Knitting Connections

​What do you love to do? I love crafty things and have always enjoyed learning new crafts, crotchet, knitting, macrame (back in the 70's), sewing,embroidery and patch work. I think my passion for the handicrafts and cooking and love of practicality drew me to study Occupational Therapy and teaching. I am extremely grateful to all those kind people who have patiently taught me and connected with me over handicrafts.

I haven't always been so grateful though, and clearly remember when my teacher introduced me to fellow students at a US retreat as 'Maree from Australia, who enjoys the homecrafts; I was embarrassed.' Couldn't he have said  that I had been studying for the past eight years and was training to be a yoga teacher? I realise now that connecting through what I love feels right and am now so happy to be Maree, who enjoys the homecrafts.

As director of POM, as a friend calls me, I have the opportunity to share homebaked, heartfelt wisdom through weekly blogs, yoga, handicrafts, cooking and community connection and I am extremely grateful to you all for sharing with me. Hope you can join me for our POM Crafternoon. 

I come from a long line of handicrafters. My maternal Grandmother was a mother of ten and somehow managed to feed and clothe them all, and many friends and neighbours too, through sewing, knitting and cooking. My paternal Nan, was a tailor and loved to knit and crotchet too. I have lovely memories of being by her side in her 'granny flat' at our home in Footscray where she would be yelling encouraging words at the 'tranny', to her Bulldog or Cat footy boys. She taught me how to make a granny square and I made a gigantic one from her scraps of wool. I loved crocheting that rug and was so happy with it and the time I shared with Nan.

My mother was also a fantastic homecrafter and was an amazing teacher of all things craft and cooking. Like her mother she sewed and knitted all our clothes as kids. I can remember not being so happy or grateful about this at the time and longed for something from a shop. One Christmas Mum cleverly sewed a label on a nighty she had made for me. I remember being so excited. Now I am able to be so grateful for all she did and for her patience and kindness in teaching me too. 

My love of craft has brought others and myself so much joy. Even if it is just to provide a laugh. Like when I knitted my then boyfriend and now husband a Ken Done jumper complete with bright Australian animals everywhere. It was very long and thin, more like a tunic really, with one arm puffy at the shoulder and slightly longer than the other. Needless to say that jumper never made it back from the UK, but has provided us all with lots of laughs.

I find knitting very relaxing and for me it has drawn many beautiful connections. Like when we went on a camping road trip to central Australia with two other families, comprising of 8 young primary school boys and toddler Alice. I decided to make our car tech free! I can't imagine what technology was back then , but I think maybe gameboys and nintendo were the go. Anyway, much to our boys' horror our car was the guessing game, drawing and knitting car! Surprisingly the knitting caught on and pretty soon all the boys were knitting scarves. It was such fun to sit around the campfire at night all knitting together. Often on our lunch stops there would be plenty of mishap corrections and off we'd go again.  I was so happy to see my son Sam recently pack the scarf he had knitted during that trip in his bag for Germany. Pity he didn't remember to pack his passport too. 

Another wonderful knitting opportunity came when our daughter's chemistry tutor Nick asked me to teach him to knit a beanie for his girlfriend. I was delighted to assist and we formed a little group of first year Uni. boys who successfully knitted beanies for their girlfriends. What fun we had.

And more recently a lovely friend of mine Rosie, kindly asked me to knit a couple of teddies for her grand nephews, through POM. I was so happy to do them on our recent road trip and combined them with an eye-pillow, bag, and crocheted cotton washcloth and soap in a 'new parents POM pack'. You can see it pictured above and on the website pom-melbourne. I dropped them off on my 'Patience Limbo' Tuesday, when I got the right address! I shared a lovely time with Rosie and her daughter and they kindly encouraged me to get the POM Crafternoon up and running. I must admit, unlike many extremely talented crafters including my Mum, Meredith, my sister in law, and various other friends, I know only the basics but would be so happy to share and connect with anyone interested in coming along. I plan to run them every Friday from 2-4pm and every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month, also from 2-4pm. Please see the dates for the next couple of months on the flyer above. 

Have a great week 
Thank you all once again for your continued support, friendship and generosity. And thanks to Tara who kindly edits these blogs for me each week. You may have noticed the use of grammar and spelling has greatly improved over the past months!
Kind Regards and Best Wishes 
Maree xx ​