Handy hints 3: Beware new hobbies

Any self respecting TLF knows that in these unprecedented times, the stiff upper lip required to survive the FFZ, can be maintained by taking up a new hobby, getting around to those little jobs in the house you always meant to do or drinking yourself into an early afternoon coma. Or indeed any combination of the three.

Any self respecting TLF would also be keen to own a pair of ‘Foxy mittens’. And so TLF returned to the front room cupboard where the one time Christmas gift, the ‘Foxy mittens knit kit’ (FMKK), has been languishing for some time.

Thing is, TLFs do have a bit of an issue with knitting. Grannie TLF was a demon knitter. No pattern too complicated, laughing in the face of multiple balls of wool involved in a single jumper and no need to look at the knitting itself at any point. As a young TLF I used to stay with the grandparents on a Saturday night and I am sure for awhile I genuinely thought that the soundtrack to any episode of The Professionals was based on the click-clack of knitting needles.

This knitting talent did not, I am afraid to say rub off on future generations of TLFs. But how hard could this be? It says on the packaging that the FMKK is ‘suitable for beginners’, it is ‘8+ friendly’.

Turns out the packaging is LYING.

Gibberish like ‘cast on’, and ‘a row of knit followed by a row of purl’ seems to bring on a mild panic attack. As for the idea of ‘changing yarn colour by adding the new colour just below the last stitch on the needle’. What does that even mean? And the diagrams with their breezy explanations do not help. I think genetically TLFs were made to wear FMs not build them via FMKKs.

Perhaps once lockdown is over, some close knitting supervision and frequent intervention of someone 8+ will enable TLF to put some wool together without committing random acts of violence or self-harming via a knitting needle. Until then I think that FMKK better go self-isolate.

Drinking not knitting Fox

How to torture a TLF