I’ve got two new hobbies that complement each other bee-yoo-ti-fully. Knitting and podcasts. Podcasts and knitting.

I realise podcasts have been around for ages, and I’d often tried to get into them, sometimes listening to a random episode of something during a long stint in the kitchen, but nothing really stuck.

Until I found a podcast I really liked: The History of English. Etymology, linguistics and British/European history have long been interests of mine, and as a word nerd, learning about the evolution of the English language has been absolutely fascinating. Especially when I discovered that I’m living in an area of England that used to be known as The Danelaw.

Now I had a riveting podcast with over 80 episodes (and counting) to listen to, but needed a secondary activity to keep me busy while listening. While I do like to cook and potter around the house, I would find myself running out of things to do before the episode had finished but also didn’t really feel like playing yet another round of 2048 on my phone.

Around the same time, a friend here in Leeds convinced me to give knitting another try. I mean, we are in Yorkshire, once the wool capital of the world, and a place where sheep and wool are still incredibly important to Yorkshire’s livelihood and cultural identity. My village, Chapel Allerton, even supports a wool shop!

She picked me up the first issue of Simple Stylish Knitting, the best way I could have possibly re-learned how to knit. Each issue of the magazine contains a ball of yarn and a pattern for a 15 cm square to knit for a quilt. Each knitted square teaches a new stitch or pattern. Every issue also contains other simple projects that are growing progressively more detailed as each square is mastered. If the detailed instructions and photos aren’t quite enough to go on, they even have a YouTube channel with instruction videos – the only way I mastered the bobble stitch.

I tried knitting as a teen, started a horrible scarf and quickly gave it up as a bad job. In general I have never been very good at most crafts and visual arts – I was the kid who always got a C+ in art class, and happily switched to music and drama in high school. I don’t draw, I don’t paint, I don’t sew, I don’t make jewellery, and in general I’m okay with that – nobody can be good at everything, and I’m happy to be a good cook, writer and somewhat flukey photographer.

But, I think precisely because I don’t really identify as a knitter, it has been a fun, low-key thing to try. And someday I’ll have a massive quilt to be quite proud of.