Choke! I’m in a stranglehold.

I am in a Covid knitting stranglehold. My hands are in the relentless grip of a force that resembles a bulldog. It has me in its jaws and won’t let go!

The latest incarnation of my plight is knitting Newfoundland mittens. An ancient and revered craft and artistic expression. I have only knit one mitt so far but it is on its way to becoming a pair.

At least these mitts are useful, replacing last winter’s total folly of small knitted dogs, faithfully designed to represent each breed. Not my design I hasten to add. There is no way that I have that kind of knitting talent, but I can more or less follow a not-too-complicated pattern. I had a book “Knit Your Own Dog.” I bought this book about ten years ago to knit a pug dog for pug-owning friends on Vancouver Island. The book sat dormant until Covid reared its ugly head and gripped us with strange addictions to crafty, culinary and ancient activities.

I knitted ten – from Chloe the Bassett hound to Big Bill the English Bulldog. It was Big Bad Bill, but my grandson asked me to drop the bad as Big Bill was his favourite. When I mention grandchildren, you may gather there was a certain pressure and expectation to add further members of the Covid puppy kennel club. These little pups are no toys; they stand about 6 inches/15 cm tall, but they do provide hours of role-playing, organizing and general arranging. The doggies earn their keep.

One of my Covid knitting criteria is not to buy yarn. I use what I have with a few select donations. This means that some of the puppies had rather unorthodox colours – like Heidi the Dachshund sporting variegated self-patterning sock yarn in red/orange/brown. Sorry, Heidi, no Westminster Kennel Club dog show for you.

But this winter the line was drawn: no more puppies. Enough is enough! Delta, Omicron, I don’t care. Enough of knitting those fiddly body parts, sewing them together, (which tiny bit joins up with that other tiny bit?) And then the greatest challenge, getting the stuffing right so the puppy looks somewhat like its breed! No more!

The mitts project came about with a book called SaltWater Mittens and a bag of 100% rough wool yarn from a farm in Ontario. These yarns had come my way and had been waiting for their reincarnation for years. With two balls of various colours, they are perfect for the two-colour mitts. Voila! But not until much time consulting monsieur Google trying to understand two-ball knitting and a reply from one of the authors pointing me to suitable sites in reply to my e-mail cry for help.*

I think I have somewhat mastered the two-colour two-ball knitting and stitch increases that slant left and right. Did you know that it actually makes a difference to which side of your body you place the different balls of wool? The one to the right will dominate in the way the knitting looks – so light to the right is the golden rule. I am just amazed at all the technicalities of hand knitting. I am also amazed and in awe of these girls and women in far-flung communities of Newfoundland who devised these patterns with their fingers and mathematical skills. All hail the Sisterhood of Lady Ada Lovelace – an early computer mathematician.

So with my modest ability, here I am condemned to needles and yarn and knits and purls along rows and around in circles. Dante’s circles of hell or, I think, rather, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Lady of Shallot. In her tower condemned to weave her web of bright colours only to see the outside in a mirror. If she turned to look out of the window, she would be condemned to perish. But then she saw Sir Lancelot riding by and had to look. So sad. Not quite my fate, but I do love this poem!

• A big thanks and acknowledgement to the generosity of the knitting pattern community: I got e-mail advice from one of the authors of the Knit Your Own Dog patterns to help with Big Bill the bulldog’s head and guidance too from one of the Newfoundland mitts book authors.