Fáilte romhaibh, a Chnoitáilithe! (Welcome, Knitters!) Knitting has always been my favorite past time.  I never learned how to cast on and didn’t know there were such things as instruction books for learning techniques.  I just bought patterns and stumbled along as best as I could for many years.  My first class was “Knit a Bohus Hat” with Sidna Farley in 1989.  How fortunate I was to have my first classroom experience with her!  She was the ideal mentor; full of ideas, knowledge, experience and praise.  She watched me during those first few minutes and asked me what method of cast on I was using.  I blushed and said “Oh, I’m sure it’s wrong.  I just made it up.”  Her response was “Oh no! It’s beautiful.  Please show me how you’re doing that.  Marta, there isn’t anything ‘wrong’ in knitting.”  I nearly cried at her kindness.  I was never afraid to try something new, in knitting anyway, again.  Sidna left us far too early on May 28, 2007.  She will be missed and will live on through her inspiration to others. Mothaigh d’áthas in ionad do bhrón; déan cúntas are do chairde in ionad do naimhde (Be aware your joy instead of your sorrow; count your friends instead of your enemies) Another breakthrough came through a co-worker.  I saw Linda knitting during her lunch hour in the break room.  She was whizzing along at tremendous speed.  I asked her how she could knit so fast.  Luckily for me, she suggested I knit a small two color project so she could show me how she knit holding the yarn in her left hand.  I had never knit with more than one color in a row and was nervous but, after Sidna’s guidance, up for the challenge.  I brought some grey and red sport weight wool the next day for a pair of mittens.  Linda patiently wound the yarn around both my hands, positioned the needles in my fingers and demonstrated how to knit with a color in each hand.  Brilliant!  I was forever hooked into the Continental style of knitting.  This revelation meant I could actually knit a sweater in less than a year. Here they are more than 20 years later...still keeping me warm in the winter and looking like new. Ni chaithfidh tú críochnú a chur ar gach obair (you don't have to finish every job) Several years ago my father handed me a small bundle of documents and photographs. The photos on this website are from that stack or from my own photo gallery.  He knew I was interested in our family history and thoughtfully compiled all the work his aunt had already completed.  It was impressive.  She managed to link us, through a marriage and a quasi-recognized birth, to James V of Scotland and recorded the first Clark (my maiden name) in our family as arriving in the Colonies somewhere around 1690.  By coincidence, I had been asked to construct a pair of kilthose for a friend.  Of course, I would bring all these things together into patterns.  I was struck with the notion that I could make kilthose meaningful by combining specific patterns from regions or symbolic meaning.  Leave it to me to turn a genealogy project into a knitting project.  I’ve never had so much fun designing small wearable garments.  Thus, my first collection of patterns was published as a book.  While that book is out of print, you can get the individual patterns here...a few to start and more as time goes on. Bain sult as!  (Enjoy!) Marta Poling aka martaschmarta click here to go back to the home page