With preserving season at a temporary halt and cake and biscuit tins full to the brim, it’s time to turn attention to cleaning out cupboards.

I found a long forgotten stash of red wool and thought to send it to the op shop. However in that basketful I came across a little jacket I’d started years ago. It tugged at the heart strings more than a little so I decided maybe just to do a bit more of it to see how it went.

The outcome? I loved knitting again, and started with the tiniest grandchild first, planning to work up in age.

So instead of donating wool to the op shops, I ended up visiting a great number of them purchasing wool and aged pattern books wherever they could be found.

I’ve used plain patterns from one, and knitting stitch emboidered Disney patterns from graphs in another to make a jumper for second youngest grandson.

The original little jacket was finally finished. It just had to have a butterfly embroidered on it for the grandson whose evening bedtime routine, at his instigation, always includes a chat about butterfly milk.

So now with an abundance of wool, the evenings are no longer spent just watching tv but the longer, cold winter evenings will be spent more productively.