KNITBITS

If you have any knitting-related songs, poems, stories, paintings or other textile miscellanies to share with the rest of the knitting community I'd be pleased to post them here.

When I got back from last year's Knitting & Gardens Tour, nestling in my inbox where these two very different, but equally interesting, moving and amusing poems. One written by a father about his daughter's knitting experiences and the other written by a daughter about her Mum who'd just died.

THE NEEDLES AND THE DAMAGE DONE
My daughter. I brought her up. I taught her wrong from right
And black from white and all the grey bits in between,
Know what I mean? So what does she do,
The artless, heartless little moo? Frightens me
Fartless by sodding off to live in Brighton,
The Sussex Sodom & Gomorrah of yesterday, today,
Tomorrow and well into the middle of next week,
Magnet for every freak from John O’Groats to Lands End,
Chock full of gender-benders, boozers, cruisers,
Serial substance abusers - and unusually, I’m not talking muesli!
The stuff they smoke would make Puff the Magic Dragon choke.
The lengths they go to in pursuit of carnal satisfaction
Would put Casanova in traction.
And are all these salacious South Coast groins enough
To gratify the sole feminine fruit of my loins?
Is there no depth of depravity, no unexplored corporeal cavity
With which she is unacquainted? Brace yourselves, people.
Folk have fainted at this disclosure. Strive to maintain
Your composure. My wild, sensation-seeking child,
With a consenting partner, was sitting in a pub
When she was asked to leave - for knitting!
I must confess that when she said "Hold me, daddy,"
And told me, I was in stitches. I laughed so much
I bust my britches, and she looked at them penitently
And whimpered, " Can I sew them for you, ever so gently? "
The poor kid’s crochet-hooked on yarn-based products.
She’s a fool for wool, a pushover for pullover patterns,
A slattern for tatting, an embroidery hoyden - and she’s not alone.
She only has to pick up a phone to unravel a whole skein
Of thread-heads, running a patchwork of internet chat rooms
Where they groom the unwitting into a total dependence
On knitting, an unsustainable greed for tweed.

Mind you, you gotta be hardy to survive in the sordid world of full Fair Isle
Cardy. Not for them the exquisitely stitched hem, the romance of
" Knit one, purl one. " More a frantic clicketty-clack, flat on your back
And not an ounce of 4-ply. Addicts, wasted on worsted, rove Hove,
So bestial and rotten as to fleece old ladies for a single spool of cotton.
And the social cost of these lost souls is incalculable. When
They need a fix of mixed shades they’re reduced to visiting
Rough-trade haberdashers shops who can be relied upon not to call the cops.
Cast off by society, if they commit the impropriety of coming out
And parading their perversion in a pub or club, they risk a snub
From someone like the churl who told my girl, " I don’t allow spitting,
And I don’t allow knitting! I know it’s crewel hard but, YOU’RE BARRED."

© Peter Wyton
For more of Peter's work click here. He has a new book out which features the above poem, as well as 'Not All Men Are From Mars' in support of Women's Aid with all profits going to the charity. More details at http://www.obergine.com/notallmenarefrommars/

And here's Angela McGee's poem about her late mum, Dollie Marcham.

For those of us blessed to know Dollie
Her knitting was part of her life
She knitted her way through her problems
And cast off her troubles and strife

She was always half way through a jumper,
A teddy or more of those socks !
Or a pile of bright squares for a blanket
From odd bits of wool in a box

There wasn’t a day when her needles
Were idle and cast to one side
In fact we are sure she was knitting
The day we discovered she’d died

Her knitting was there on the arm chair
As if she had just put it down
Then her heart just gave up in an instant
And she passed away all on her own

So we’re sending the knitting with Dollie
We know she’d appreciate that
She’ll need it to keep her self busy
With that regular clickety-clack

So don’t be surprised in the future
if angel turn up in white socks
Or have soft woolly wings that have cables
And are wearing some nice Aran smocks

‘Cause Dollie will be up there knitting
On some fluffy white woollen cloud
She’ll be watching an old tape of Jethro
With a Baileys and laughing aloud

So although Dollie left us quite sudden
There’s no need to feel guilty or cry
That we didn’t have more time to tell her
That we loved her or just say goodbye

She’ll be looking down on us and smiling
And saying she’s just doing fine
And she’s popping off down to the Bingo
When she gets to the end of this line !

So please, when you think about Dollie
Look up to the sky for a while
And think of her knitting in Heaven
And remember her just with a smile

© Angela McGee
Knit on Dollie and God bless.

I was thrilled to receive a copy of Rainbow Chasers' Knitting Song. Rainbow Chasers are a fabulous and unique band put together by Ashley Hutchings and band members Jo Hamilton and Ruth Angell are both avid knitters. If they're touring anywhere near you, be sure not to miss them. Have a listen here. For more info and gig list visit www.folkicons.co.uk/ashnews.htmTHE

Here's a new poem sent to me by Wendy Freebourne, knit designer and poet.
For more of her work click here.

THE TRICOTEUSE
She has brows like a knitting machine; teeth
grinding, sliding back and forth, hands
tense twitching, like the furies, knitting revenge
into every stitch, like Madame Defarge,
the tricoteuse. Like Nero, she could be knitting
while Rome burned. For each

stitch that drops off the needle,
another head will roll. Stitch on
stitch, she builds a scaffold of reprisal
to shore up her pain and punish her foes,
fatally – clickety-clack. As she watches

the guillotine swing, she never lets go of those
knitting pins, pinning elbows to sides, tight,
pressing breasts together, like a turnkey, pointed,
like knives piercing nooses, tearing at thread
and yarn. She never lets up on the rhythm of plains
and purls and slip stitch over, knitting holes for the holy,
knotting sutures for her bleeding wounds. She knits

her worries into the fabric, repetition relieving her
heart’s terror. She experiences no trauma. The edge
of life is taken off, woven into lacy borders, colours,
a jacquard array, balm for her sorry soul. Falling apart,
she knits to keep herself whole.