Category: Community

Thank you, dear readers, for four lovely months, and for your patience with a nervous craftswoman. I was afraid that my confession would drive you away. Instead, I received 63 letters, 51 cups of tea and a handknitted apology from a man who said he, too, had been taking his own jumpers apart for years, and who hoped we might form a group.

We shall. Unravellers Anonymous will meet on Thursdays at seven, in the back room, and all are welcome. Bring a half finished thing. Bring a whole finished thing, if you dare. We shall sit, and drink tea, and be kind. I ask only one favour, which is that, should you buy a Mystery Skein, you do not ask where it came from. It came from all of us.

A reader named Pomeroy writes: “Dear Marigold, I bought a Pocket Pigeon from you in April. It was plump. Now it is, if I may say, rather slender. Is this normal?” It is a good question, Pomeroy, and I am glad you asked. All wool shrinks a little with handling, and a pigeon, in particular, loses a bit of its bulk in the first few months.

It is also possible, and I say this only to be honest, that the pigeon has been loved a great deal. Love can be hard on a stitch. If you would like to send it back, I will happily work on it, and return it fuller. I will need a few days, a quiet room, and a certain amount of privacy. Please do not ask me what happens in the back. It is, mostly, tea.

Knit Night at the Boutique returned on Thursday with a record fourteen guests. We gathered on the rug by the stove, in a ring, and each of us took a needle, a ball and a biscuit. The theme was “the long scarf,” and by the end of the evening we had produced 4.2 metres of fabric and one mild disagreement regarding purl.

Hortensia, the elderly Siamese who comes with her own needles, taught us a new cast on that she learned from her mother. Tobias the Persian knitted a sock and then, in a fit of feeling, ate it. All in all, it was a gentle evening. Next time we shall be making mittens for the uncooperative, so please bring your oldest friends, and a skein you can part with.