THE MILLAMIA BLOG: AN AFTERNOON OUTING

I have often said that I am a one-woman campaign set on teaching knitting to everyone I meet. The variety of pupils has been wide-ranging and only a very few of those have been unwilling, BUT there have been happy converts too! I like to think that were it not for my persistence (and endless patience) these knitters may never have come to our amazing craft and hence missed out on a lifetime of creativity.

So, I found myself instantly challenged when I discovered that our lovely office manager, Maja could not knit. How much it would help her, in her daily tasks of helping knitters and stockists, I thought; what a perfect pastime for those wasted minutes travelling to and from work, I thought; what a perfect opportunity for enriching her life, person and home with gorgeousness, I thought!

Maja was in my sights.
She WOULD be a knitter!

The first step to being a knitter, I told Maja, is choosing the perfect project. It has to be a 'something' that meets certain criteria:
1) the perfect balance of not too easy/not too hard to encourage yet simultaneously challenge the beginner knitter
2) not too cheap (to avoid it being discarded easily if the learning process gets tough)
3) not too expensive (in case of mishap)
4) preferably a garment that the beginner REALLY wants to own (carrot and stick . . .)

Whilst we at MillaMia have some really well written patterns for beginners, they are mostly for children or cushions (like the Stilla) and I knew that Maja would benefit from something simple to knit and to wear. I wanted to make sure that her first project was a 'something' so beautiful that she would be instantly hooked, and also purchase it in a place where her senses would be overwhelmed by yarny loveliness - where better, I thought, than a local yarn shop! It happens that Mrs Moon is just a short journey from us in our new office and so last Thursday, we ventured over to St Margarets on a yarn shopping mission.

You may have read the stockist profile that I posted on the blog about Karen and Susan, the sister owners of Mrs Moon. They were our very first stockist and as such, hold a special place in our hearts whilst also being a very beautiful and excitingly stocked yarn shop. The array of exquisite buttons and Liberty ribbon too is so delightful, but this was Maja's first trip to a LYS, and she was very soon intoxicated by the yarn fumes.

Karen was at hand to help us find the perfect beginner project, showing Maja a very pretty scarf knitted simply in garter stitch in Kidsilk Haze. Maja loved the look of the scarf but was instantly besotted when she touched the delicate item. We looked no further. Two balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in alhambra, some lovely thick KnitPro needles and a pattern book saw Maja furnished with the means to create a truly beautiful 'something'.