Let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start.

Until a few months ago I hadn't given knitting much thought.   It was always something I'd associated with my Grandmas.   As a young child I remember watching them knitting the latest cardigan for my sister or me.  I suppose the click click of the needles and balls of wool rolling around is something I've always related with them.  My Granny is a ferocious knitter producing multiple garments a week.  The drawer under my bed is full of lovely jumpers and dresses she's made for me so the attraction to knitting isn't that I need more knitwear...

It all started a few months ago when I got talking to a friend at work who took up knitting a year or two ago.  She showed me a dress she was making.  It was lovely but I was surprised that its creator was my age rather than a seasoned knitter with a lifetime of experience.   The other thing that struck me was that she wasn't even looking forward to wearing it.  She found pleasure in the activity rather than the result.  She gave me a knitting crash course one afternoon; knit, purl, decreasing, increasing, colourwork, pattern reading...it was intense but by the end of it I was hooked. 

The following weekend I was in my home town of Nailsworth visiting family and I found myself in a lovely wool shop.  This shop was relatively new, I'd not seen before it in the twenty-plus years I'd previously lived there.  I found the wool so appealing; the colours, the textures, even the smell.  I left with a pair of 2.5mm needles, 3 balls of different wool and a pattern for some hand warmers (which are still wip several months later).  I was happy.

I've since discovered the online knitting world and found other patterns and yarns to enjoy, particularly chunky knits which progress far more quickly than a project on 2.5mm needles!  The question that I've learnt to ask myself before walking into a shop and blindly buying wool and needles is...wool ewe knit it?