There’s a superstition among knitters, called the “sweater curse”, that giving a hand-knitted jumper to a sweetheart will lead to a breakup. But my grandmother and mother could argue that the opposite is true: knitting can help stitch people together.
The first present my grandmother gave my grandfather, which he received in the post for his seventeenth birthday, was two knitted vests and a knitted cardigan. “The first thing I thought was: how long does it take to make three? Three!” Grandad recalls. He’s almost as astonished now as he was then.
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