I, Anna, was born in the last years of the 1950s. In the summer of 1959, the hottest summer in living memory and the summer of the wasps—I was born second in a litter of five siblings, just seven minutes before my twin sister.
Mom always had knitting in her hands when she and other mothers sat and watched us children in the playground.
I often sat next to her on the bench and loved getting something nicely knitted. But since there were five of us siblings, I patiently waited for my turn again.
When I was 10 years old, I had grown tired of waiting for my turn and started wondering how hard knitting could really be?
I asked Mom if she could teach me the noble art, and she was happy to.
At first, I had trouble knitting the first stitch of each row, so when the last stitch of the row was knitted, I would hand the knitting to Mom, who would knit the difficult first stitch, and then I could manage all the other stitches myself. Both knit and purl stitches were fine, but not the first stitch.
I knitted day and night and eventually knitted myself a stockinette vest.
It was dark purple and dark brown. I wore this vest with dark green corduroy V-jeans and an orange shirt with large lapels, as was the fashion in the late 1960s, and thought I was the best-looking person in town—one of Stockholm's northern suburbs.
After that vest, I have never stopped knitting. I have basically knitted every day since then.
I actually thought I was among the last people still knitting when my youngest daughter more or less forced me to get an Instagram account with the words: “Mom, you will love this, believe me.”
And very skeptically, I agreed to get an account, although in the back of my mind I thought I would keep my cool as long as she was visiting.
But how right she was and how wrong I was! Just a few weeks later, I started posting socks that I had knitted, and suddenly strangers started liking my pictures and commenting that they were beautiful, and all of a sudden it wasn't just my immediate family following my account.
Now I am sitting here with an Instagram account with over 19,000 followers, three published books, a booklet and several individual patterns, as well as a shop.
After a very hesitant start, I found my courage, and now I am here.
