Wish I Were Good at Needlework!

There is an old woman who comes to the shop every now and then.
She brings in her hand-knitted baby clothes in various colours and everyone raves about her talent and goes, 'wow' 'that's so cute!'.

When she was young she was a dress maker; once upon a time, every girl could saw, knit and crochet. That used to be part of girls' virtue, I guess.
People say, if you want to learn how to knit, ask your granny.
Both my grannies are long gone, but my mum and auntie are genius knitters.

Well...knitting is COOL now!
You see young chicks on some trams knitting frantically.
Their fingers and needles, rolling, moving, like the magician's hands, quickly turn the yarn into an exquisite piece of work.

Long long time ago, my mum used to crochet clothes for me.
I have to confess that I didn't like them.
I couldn't understand what was so cool about knitting and crocheting.

All I could think of those clothes was; they're so daggy.

Having said that, there was a particular hand-crocheted vest with the cool hippie colours, which somehow appealed to me with its unusual look.
I always liked going out with that vest on.

As I proceeded into junior high and high,
I saw other girls talk about knitting sweaters and gloves for boys they fancy, with the kind of contempt - well I won't do such a girlie thing.

Such an insufferable, aloof bitch I was, I still watched my mum and auntie doing needlework with full of wonderment, and after a while I started finding it pretty cool.

Auntie taught me the basics of knitting before I left Japan, but still all I can knit is scarves, and now I have too many scarves I would scarcely wear.

When it comes to crocheting, I observed mum doing that every so often and by the time I became interested I knew all necessary terms and tricks.
Crocheting turned out to be a good fun.

Last night I stayed up late and was trying to make a beret, the kind I saw on the train the other day, not the traditional beret but somewhat looks closer to beanies in the shape and hangs a bit loosely at the back. The first two attempts have miserably failed.
I needed the pattern.

Fortunately I've found a cute one on a website this afternoon, and I'm ready to go for my next attempt.