Tell me about... The joy of knitting

Carol Feller of Stolen Stitches, from Innishannon, provides online and offline community platforms for knitters 

What’s the attraction of knitting? 

Knitting has so many attractions it’s hard to know where to begin! When I learned to knit as a child I loved how easy it was to create clothes for myself and my dolls. As an adult coming back to knitting it started as a practical skill I wanted to relearn so that I could knit wool jumpers for my first child. As I relearned I quickly discovered that it had many other benefits. The first, most obvious, one for me again was the ability to use my hands to create things from my imagination. 

Knitting also has a calming, almost therapeutic effect. It allows your hands to be busy with a repetitive motion that almost becomes meditation. Plus I can watch TV in the evening while being productive! I think that it’s of huge advantage for the basics of all needlecraft to be taught at a young age. 

Even if people don’t use them, the skills are there so that it’s very easy to pick them up again as an adult.

What does it mean to be Cork’s representative at next months’s National Enterprise Awards?

I was delighted and honoured to be nominated. The whole team at Stolen Stitches has been working so hard over the last few years it’s fantastic to have that recognised. 

I’ve been working with the Cork City LEO for the last several years to build my business skills and the range of supports that they offer has really helped to move us to the next level.