The Woolly Hat Knitting Club

by Poppy Dolan

  Becky shakes her head. ‘Nope. If you remember, they are all new mums so either in a relationship or very much put off sex for the foreseeable. Could it be,’ she clutches at her collarbone in mock horror, ‘that someone… fancies you?!’

  ‘Pssht.’ I bat the idea away. ‘He’s cocky. Too many muscles, hair too fancy. Probably super-high maintenance. I don’t have time for that.’

  Becky narrows her eyes in my direction. ‘You have time for craft conventions and speed walking around a park with me. Speaking of which, can you just not rush, Blackthorn?!’

  ‘But rushing is my chilling – it burns up my energy, brings me down to a healthy medium. And besides, I’ve got all these ideas right now for how we capitalize on the momentum of yesterday. Long story short – JP stripped on camera and now he’s going viral.’

  Becky laughs. ‘My brother stripped in a Magaluf nightclub once and he got something viral that week, too.’ She clamps her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God, I just made a joke! My mum told me, while Ches was in hospital and I was feeling really blue, that one day I would laugh again, and I would crack a joke. And it’s happened!’ She holds up her hand for a high five and I oblige. Really I want to hug her but I think that would trip us all up, mid-pram-push. ‘But, OK, you’re going to have to show me the clip at some point.’

  ‘I think you can handle it. Just about. But now that stunt has brought all this mega traffic to the site and his social media, so we really have to work to keep that engagement. People click though for something funny but then you need great content to keep them coming back for more. I’m thinking… a daily vlog from JP, and more from Ben.’ Becky raises an eyebrow but I push on. ‘People seem to love his take on being a newbie male knitter. Maybe a cross-promotion with another company from CraftCon – there were some amazing people at that show, all sorts. Some competitions, maybe, to win knitting kits. JP could put those together. More classes at the shop, to keep the footfall up and money coming through the tills.’

  ‘Wow,’ Becky breathes, ‘it’s like talking to a really clever Del Boy in a nice cardigan. Hey,’ she pulls the pram to a gentle stop, ‘I could do a blog post for you! I wouldn’t appear on camera unless you guaranteed Michelle Obama’s wardrobe and a personal trainer for a month, but I could write something about the hats and Chester and us. Unless you think that’s mad? I don’t sleep for more than three hours at a stretch, so I have literally no idea what’s mad and what’s sensible. I’m still putting my shoes on the wrong feet and not noticing until I’m at Bounce and Rhyme.’

  I grab Becky by her arms to break the crazy rush of words. ‘That sounds great, thank you. Something from your point of view about what the knitted hats mean to you would be a fantastic human-interest piece. And it would reach out to loads of other people going through the same thing, as well as motivating our yarn army to knit some more!’

  Becks leans down to softly stroke Chester’s cheek as he snuffles happily. ‘And this boy is such a beaut he could sell anything – ice to Eskimos, the lot. I’ll put in a few nice photos to go with it.’

  ‘Perfect! This whole thing started with him, it’s only right he should be our poster baby. Mags was just saying the other day that Chester is the most beautiful baby she’s ever seen. And you know she’s too pure-hearted to ever lie.’

  ‘Ahh, lovely Mags. What would you guys do without her, eh?’

  We start our slow meandering walk up again, passing the old bench and village noticeboard. My brain clocks it as somewhere we should get our schedule of classes posted, to make sure every local knows what we’re up to.

  I tune back into Becks as she’s saying, ‘… and your poor mum all that way away with JP a bit bashed and you… taking some time out from work.’

  ‘Ha. That’s a very nice way to put it. But we’ve been emailing Mum loads, and facetiming, and Mags keeps her totally filled in. She keeps us in shepherd’s pies and scones – we won’t expire before Mum gets back. But we would be so lost without Mags. She gives so much to everyone else, I just worry she doesn’t put herself first enough.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Becky indicates to me to take my turn at pram-pushing, so we swap places. I’m more than happy to get the bird’s-eye view of this little munchkin.

  ‘Well, she’s all about family, but she’s not been on a date in decades. I think she’s hit it off with Stan, JP’s OT? But she might need a little chivvying in the right direction – she’s been off the market so long, I think she’s even forgotten the basics of flirting and chatting someone up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Becky turns to me, her hands pressed together. ‘Sometimes people can be a bit oblivious, can’t they? They need a gentle prod.’

  ‘Exactly. So I might try and help her out there, lovely old Mags.’

  Becky’s eyes squint as she looks at me. ‘Yes, some people are just clueless.’

  * * *

  With Becky walked back to her front door, amazing smells of roast chicken wafting out of the windows, I swing by the corner shop to pick up a hangover-busting Sunday lunch for my brother and I. Irn-Bru and Pot Noodles. Maybe not roasted, but chicken flavour at least.

  And now my trainers are pounding at the pavement in a steady speed walk, making up for the slow mooch with the pram earlier, the blue plastic bag hitting my leg as I go. There really is so much to compute about this weekend, especially as my brain comes fully back online. With my ability to handle more than one number at a time waking up from its gin bath, I work out that our shop takings are up 300 per cent today. Just today! And I haven’t even seen what the online sales might be, with the after-effects of all that social media attention. JP’s business has never looked so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, which is ironic when its owners have never felt so much like roadkill. But with this kind of profile in measurable stats, now is the time to send off my presentation to MCJ. Just in case interest does dip or flatten in the next weeks, I want them to bask in the glory of this amazing spike. Strike while the hashtag’s hot! Just as soon as some hot water and a spoon has transformed my lunch into something roughly edible.

  * * *

  I get a bit waylaid from my tasks when I do get home – JP needs help for the last hour on the shop floor, batting the teens away from getting that bit too close to his torso, and sending them instead towards our newest colour-changing yarns, which as you knit them form a rainbow on your scarf or hat. Yarn cakes, they’re called, and I have to admit they’re really cute. Then he needs me to lend a hand (but keep my eyes mostly shut) as he gets washed and changed, and goes over to see Patti at her uncle’s house. I keep my lip buttoned, though I really want to ask if this is a date or a ‘just friends’ thing. He’ll tell me when he’s ready. And when I finally think I’m going to get some quality time with my iPad, Mags turns up with a moussaka and some garlic bread. Which I demolish as she stands and watches me carefully.

  ‘I promised your mum I’d make sure JP was eating something green, so don’t tell him, but there’s puréed spinach in the pasta bake for tomorrow.’

  After we’ve done the washing-up together and had a good natter about old holidays and school plays (Mags still ascertains that JP had a choirboy’s voice and could have been the next Aled Jones if only he hadn’t blown raspberries all the way through ‘Little Donkey’ in year three), Mags goes home to relieve the day shift of carers looking after Extra Granny. And so at nine p.m., I do a few stretches in front of the kitchen table and sit down to polish this presentation like it’s the Crown Jewels and I’m the Queen with a few secret debts to pay. I am ready to pitch this baby with lots of lovely chunky new stats to work in. If I’m going to do JP justice, I’d better bring my A game.

  I’m making a few notes in my fancy leather-bound Masterplan notebook that Mum bought me as a joke a few years ago, when my phone rattles against the wood and makes me jump half out of my skin. I didn’t realize I’d been sitting in total silence, just my mutters and grunts of concentration as a backing track to tonight’s mission.

  Ben: />
  I still feel half dead.

  I blink at the screen. Maybe he meant to send this to someone else? There’s no question or anything.

  Delilah

  Well, pull it together, sunshine. Beginner Ben is going to be very busy next week…

  Ben:

  What?!

  Ben:

  So what’s in it for me?

  Delilah:

  Balances out all that nasty guilt of yours. JP will love you for ever.

  Ben:

  JP is clearly the one I’m doing it all for.

  There’s a wriggle in the pit of my stomach. Is he being sarcastic? Is he… flirting with me? I chase the wriggles away with sensible thoughts. No. No. He likes JP as a mate and he’s being literal. That’s all. The gin is making me temporarily dramatic. All the same, I smile at my phone screen. You can’t help but like people who like your siblings. It’s excellent that JP has found a new ally in life and also someone else to come on board with About a (Knitting) Boy and lend a hand. And lend a fresh face to the vlogs.

  This lift of good feeling behind my ribs sends my fingers flying again, tweaking here, expanding there, maximizing all the sales points and stats that I know will knock MCJ’s socks off. It’s only about an hour later that my phone buzzes again and I realize I didn’t message Ben back.

  Ben:

  Goodnight then, Blackthorn.

  I really will reply tomorrow, at a more decent hour, but right now – before I lose my nerve – I’m sending this email to Lorraine. Not only am I flying the flag for Blackthorn Haberdashery and About a (Knitting) Boy, but I’ve also invited them to come and see the shop for themselves, so they can take in the retail space while I explain the more back-end stuff too. Over cake. Cake makes any meeting work.

  And while this happy buzz fills me, I search out the flyers I picked up from the Sunny Alpaca Farm at CraftCon and whisk off an email to the contact given, asking if they’d be open to linking up sometime in the future. We could come and visit them, make a lovely post about it and in return they could offer a weekend break at their B and B as a competition prize on our site. That way, both sites would get more attention and click-throughs. They’d get a chance to say why people should choose Alpaca yarns for their next project and we’d get to show JP in his element but also in a fresh environment, mix things up a bit.

  I’m just about to log off when I see a new email hit my inbox.

  From: contactus@sunnyfarm.co.uk

  To: Delilah Blackthorn

  Dear Delilah,

  Thanks for the email! My name is Ruby and I run the office side of the farm – generally, anything not livestock related! So, the B and B management, PR, bill paying. Jack of all trades, you might say… I only get to my emails late in the day, after my family and everything at the B and B is squared away for the night. So I’m glad I’m not the only midnight emailer out there!

  We’d love to talk about working with About A (Knitting) Boy. Our MD Jean heard all about his big moment while she was at CraftCon! Sadly, she didn’t get a front row seat. Maybe next time?!

  We have just had a voicemail from the people who’d booked to come to the B and B next weekend saying there’s a family illness and they can’t make it. I know it’s short notice, but I don’t suppose you fancy coming out to see us in a few days’ time? The weather’s supposed to be lovely so you’ll really be able to see our ladies at their best!

  Let me know what you think,

  Ruby x

  Chapter 17

  Who knew that the Reading services were such a buzzing place on a Friday night?

  I’ve just filled up Stan’s van with a lot of expensive petrol and while I’m in the M&S garage I might as well pick up some snack supplies for our road trip tomorrow. This time, though, I’m going to be the one doing the driving. Not only does this make me feel a little bit nervous because I’ll be piloting Stan’s beloved and temperamental camper van all the way to Wales, being careful not to crash it on the motorway or dent it in a three-point turn, but I’ve also felt the major dent to my debit card as I paid for the weekend’s insurance over the phone, and there’s been a definite crash in my credit rating as yet more money runs out of my account, without so much as a drop going back in.

  With each bag of Hula Hoops and wine gums I throw into my basket, I feel more cash draining from me. Car insurance for a vintage vehicle, a tank full of petrol, enough crisps to feed two male bottomless pits, three rooms for JP, Ben and myself at a B and B, albeit cut-price ones… Thank goodness Patti had to work or I would have had to upgrade JP’s room to a double. Well, I’m assuming I would, seeing as he’s still cagey about what’s going on between them. There have been all sorts of little, unexpected costs in the last few weeks and I’m not sure how much longer I can absorb them, with no new job on the horizon. My appointment with Douglas is there in the distance, but as time goes on, I’m starting to panic that one consultation is hardly able to undo a lot of mean gossip-mongering.

  As I join the queue, I look at a message my mum sent me earlier: How are you, love?

  Fine, I replied. Everything’s really hotting up with the shop. JP’s doing well – not long till he has a complete set of working limbs again!

  Quick as a flash she replied: But how ARE you? And then she’d put in a funny emoji of a woman dancing, which I sort of assumed was her hitting the wrong key.

  I’ve been dithering about this for an hour or so now. It’s the reason I decided to get ready for the journey to Sunny Farm instead, and so I took a cab over to Stan’s to pick up the van. As it grumbled underneath my feet on the way to the services, maybe sensing it was about to get a good prodding and tinkering with under its hood in my quest to check the oil, I thought to myself: How am I?

  The feelings of anger and rejection at being let go from my job have started to fade away and I can already imagine that at some point in the future, I’ll tell the story of how I got fired and then ran home to learn how to knit. And I will find it as funny as it sounds, eventually. It’s been so brilliant to take up an active role in JP’s business, and maybe to start with that was all about distraction and therapy – almost. But now I’m just as passionate as he is about bringing more people to the shop. Maybe I’ve more of an eye on the balance sheet still but in hardly any time at all, I’ve seen what genuine pleasure and a feeling of calm being in this crafty world can bring. And I haven’t had so much ridiculous fun in a very, very long time, it’s true. Well, I’m still not any sort of knitter but I have to admit I found myself handing over my debit card to the woman who ran GiganKnit at CraftCon, and I bought one of her jumbo knitting kits. I’m only two rows in, as I’m only doing it when JP’s out. He’s been spending more and more time with Patti, in fact pretty much every night, but I’m still the world’s slowest knitter.

  I have an idea I’ll give it to JP as a surprise gift, a sort of ‘Ha ha, I can knit!’ joke, and though I don’t know if I’ll ever finish the kit – it’s for a cream cushion cover that’s super chunky and thick –I like seeing even just the beginnings come together. And maybe that’s what I’m feeling about being involved so much with the haberdashery at the moment. Yes, it’s been going for a few years now but it seems like it’s finally coming together, really growing into something wonderful and useful and inspiring. So much of that is from JP’s heart, and if I can give him a helping hand along the way then anything is worth it. But now it’s bigger than the two of us, too: it’s Becky, Chester, Maggie, Patti, even Ben and Stan. It’s a real team. And all the people out there knitting and all the mums that can gently pull a tiny hat over their newborn’s head: we’re all united, we’re… well, we’re knitted together.

  Ben has made himself so useful that I couldn’t not invite him on this weekend adventure. And since he was saying that all this extra client workload he’s picked up means he’s having to work weekends too, I thought he could use a bit of a break. The clients can wait just this one weekend without an instant response to every single little problem
. Besides, the Beginner Ben posts keep the views rolling in – so put him and JP in a lush green field with some cute, gambolling fluffy animals and you’re talking a hit count through the roof. Besides, much as I love my brother, we are kind of constantly in each other’s pockets and mixing up the dynamic for a few days in an open space is just pretty darn sensible. And while Ben, JP and I are spending the night at the farm’s B and B, we might as well thrash out the plans for all the new content in lots of detail, make a schedule for how it will be posted, in fact, and have a sort of unofficial AGM to look at anything else we could be doing to capitalise on this buzz. I’m keen to make the most of Ben while he’s still around and that means both in front of the camera and behind a spreadsheet – he is pretty much as good as me at looking for a company’s faults and opportunities, and when I replayed the last vlog post I had to admit that Ben is good on camera too. It seems like he enjoyed it; I find myself watching his smile while he’s knitting. Who knows when this will finally all get too weird and tedious and he’ll make up some weak excuse not to catch the train to Fenwild? So I’m going to work him like a carthorse until that point. The business needs all the help it can get, so I hope it won’t happen just yet.

  * * *

  The drive to Sunny Farm is certainly more scenic than when we were last in Stan’s van and on our way home from Milton Keynes. About an hour from Fenwild, the landscape really unfolds into a gorgeous, inviting scene: like a green linen bed that someone has lazily made, lumps and bumps of hills, wrinkles and folds where tiny lanes bisect fields and sheep are dotted around pastures like biscuit crumbs on the sheets.

  JP happily burbles the whole way about how his followers have really picked up on the campaign and more and more hats are arriving every day – we had 124 at last count! So our target is totally achievable. He chats non-stop to Ben; even when we stop for a loo break I see him go in explaining the virtue of the better acrylic-mix yarns and come out reminiscing about his first Aran sweater. All the while Ben laughs and nods and chips in with a point of his own. He really must have hit it off with JP to do all this for him, I think, as I grab us some orange juices for the next leg of the journey.