be creative are two different beasts and I realised that I needed to unleash the latter. I needed to remove it from the back burner where it had been placed for a couple of years and using up odds and ends of yarn to knit a scarf wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to go through the old pattern books I’d found in my stay-at-home tidying frenzies and attempt patterns that I had previously shied away from due to their complexity.

Having run a creative business for many years, I know that creativity comes in many forms. It isn’t simply about making something: creativity itself is a way of thinking that is backed up by a passion for what you are trying to achieve. Whether it be writing, designing, photography, knitting, crochet, painting, experimenting with different media or bringing people together to support and encourage them at all points in their creative journeys. The possibilities to create are endless and constantly drive each other.

But my need to create wasn’t the only thing that I had on the back boiler. In fairness, anyone who knows me knows that my brain is always on the go with ideas, but the idea of GoneAwool has been with me for longer than most. It was just never quite the right time to bring it to life.

You see, I knew how fortunate I was to have been taught to knit at such an early age. But I have quite a few friends who either wanted to learn, but found it all a bit intimidating or who had started to learn, but then felt discouraged. Often they felt that reading patterns was something completely alien to them and I remembered how I felt when I was little. They said everyone they saw knitting either in person or online made it look so easy and they were so fast that they felt they would never be able to knit like that. At first, I dismissed it, but then when I started looking into new techniques that I wanted to try myself, I watched a few online tutorials and I started feeling a bit inadequate myself. Because, yes, everyone looked so accomplished and some knitted differently to myself and I began to see why some of my friends felt like giving up. And that isn’t what crafting in any form is about.

And so the idea of writing about my continuing creative journey…warts and all…came into being. I hope that you all find it enjoyable, but the main thing that I want to show is that no matter where you are on your own journey we’re all learning, we’re all finding better ways to do things, we all have a place in this wonderful community of yarn lovers. I want to share my love of creating and the benefits of crafting by providing encouragement and support to crafters, designers and yarn related small businesses so that this completely inclusive community of talent can grow and thrive.

Of course, the blog is only part of what I do, and you may also have noticed that I design knitting patterns. GoneAwool has been the umbrella that my social media, the blog and my patterns have sat quite merrily under for the last two years. But I have decided that GoneAwool itself will be the name of the blog and I will be designing under my own name: Suzanne Ellsmore Designs. Obviously, I’ll be talking about my designs in the blog, but I want GoneAwool to be what I originally intended it to be, and that is about my journey! I’m not sure if I will set up a separate social media handle yet, but for now you can still find all my patterns on GoneAwool’s social media.

I really hope you will find the blog interesting and helpful and that you will stay with me on my knitting and yarn crafting journey. And as I’m always being asked about how she is, here’s me with my intern and head of yarn sniffing, Willow!

And on that note, I hope you enjoyed this little insight and would love to hear your thoughts. Until next time, folks….

Let’s Start at the Very beginning…

Gallery of creative customers