For the past six months, I’ve been knitting socks.  I had heard from various reliable woolly sources that knitting socks was “very difficult” and it was necessary to juggle more than two needles at a time, so despite being an extremely obsessive and experienced knitter, I convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough, or lacked the necessary discipline, or wouldn’t have the patience to manage to make even the most humble of socks – or worse still, manage to end up with a single sock and not be able to persuade myself to make an actual pair.

I was first taught to knit by my mother when I was very young, I think I was about 4 years old, and I’ve always suspected that her intention was to give me something to do which would keep me quiet and distracted.  I used to knit up balls of string, then when the ball came to an end, I’d unravel it and start again.  My mother wasn’t a particularly talented knitter, she knew the basics of knit, purl, cast on and cast off, so as a child I was limited to making dishcloths as presents for grandparents.  But there was something about the process which really appealed, something elusive and intangible.  By the time I hit my teens, I dived fearlessly into designing and making jumpers – huge, baggy affairs which often went down to my knees, were too big across the shoulders and had sleeves which were too short; the jumpers available in the shops were truly hideous, clingy affairs so it seemed the perfect way to resolve that problem and improve my knitting skills as well.  There was also some kind of knitting revival going on at the time, and for the first time ever, beautiful crazy yarns were available, including fluffy mohair in a range of sumptuous colours.  I was hooked, and have knitted obsessively ever since.

Medically, there has been a lot of discussion about knitting and its mental health benefits, and most recently, there has been a lot of debate and consideration into the concept of Social Prescription, rather than the more traditional approach of sending you away with a few bottles of pills.  Social Prescription is the idea of recommending an activity, preferably one with social interaction, to improve not only mental health issues but also physical health issues such as lowering blood pressure, etc.  Social Prescription activities are many and varied, and could include knitting, fishing, walking, sewing, painting, pottery, or basically any creative activity which has the potential to distract from current or ongoing health issues and increase social interaction, and in the UK, GPs are being actively encouraged to prescribe, for example, knitting rather than more pills.

So what exactly is it about knitting which works for me?  As a self-confessed Yarn Whore with an obsessive compulsion to click away, what is clear is that knitting is a multi-sensory experience.  With the exception of taste, knitting brings a feel-good factor to all the other senses: visually, the yarn is beautiful both prior to and after knitting, and the range of colours and textures available now is incredible; the gentle clicking sound of the needles and the subtle smooth sound of yarn sliding off the needles is very calming; the textures of different yarns as they slide through your fingers are curious and varied, as is the way that the different yarns respond to the knitting process; and the different scents of the yarns reflect their various compositions and fibres, from the relatively strong smell of natural wool yarns to silks and cottons (yes, they all have a different scent!).  But the sensory response to the process is arguably not what makes knitting a really positive activity to get in to.  Yes, any creative process will benefit your mental well-being, but the knitting experience brings with it a rather hypnotic, meditative state which I haven’t experienced with other creative processes.  When I knit, my body starts to physically move very slightly, responding to the movements of my hands and arms; in passing the yarn around the needles or when slipping stitches off the needles, my body begins to sway slightly, rhythmically, gently, my breathing follows these rhythms, and it is this range of movements which makes knitting such a meditative, relaxing process.  Furthermore, most knitting demands some level of concentration (I’m thinking aran or socks here!) which forces you to focus, not get distracted, and so you will inevitably focus less on your health issues.

So, back to the decision to suddenly man-up and try to make socks.  Actually, I bought my first-ever sock yarn last summer, deliberately prior to going into hospital for surgery – for some bizarre reason, I thought this would be an excellent idea.  I took it with me, looked at it a few times, then wimped out and put it away again; it seemed that it was a really stupid idea to try to improve my existing skills by learning something new at such a time and was just too much to deal with.  However, after a couple of weeks at home, when my physical symptoms were a bit easier to manage, I decided that I needed some serious distraction so started on the much-avoided sock challenge – and I loved it!  I learnt to knit on five needles, began to understand why socks need to be knitted in a certain way, and had (very sensibly) bought some self-striping yarn so I wouldn’t get bored, and I have obsessively knitted socks ever since.  I have written three different patterns so I can knit socks in different yarn weights, and as soon as I finish one pair I start another, I just can’t stop!  What was most apparent in all this was the soothing, meditative effect of knitting on my body and my mind at this difficult time, and I would have really struggled to cope without the distraction of the knitting process alongside the satisfaction of making something beautiful.

I now have far too many socks and need a bigger sock drawer.  I probably should give some away as gifts but they all feel special to me and I don’t really want to part with them, not yet anyway.

For more information about the benefits of knitting, click here