At the week end I went with my grand-daughter to the homeware store that is close to where I live to get a knife sharpener for her mum. While we were looking around the kitchen department I noticed that they had some tea cosies for sale and some of them were knitted.
Now, I use teabags because it's more convenient as I live alone and I can't remember when I last used the teapot to make tea so obviously I would have no need for one of these. However, I can remember when I was about eight years old, I made a knitted tea cosy for my Mum at school. It was turquoise basket stitch on the outside and pink garter stitch on the inside with a large pink and turquoise pom-pom on the top and as I remember, it was well used for many years.
I had learned to knit when I was about six and as I got older, I started to design and knit clothes for the first doll I had been given for Christmas when I was four. By doing this, I learned a lot about how thing were constructed, especially when I made the doll a swimsuit from odds and ends of wool. As I got older, I continued to knit from time to time and when my children were very small I progressed to machine knitting as well as hand knitting and made all their clothes.
Another craft I enjoyed was needlework and embroidery which I also learned as a child. Even now I can remember the agonies of getting my french knots and lazy daisy stitches right for the teacher. Of course, dressmaking followed when I was in my teens and these crafts were again very useful when the children were small because they enabled me to work from home as a dressmaker as well as sewing and designing the girls' wardrobes.
Nowadays, children are not taught any of these skills at school and if their parents have not enjoyed the simple pleasure of knitting or sewing a garment, it will be unlikely that any of them will show an intersest in learning how to knit or sew. This means that they will probably never be able to sew on a button properly, take up trousers or skirts if they are too long, mend small tears or make a pair of curtains!
I think I know what I will be teaching my grand-daughter before long. I've already been teaching her to cook and have done so since she was about five, so now she is twelve maybe it's time for her to learn a few more skills if she wants.
That's a great idea grandma. I learned alot of skills from my grandmother too. She taught me gardening, embroidery, cooking, canning and proper freezing. She led a great example on how to keep a house clean and tidy too. Those are lost arts that only a grandmother can teach today. I'm so glad your grand-daughter finds you as interesting as I found mine.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that all of those lost arts are going to come in handy in the coming years.