A Corking Good Gift

Vivien gave me this, partly as a joke, she said. The joke part was the little knitting doll that "Keeps our little ones busy," but then she worried I wouldn't know what to do with the product, so she gave me a booklet for children with a ton of ideas, though many of them involve making larger versions of this loom. I was intrigued to find that the booklet calls it 'corking', which I'd never heard of.

I thought it was brilliant! I did this as a child on a thread spool with little nails in it (as did, apparently, everyone else who sees me doing this), only we called it ‘French knitting’. Once I finally figured out the instructions again, it has been almost compulsive. The box fits neatly in my purse. I French-knitted in the car all the way to Middlewich and back; I sit in boring committee meetings for the running club and knit.

This is a child’s kit and so the tool for moving the yarn is a very blunt piece of wood that doesn’t work very well. I immediately replaced with a small metal crochet hook. I’m thinking that the original stick should make it through airport security in a pinch and I could try other pointy objects – e.g., the tine of a plastic fork – to pass the time on any flights we might take in the coming year. I’m really excited about being able to do crafts on an airplane again. I know that the US TSA allows knitting needles, something I’ve never understood; I wouldn’t try that one on here in Europe.

So, what am I going to do with the first resulting tubes of yarn? Cover hangers, of course.