The power of colour with Milli Abrams

Hello, and welcome back to series two of the Why I

Knit podcast. My name is Dr. Mia Hobbs and I'm a clinical

psychologist who's passionate about knitting and its benefits

for our mental wellbeing. Each episode I interview a different

knitter about why they knit and how it benefits their mental

health. This week on the podcast, I'm joined by Milli

Abrams, who is the owner of Tribe Yarns, a yarn shop in

Richmond, London. Milli has a qualification in Applied Colour

Psychology so I particularly wanted to ask her more about

this and about how colour can impact on mental health.

Unfortunately, there is a crackle on Milli's end of the

audio, which we were unable to resolve while we were recording.

However, Milli is such an inspiring and interesting guest

that I'm sure you'll still really enjoy this interview.

Hi Milli, welcome to the podcast.

Hello.

I always start by asking where your story with

knitting began.

Okay, that's a relatively easy one, I guess. I

was about six or seven years old when I started knitting. My mum

used to knit and she introduced it to me over a summer holiday

and I pretty much got addicted straightaway. And I was the sort

of child that never really sat down. You know, I was always a

bit ants-in-my-pants, climbing trees and that kind of thing.

And so I guess it was as much of a surprise to her as it was to

me that I loved it. And I got obsessed and I ended up blowing

out all of my playdates with friends outside. I was like,

"No, I'm at home knitting." I was determined to get it done.

Oh wow! So you absolutely went with it straight

away.

Yes, straight away. And to begin with, at

least for the first year, I don't think I could purl at all.

I could only knit. But I really liked stocking stitch. So I

would knit a whole line and then I'd give it to my mom to purl

back. [Laughs] I did eventually get the hang of purling but I

could only do it then for the next little while standing up at

the ironing board, for some reason. I was using crappy

straight needles back then. You know how we had those awful sort

of Aero needles that weighed a little bit too much, I guess.

For my little hands they were quite long, with blunt tips. And

I used to knit way too tight, like really tightly. So I used

to have to use the ironing board to jam the needle into the

stitch.

Oh wow! Yeah, I actually had one of the kids in

the therapeutic knitting group I've been running say to me,

"It's really surprising that grannies knit because you need

so much strength to get this to fit!" . And I thought, "I think

someone's going slightly wrong here, because I don't feel like

I'm using muscles to knit, particularly!" [Laughs]

No! And then back then (that would have been in

the early 80s) we all knit with crappy acrylic wools, so it was

really strong.

Oh yeah, it's hard to break. It's harder than wool.

Exactly. If I'd have started with a proper wool,

had I been knitting with the tightness and the strength that

I was applying to that acrylic, it would have broken right away,

and I would have realised that it was too tight. But I got away

with it back then.

Okay. And what do you think hooked you in? Because it

sounds like it was a bit of a surprise, if you were quite an

active kid, that you could sit still and knit?

Yeah, it was definitely the challenge of it.

But I did feel it was very calming, the repetitive

stitches, and there was something about making and

creating, and then being able to make your own creative choices.

It was a bit like Lego, where you could sort of go your own

way with it, and you could spend hours and hours and hours doing

it and it just felt good. So yeah, I think it was that, and

then RIGHT away I started knitting colourwork and intarsia

and that kind of thing, because that was very early 80s.

That's what I wondered: whether you were

knitting from patterns or whether you were just kind of

knitting scarves.

Both. No, I never did scarves in the beginning. I

just did lots of patches of things. And then I made stuff

for dolls, you know, just little things.

Did you kind of make those up as you went along

rather than finding a pattern for them?

A little bit, yeah. So I might have had a

Yeah, sure. I guess a lot of us learn a lot of how to

pattern that had a chart for some sort of fair isle motif and

I would have just used that to make some random little thing

for a doll or a teddy bear jumper or something. I didn't

play with teddy bears or anything back then, but I just

wanted to make little things. And I don't think I had enough

yarn to make a big sweater. Then eventually my mum took me to

John Lewis and we picked out a pattern, and that was the

patchwork intarsia and fair isle cardigan. It was very

complicated. But I decided I was going to make that. And then by

the time I'd finished it, I could barely get it on. Because

I was such a tight knitter, it was so small. [Laughs] And I

hadn't appreciated that you had to leave a long enough end to

darn the ends in. So they'd started to pull out, so I

superglued them down, which made it really jabby inside. It was

terrible! It's a horrible little thing. But my mum never knit

intarsia or colourwork. She just used to do plain knitting and

maybe a few cables. So she couldn't really advise me on

that. That was a learning process!

solve problems in knitting through trial and error.

Yeah, and back then there wasn't any social

media or any pressure like that. It's not as though we were

comparing ourselves to each other. And no-one I knew knit.

So it was perfectly fine for me to keep making all these

mistakes and not feel like a total failure. It was just

learning.

But I think also now, if you knew what the mistake was

called, you could search on YouTube as to how to fix it, I

suppose. Like when I have a plumbing issue that I feel might

be within my beginner's realm. So you know, a bit like that if

you were a beginner knitter, whereas that didn't exist.

No. And I'd definitely say that there is so

much more help. You could Google everything now, with plumbing

and everything. And back then I think we did used to do a bit

more trial and error. It was either that or spend hours and

hours at the library researching something. We used to just try

it, didn't we? With lots of things.

Okay, so did you carry on knitting? So you've

knit fairly regularly since you were six or seven?

Yeah, so that would have been 40 years ago.

But no, I definitely had breaks. So there were the chaotic

teenage years when I had exams and things, when I just probably

wouldn't have had time. And yeah, there were times in my

life where I definitely let it go for maybe two or three years

at a time. And they were probably the times when I

shouldn't have let it go and should have made time. You know,

it's always the way, isn't it, when you feel like you haven't

got time to meditate, that's when you should be meditating.

It's the same with knitting. And then I picked it up again, like

PROPERLY properly, when I was pregnant with Indy. He's 18 now,

so that was 18 years ago. And knit every morning before I got

out of bed. I used to get morning sickness, so Darren

would bring me breakfast in bed every morning and I would sit

and knit while he was making breakfast.

Were you knitting for Indy?

Yeah, I was knitting booties. Lots of

booties. I had this amazing book of like, I don't know, 100

bootie patterns, but it had lots of different techniques in it.

Oh no! Have you gifted them?

So I was learning something every day with a new knitting

technique, and I was getting to use different colour yarns and

different fibres. I had a whole bag of them and just worked my

way through. I don't know how many booties I made. I must have

made 30 or 40 pairs of different booties while I was pregnant

with him, and I made a big patchwork blanket. But then when

he was born, he had enormous feet and he didn't fit any of

the booties.

I gifted all of them and they all fit normal

babies. Indy had giant feet! And only the giant duck feet fit

him. [Laughs]

Aw! I found that I couldn't get booties to stay on

my children!

No, they didn't all, which is kind of why I made

them all. Some of them were really good patterns that stayed

on and the others just were sort of there for photos, I suppose.

Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. So it's been on and

off, but mainly on, certainly on for the last 18 years.

Yeah. So when Indy was born, we then emigrated to

Canada when he was eight months old. And it was really cold

there, so I knit lots. And then when he was seven, we moved on

to the boat to go circumnavigate, and I did knit

on the boat as well. Probably not as much.... no maybe I did.

I did, but like different fibres. A lot of silk and cotton

because it's hot. And then we moved to the Caribbean for five

years, and I knit there as well, but lots of lace weight blankets

and that kind of thing.

Okay. Did you feel like the motivation was less? Or

is it not really so much about the final product?

It's never been about the final product for me.

It''s never ever been about the final product. I for my whole

life have knit things and then just given them away, almost

immediately. I don't tend to keep any of my knits for myself.

Is it more for the process? Because obviously there

is a joy to giving things to people for the point of giving a

gift, that is more meaningful, but it sounds also a lot of it's

about the process for you.

It's the process. It's completely the process,

yeah.

If you were on a desert island with one ball of

brown yarn that you had to re-knit over and over again,

you'd be knitting it.

Absolutely. And I had to do that in the Caribbean

all the time, because we couldn't get anything shipped to

us. And it would take months and months. So I would just knit

something, rip it out, knit it again. I did that all the time.

So it is very much process.

Yeah. And does it matter what you knit? As in the

techniques? Is garter stitch equally valuable to knitting

lace or cables? Or does it matter?

I think it depends. It's got to be

something new for me every time. So I very rarely, I think never,

make the second sock, because I've made the sock and I don't

want to make another one. So I almost never make the same thing

twice, unless I'm changing the technique or changing something

up about it. I recently knit two Badger & Bloom sweaters where I

changed the technique quite a lot both times, just to test it

out.

And the colour isn't enough of a change?

No, it's not really. I knit for colour... A

lot of the time, it's because of the colour I want to hang out

with, so that will determine what I'm knitting. But it's got

to be something new that I haven't experienced before. It

might be that I have to experience a new fibre. Yeah, I

think it's technique more than anything, though. And it's

weird, after 40 years of doing lots of knitting and learning

all the [inaudible], I'm still discovering new techniques all

the time, which is brilliant. I think that's such a cool thing

about knitting.

Yeah, you can't ever run out.

No, you can't really. And I do knit things

several times and rip them out, but I've just started a cardigan

yesterday which I will rip out today and start again, because

there's a couple of things I thought of during the night that

I should have done differently. So yeah, I'm fine with ripping

yes, I do knit specifically for

gifts, but no, usually I'm knitting something and then I

think, "Oh, who'd like this? Who would this fit? Who wants it?".

Okay. I'd love to hear more about colour, because

I think you said you've got a qualification in colour...

Applied colour psychology.

Applied colour psychology. So I'd love to hear

about that, and your ideas about colour and how it benefits your

mental wellbeing, being around colour. I like the idea of

choosing a colour you want to hang out with! Because I think I

do that with my knitting projects. I have quite a long

relationship with them because I'm not that fast. [Laughs]

Colour is very, very important. I didn't know

anything about... I'm an accountant so it wasn't anything

that I'd studied in the early days, but I have an Indian

background so we've always been very experimentative with

colour, with our saris and things. And approaching my 40s,

I suppose... late 30s/40s... I got a bit frustrated with how

sensible people were being around colour and how coy they

Would you do that historically, as well, when you didn't work in

were, and how they were embarrassed about using certain

colours, and that kind of thing. If you walked down the high

street a couple of years ago, all you'd see was grey, khaki,

maybe a little bit of mustard. I couldn't buy the colours that I

wanted from a shop, so I did use knitting to introduce those

colours into my life. But I also realised a long time ago that

certain colours do certain things to my mood, and I can use

that to my advantage. So when I use really, really saturated

bright colours, they will wake me up, so I can use them in the

morning to just really get going, or before a meeting to

get energised, or something like that. Especially during

meetings. So I knit through all my board meetings and things. I

would always knit and I'd always pick a bright colour for that

because it just energised me.

yarn and knitting?

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'm guessing you were the only person doing that!

Yeah, I was the only person knitting. And it was

fine. It wasn't fine, right at the beginning when I was a

junior. I'd get told off. But as I became more senior, I could

tell people that it actually helped me focus and they all got

used to it. So I'd sit in a meeting with Branson or whatever

and I'd always be knitting. But I also conversely couldn't pick

up those same colours and knit with them right before bed. I

always knit right before bed, but I can't knit the really

really bright colours under a fairly bright light because they

wake me up and they don't allow me to sort of gently ease down

at the end of the day.

So you need more than one project on the go for

different situations.

Yes. Different for colour but also different for

"Do I really want to escape into a very challenging pattern with

lots of charts and things because I need to just not think

about everything right now? Or do I just want something that is

in my hands, and TV knitting, so that I can listen to whatever

I'm listening to?"

That's a really common theme that has come up

again and again, and certainly something I relate very strongly

to. The idea of having to have something complicated to absorb

yourself in when you need to escape from real life, or

something that you could knit while you're listening to your

kids read, that doesn't require any of your brain. And I

certainly would knit through Zoom meetings and training

courses, and have never been anything other than the only

knitter. [Laughs]

Yeah, it is weird, isn't it? I found when Indy was

little, you know, when your kids are little and you have to wait

all the time, you've got to wait for them to finish a sports

match or whatever, there's just a lot of waiting in life.

Waiting at the dentist and all these things. And I just found

that if I always had my knitting, I never really minded

the wait. Actually, I quite liked the wait. It was a really

good time for me to just get into my knitting. And I travel a

lot and airport delays were pleasurable, because I had my

knitting with me. And it just meant that I could chill out and

knit, and it didn't matter that the planes was delayed. I don't

know how people that don't knit cope, I honestly don't! I just

don't know how they manage to wait for anything.

I do feel a slight anxiety, I think, if I have to

do something like that, that I don't have my knitting with me

because I've had too many things to think about and it's just not

made it in the bag. But quite often, if I'm going away for a

weekend and getting a train somewhere... The other weekend,

I forgot the dress I was planning to wear out in the

evening, but I had three knitting projects with me.

[Laughs] Because that was my priority, in my head!

Definitely.

I don't know whether you learnt about this in the

course you did, about whether there are particular colours

that are more associated with positive or negative mood, or

whether it's not really like that. Whether different people

have different...

Yeah, it's a really, really interesting

topic. And it's huge and very deep, so it would take hours to

go over everything. But I guess the main points were... I'm very

into maths, maths is my background, and there are

patterns and wavelengths behind each colour and some colours

harmonise because of the patterns and the waves, and some

colours don't. So that was one of the things that we learnt a

lot about. So, you know, I'm good at putting colours together

and I'm good at avoiding certain colour combinations that are

horrible. And I know that intuitively somewhat, I guess,

from practising a lot, but also because of the maths behind the

colour. So there's that. There's the colours that people should

and shouldn't wear... well, it's not really a should... it's the

colours that suit people more than the colours that don't. So

that was also part of the course. And that has more to do

with who you are and your personality, as well as your own

personal colouring, but a lot more to do with your

personality. And it's broken into four separate groups. So I

think recently, companies like House of Colour have taken those

and called them seasons to try and organise that a little bit

more. And that's fine. They've done it completely wrong in a

couple of ways, because they've tried to make it equal across

the seasons, which is not the case right now, but that's a

whole 'nother topic. So there's that, and then there's also the

behavioural aspect of how a colour will influence your mood

and why you might be drawn to it, and why you might not be

drawn to it at a particular time. So for example, if you had

an orange dining plate or were sitting in an orange room while

you were eating, you probably will eat more. You'll over eat.

It's just influence. It opens up your mind, and abundance and

that kind of thing. You just tend to over consume with

orange. Purple tends to be a colour that is for people that

are feeling a bit less sociable at that particular time, or very

much more choosy. It's a colour that people are drawn to when

they're hungover. It's not all shades of purple, but I'm

generalising just for now. Red, you know, we're very familiar

with red being a little bit more aggressive, a bit more in your

face, just open, just much more bold, And then blue is a really

great one for focusing. Again, not all blues. So when Indy was

having exams when he was younger and he used to pick up some

knitting (he doesn't tend to anymore), then I would have him

knit with blue yarns as a little break between study sessions,

because it would keep that part of his brain active but allow

him to have a little break from studying. So blue was great for

that. And I will use it. Like I said, if I need to be really

thinking and thinking spreadsheets and that kind of

thing, I'll pick up my blue project for a little bit and

just calm down with that, and then go straight into my

thinking piece.

So you're very deliberate about your choices of

what you're knitting with, to fit the circumstances in your

life?

I mean, it just happens now. I think what I'm

deliberate about is making sure that I've got enough projects at

hand or around. I don't like to have more than three projects on

the go, because I am someone that likes to finish. I don't

tend to have lots of WIPs. I like finishing. But I do have

three that are intentionally quite different from each other

because of what they will do for my mental health.

So that sounds very deliberate in that sense. And I

think I certainly would relate to that: that the things I'm

working on have to fit different needs for me. But I don't

actually think about the colour in that way, which is really

interesting. And actually, when I spoke to Betsan Corkhill, who

is an expert in therapeutic knitting, she speaks a lot about

the idea of using knitting to... rather than it reflecting the

mood you're in, thinking about the mood you want to move

yourself into. And that sounds very similar to your ethos.

Yeah. And also, with the finished garment, when

you're wearing it... Like I'll use the colours of the garments

that I'm wearing to convey a certain type of my personality

in a public setting, or not. So for example, for my whole life I

was an accountant; I so much was drawn to what people would refer

to as the winter colours, like cooler colours, and they do suit

me, your blacks, your whites, your strong reds, peacocks, that

kind of thing. And I was always really drawn to that. But it

does make me much less approachable as a person. So

when I opened the shop, one of the things that I talked to

Angela about (who's like the guru of colour therapy), she was

like, "Well, just make sure that you're never in there wearing

blacks and whites." So this new business of mine was not like

accounting; I needed to be approachable and soft. And I

needed to sort of bring out my more autumn aspects. So I wear a

lot more rich autumnal colours and navies and that kind of

thing, which also suit me but I wouldn't have dreamt of wearing

them as an accountant. I didn't want to be that person in that

setting, whereas I do now. And then conversely, if I'm going to

something else where I just want a bit more glamour, I'll wear

black again.

I wonder whether that was also to do with... I'm

guessing you were in a more male-dominated environment when

you were in business? Or maybe needing to convey more power

Yeah, right in the beginning I was. I mean, I am

than you do in your yarn shop.

quite a small woman and I just needed more help with the power

that I was exuding when I was telling people no, they couldn't

Yeah, sure. I wonder whether there are other ways

have that money or whatever it was.

that we haven't talked about that you feel knitting is

beneficial for your mental wellbeing.

We get loads of people in the shop that will

come by and say, "Oh, that's lovely. I wish I could do that,

but I don't have the patience for that." And I am the least

patient person I've ever met in my life. I'm just not patient,

I'm not tolerant. And therefore knitting is even more important

for me than it would be for someone who already is calm and

zen and patient. So I think when people say that, I'd love the

people to know... especially men, I think, because they tend

to be more the ones that are like, "Oh, I don't have time. I

work." And the other thing I hear is "I don't have time." I

don't have time, I work crazy hours, but I still find time for

knitting. I think it's important to have something, especially in

this day and age when we are just overstimulated all the

time. If you could have something like meditating or

colouring in or knitting, that takes you off your device and

gives you something repetitive and small, and it is about those

micro movements, that's where the magic is, releasing the good

hormones. And with knitting that means not knitting on needles

that are more than about 5mm. There's a sweet spot with a

knitting needle to keep it micro, to get the maximum

benefit with your serotonin. Everyone sort of needs that, I

think, these days. I've actually lived on a desert island.

And even then you still brought your knitting!

Yeah, and I would still bring my knitting!

[Laughs]

I would too.

I meditate and I have done lots over the years.

And that comes and goes a lot more than my knitting does,

because at the end of the day I feel guilty about sitting down

and doing nothing. I just have that. I don't know what it is,

but I do feel guilty about that unless I'm knitting. And then

somewhere in my head, I know I'm creating and relaxing, and then

I can really let myself be in it and sit and do it for hours,

which is really important.

I suppose I've heard quite often the idea that

knitting is kind of a substitute for meditation, or a form of

meditation. And several of the people I've spoken to, and

certainly I think this is probably true of me, have

classified themselves as failed meditators, therefore they are

knitters, and they get a kind of similar thing from it. It sounds

like you've stuck with your knitting maybe more constantly

than you have with the meditation.

Yeah, definitely. I have stuck with knitting a lot

more. And I think mainly because it doesn't do the same thing for

me as meditating. Meditating is definitely much more intense.

But I think it's more the portability and the

practicality. So I can still do it at a train station and hear

when my train is coming and not be completely cut off from the

world. And when I do meditate, I do it to get to a much deeper

state, and it takes a lot longer, like two or three hours.

And it has to be silent, and I can't have the family running

around. I can't do that as often. I can pick up my knitting

ten times a day and just have a little meditative break with my

knitting, so I think that's why I do it a lot more. And these

days, yarns are SO much nicer than they used to be, and

patterns are just everywhere and so accessible. It's just so much

easier to find the right project.

And in terms of what you're drawn to do you like a

variety in terms of yarn? Is that also something that floats

your boat?

Yeah, massively. So I love the super, super

rustic Icelandics. Absolutely love those. And then I really

like my super high end silks and cashmeres. It's important to me

that I know where the yarns come from, and then I know that it's

ethically made. And it's important to me that it doesn't

have plastic in it. But other than that, a wide variety and a

wide variety of gauges. And I do knit with chunky yarns

sometimes, usually if it's just because I have to make a short

sample/I have to bang out a gift really quickly. But my sort of

sweet spot for a needle is about the 3.75 range, and that will

give me the max pleasure.

I'm the same actually. I've heard a lot of

people on the podcast who don't like knitting on the smaller

gauges. And I didn't know whether it was because of that,

or just the things I wanted to knit recently, that I ended up

knitting with some larger gauge... I mean larger for me,

like an Aran weight yarn, so like a 5 maybe or 5.5. I'm quite

a loose knitter. But my hands don't like it as much. I find

that I don't get RSI at all if I knitted on 2.25 or 3 or quite

tiny needles, and knitted with 4-ply. I could do that probably

forever. Whereas if it gets bigger, even a DK, I think my

hands struggle a bit more. And they don't love cotton either.

Yeah, there's no stretch in cotton. Unless you

get a chain knit. I've recently discovered really great chain

knits, which is a fairly new thing in the industry, because

the old chain knits were terrible. But the new chain

knits that they use cotton for have stretch in them, so if you

That's interesting. I was interested in the idea about

want to knit cotton, get a chain knit. It's brilliant. Okay. But

the kind of things people say about knitting in the shop,

yeah, the bigger needles, and it just becomes more of a macro

movement and you tend to involve a bit more shoulder and elbow

because you must have a lot of conversations with people who

and things. It's not something that you can just do with your

fingertips. Yeah, you need to fight a bit more with the process.

are new or want to start knitting, and super-experienced

knitters, about whether they say things about what knitting does

for them, or what kind of questions they ask you, whether

they ask for your help with colour?

Yeah, we get lots of feedback from knitters about

how, especially during lockdown, it just saved them, for a lot of

people.

Is that more existing knitters, would you say?

No, both during lockdown actually. And then with

the experience, I'd say the majority was people that had

returned to knitting. So they've had the greatest benefit, and

they've usually not done it for a long time and they did it on

really old-style needles with old yarn, and everything's moved

on to such a huge extent that the tools are just 100%

different to what they used to be, and the yarns. So they've

had the greatest sort of wow moments. We have lots of people

who are experiencing grief who turned to knitting. And

actually, I think there's a lot of doctors that tell people that

they should try knitting when they're experiencing grief. And

it seems to really, really help them just sort of metabolise it,

I guess. What was your... oh, the colours. Yeah, colours is my

thing, so yes, I do get a lot of...

So you enjoy having those conversations with people

and helping them pick.

That's my favourite thing to do. And it's

It's interesting that for you, you know more about the

funny how there's so many people who feel really lost with

colours, or really just don't trust themselves with it. And

then you can get colours wrong. I feel actually physically

nauseous when I see some colour combos, and it affects me viscerally.

kind of mathematical formula of why. Because I think sometimes I

probably have looked at a colourwork sweater and thought,

"Ooh I'm not sure..." You know, you look on Ravelry and see lots

of versions of the same sweater for inspiration, and then think,

"Ooh, not that one." But I would just feel like it was my spidey

senses or something. I wouldn't be able to put science on it,

but that must be great!

Yeah, it is great! But there's also... Angela was

always very "You mustn't put this colour with this colour."

And yes, there is that, but I also really love to have a

disrupter in there somewhere, so long as it's the right type of

disrupter. You don't want something that was lovely and

energetic, and then had a weird sort of drab colour in there

that just made it all fall apart. That's not the right

disrupter. But if you had something that was a whole bunch

of, say, neutrals with a pastel or something, and then you

chucked in one disruptive colour that just gave that piece a lot

of energy, that's my favourite sort of thing to do.

Do you know, my mum says that about... she's like,

"You need one (she'll call it) ugly colour in there, to make

the others look great." [Laughs] But she's great with colour.

She's so good and confident from just, I don't know, natural

ability and being artistic.

Yeah! And years of practice.

Yeah. But she's really good at experimenting and

seeing what works, and changing it if it doesn't.

And that's the other thing: you've got to be

willing to change it if it doesn't work and to make the

mistakes. And if you want to get good at it, you've just got

to keep practising and be open to your own feedback and realise

when actually no, that's not good.

Do you think you've always been so good at ripping

out? Or tolerant of it? Because I think I've definitely got

better over time, and now other people are much more traumatised

watching me do it than I feel about doing it.

Oh yeah. Darren used to be horrified that I used

to finish a whole thing and then find one thing at the beginning

where I would wish I'd stuck a colour in or something, and I'd

rip it all back. But yeah, I've always been totally fine because

I'm a process knitter and I don't really care about the

final knitted thing to own or wear. It's the process. The only

thing that really traumatises me, I'd say, (if it's trauma) is

I'm terrible about cutting... you know where it says "break

yarn". I know that I will very often go back and rip things

out, so I beat myself up over cutting a yarn where I probably

shouldn't have cut it, and I should have left it attached to

Because the ends are worse, aren't they, for that? If

the ball because I almost definitely always go back. I

don't like ends. I just don't like too many ends. I've knit

with silks and cottons so much that ends are a little bit of a

trauma to me.

it was a sheep's wool, we could spit splice it.

Exactly. I don't mind cutting those. I'm awful at

having these projects with loads of balls attached because I

refuse to cut anything until it's done. [Laughs]

I would love to ask about a significant knitting

project for you. It could be something that feels significant

in your journey with knitting or for your life.

That's a good question. I think for a long

time, it would have been the blanket that I made for Indy

when I was pregnant. That was very personal to him. But I

couldn't even tell you where that is now. We might have lost

it in the hurricane, I don't know. I make a conscious effort

to not be attached to anything physical, so I try not to get

really, really attached to the actual thing. But in terms of

the process...

Even just the process of being somewhere significant

at a time in your life while you made it.

Yeah, definitely the pregnancy ones. I mean, I

like some projects where you've designed it yourself. I guess it

means a lot more than when I'm knitting off another pattern.

And normally, that's because I've knit it like 7, 8, 9 times

and ripped it back and knit it again just to get it right. So

you spend a lot of time with it and you're a bit more invested

in those projects. I've never knit anything for Darren so I

can't say that it's anything massively significant that I've

made for family that they hugely appreciate. I knit a hat for my

granddad a couple of years ago for Christmas that made him

throw up immediately. It was terrible! A beautiful cashmere

hat but he overheated straightaway because he couldn't

take it off! And then he threw up. So I remember that one!

Oh no! Lots of people have spoken about things they've

made in significant times, like for example grief has come up

very often. I think for me, it's often like... I don't know, the

first time I needed a sweater and actually made something that

fitted me. You know, I knitted a lot of non-gauge-determined

items at the beginning like shawls and maybe a hat but

they're kind of stretchy and more forgiving than a sweater.

Yeah, I can't even remember the last time I made a

sweater, or the first time I made a sweater that fit. I don't

think I ever tried to make sweaters that really fit. I

haven't really tried to do that until I had the shop and I was

leading knit-alongs and things, and I had to teach other people

that wanted to keep their knits for some reason [laughs] how to

make it fit.

Have you not kept even sweaters for yourself?

No, I don't keep them. They're all shop samples.

I get to wear them, so I'll wear them home or they might sit in

my wardrobe for a weekend when I'm at home and then I'll wash

them and take them back to the shop and they'll be a shop

sample. I don't tend to have my own. Everything really belongs

to the shop and then I borrow them.

So you've got a never-ending stream of new

things to wear for a weekend!

I have, yeah! As long as I'm organised enough to

remember to take it home from the shop that night, which is

great for the shawls and things for some of them are quite

dressy. So yeah, I've got like a big tickle trunk of possible

knits at the shop that I can borrow whenever I want to. But

we've recently moved to a boat, and again, I don't have very

much wardrobe space. So yes, I just use the shop as a wardrobe

space.

Perfect! And you can keep on knitting. You don't have

to feel guilty when your wardrobe is full!

Yeah! And in Canada, whenever I knit, I used

to give all the stuff to my mates and then I'd borrow it

back when I was like, "Oh, I really want the... you know".

And we all lived fairly close to one another, so I'd just nip by

and grab that jumper back for whatever reason. And we sort of

just shared all my knits, I suppose. I just never kept them

at our home. So yeah, I like that about knitting.

Does it bother you if people don't... Some people I've

spoken to have said, "There's certain people I WOULD knit for

because they kind of get it" like a) how many hours went into

that; b) how to look after it properly if it's wool or

something like that, don't just felt it the first time you wash

it. [Laughs] Does that bother you or will you literally set

them free into the world and don't think about them again?

I won't make something for someone that's

asked for something, if they don't know what it is they're

asking for. And people are always asking, and I'll get

messages on Instagram or whatever from friend, "Can you

make my wife one of those or whatever?" And I'll be like,

"No. I mean, I could but it's going to cost you £600. That's

my time."

Well, that's cheap! You've not given yourself a

decent hourly rate, Milli! [Laughs]

Well, that is cheap! [Laughs]

And the yarn!

So no, I don't make stuff for people that don't

get it. If they really get it and they really want it, then

absolutely, I'll make it for them. And if I know that they're

not going to look after it, and they've asked for it, then they

won't get it. But generally, if it's something that I was making

anyway, and someone's said that they'd quite like it, then they

can have it and there's no questions asked. I will mention

to them that they shouldn't chuck it in the washing machine

or they won't be able to wear it very much. But then if it's

theirs, and it's gone, I don't even think about it again I

think. You know, after it's gone, it's gone.

Do you knit quite fast?

Very fast. Yeah, I'm extremely fast. Recently

we've had people in the shop... Because I've not been on the

shop floor as much, I've been back in the office or downstairs

in the back or wherever, and I've heard people say (or the

girls have said that another person said) "Does Milli really

knit all those knits or does she have like an army of minions in

the background making the stuff?" I knit all my knits

myself. It's important for me to experience all of the yarn

myself, but I am very fast. And I'm small, so I make the smaller

size [laughs] which really helps!

But don't you seem from Instagram to have produced

knits that look great on a whole number of family members as

well?

The shawls! The shawls fit everyone.

Are they all shawls? Have I not seen sweaters on Indy

Oh I do do that! I do make my son wear... yeah, I

or...?

mean, they are small for him. He didn't go out wearing them.

He's very tolerant of it!

Oh he's amazing. He'll do whatever I ask him to

do. He doesn't really care what anyone thinks. He'll just do

whatever he wants. But I will quite often put it on him

because I want to see what the shoulders or the neckline might

look like on a man, or how it'll fit if you haven't got boobs, or

what that colour might look like on someone else, or does a very

soft mohair look alright on a bloke that's got a beard, that

kind of thing. So yeah, I will make the family try... you know,

my dad will try on a lot of my stuff. My dad loves trying

things on for me and he quite often gets them. He's got loads

of my knits in his wardrobe, but I never see him actually wear

them after the first time. So I should really take them back

[laughs] and give them to someone else. But they are

small. I do knit oversize arms. I like really long arms. Maybe

that's why they get away with it.

You like to wear them?

I like to wear overly long sleeves.

I always end with asking: what's the greatest gift

that knitting has given you for the rest of your life?

It's very important. I think it's probably

added several years to my life.

Just in the calming and, you know, not being

In what way specifically, do you think?

frazzled and stressed and giving myself a stress-induced disease,

I think. All that time where people think it's wasted,

knitting, it's probably not. It's probably adding that much

time and then some at the end of your life, you know? It's not a

waste of time. And I think the biggest, biggest gift is that it

makes me a much easier person to be around and to live with for

my family, because I'm not totally frazzled all the time if

I've got my knitting. And they get some downtime from me. I'm

very A Type. I'm always needing things to do because I can't sit

still. But it gives them a break to just sit and chill when they

know that I'm not going to bother them because I'm in my knitting.

So it does sound like it really has a regulating kind

of function for you.

Massively. And I notice it very much if I have

not picked up my needles that day or for a couple of days. I

feel like I really need some time, and I'm just going to grab

my needles and just be.

Yeah. I feel like I can feel it physically as well,

that I need to kind of have... My grandma used to slightly

sneakily still smoke and think we didn't know about it.

[Laughs] It was almost like after she'd eaten her dinner,

she'd get a bit agitated and feel like she needed to smoke.

And I've felt exactly the same about my knitting.

Absolutely. There's times where you just

feel a bit antsy and a bit up, and you're just like, "Right,

let's just go sit over there, grab some knitting and just calm

down for a while." So I think that's the greatest, greatest

gift, that you've got a tool that allows you to have instant

stress relief, and you can take it anywhere you go, and it makes

a lot of the more stressful times in your life, like sitting

in traffic (not when you're driving, obviously) or waiting

for something where you can just get more and more riled up. It

makes those times the complete opposite of what they would have

been, which I think is huge. I don't know how people cope! I

don't know how people live that don't have the knitting.

I did end up doing a lot of waiting for hospital

appointments a few years ago, sometimes three hours in this

particular department that I had to go back to a couple of times,

and everybody else had their phones and they'd by the end run

out of phone battery. And I was knitting and I thought, "Next

time I come here, if I have to come back, I'm bringing extra

yarn and needles!" because there were people who were then

striking up conversation about my knitting, because I was the

only one doing anything other than on their phone, which I

think makes people look unapproachable, I guess, if

they're looking down at a phone. And they were asking me about

it. And I felt so lucky!

Well, because the other thing that makes you more

approachable, I think, as a knitter and as a social knitter,

if you're someone that has anxiety about social settings

and new people, is that when you've got your knitting you can

have a really good mix of eye contact with people and then an

excuse to break your eye contact in a non-awkward way. So you've

always got your knitting that you can look down at, but you

can also look up and maintain decent eye contact. There's no

pressure or awkward social pressure to keep looking at the

person that you're interacting with. So I think that's also why

a lot of people that have that awkwardness, it's good for them

when they've got their knitting and they feel like they can

approach you more, because you haven't got to be that intense

with them because you're already doing something. And it's not

like, you know, when you're reading a book, you don't want

to approach that person because they've got to be looking at

their book to continue what they're doing. But you can talk

to someone that's knitting.

And I certainly find my concentration... I have a

very flighty concentration span, I suppose. Like if I'm sitting

in a busy waiting room, I wouldn't be able to really focus

on a book, I don't think, or on a bus. Whereas I totally could

knit. But I wouldn't have enough focus to just read, I don't

think.

Yeah, I'm either not into the book enough, and

I'm not focused because I'm concentrating on other stuff and

have to listen for my stop, or I'm so into my book that I'm

going to miss my stop. But when I used to get on my little bus

in the Caribbean, that took me down to a boat, that was fine. I

could read because everyone else on the bus would tell me when it

was time to get off at the next stop! [Laughs] And that's fine.

I used to really get into a book then. But that's...

That's not going to happen in London. [Laughs]

I mean, I guess you could ask the person next to

you, "Can you just tap me when it's such-and-such stop?" But we

don't do that, do we?

No, we don't. We should be more Caribbean in our

attitude! You wouldn't see the same people every day, that's

for sure.

No, no.

Interesting that you said the more senior you got,

the more possible it felt to knit during meetings to help you

concentrate. And certainly I've found that as well. But now I

feel like I have more confidence. And I think it's

helps that some stuff is over Zoom. I just don't believe

humans are designed to sit down and do a six hour training

course and not move!

No! Not at all.

And I feel like if I knit, it's the perfect level of:

my hands are busy and my brain is available for concentrating.

Whereas if I wasn't doing that, I feel like my brain might

freelance onto something even more distracting, and then

actually draw my concentration away from what I'm supposed to

be focusing on.

It's like doodling, isn't it? It's like a

form of doodling. But you end up with an actual 3D possibly

useful thing at the end of it.

You described yourself as a Type A person. How

much does having something tangible that you've created add

to the appeal of knitting? You said you like to finish things.

Do you get a certain sense of achievement from... I guess lots

of the things we do are on a screen and you can't really see

your progress. You've done a day's work, but it's not really

visible. Whereas with knitting you have a thing you can show

and feel and touch.

You have a thing, yeah. And there's a beginning

and an end. I think, for me, that's more important than

actually having the thing, because I don't ever really want

the thing. But I like that there's a finite end to a thing

and you can finish an actual project and it's gone. I think,

in my experience with knitting and all the people around me

that knit, it seems to be a more male need, maybe, or more

important from an actual creating point of view and

having a thing that you've sculpted and made. That seems to

make the boys... I've noticed that they have a lot more

satisfaction about having the final piece, about the creation.

I mean, women do too but it's very much more noticeable with

guys - that they've got like a thing that they've made. For me,

it's more the beginning of it. I genuinely get the same pleasure

out of a really great spreadsheet. [Laughs] I love a

spreadsheet! Whenever I've got one that I've 'birthed', and

then it's finished and it's magnificent, then I love that

too. And that's not a tangible thing, so I know that for me it

doesn't have to be something I can hold. But I like that

there's an ending.

I think one of the things we talk about, like when

we're using knitting for people who are maybe struggling with

low mood or something, we talk about having two types of tasks

something that's intrinsically enjoyable,

and something that gives you a sense of achievement. So even if

I tidied my desk or my workspace, that might not be fun

for me but I could look at it and think, "Oh, well done me. I

did that." But I guess knitting gives you both, and it's harder

to deny progress if you can see it and hold it in your hand.

Yeah! And a new learned technique. That's hugely

satisfying, when you're learning something a lot of the time, or

So you're someone who likes the uncharted new

you're coming across a new colour combo. Do you know, one

of the really cool things in the shop is when we willl get a

bunch of customers and someone will put a yarn down on the

counter that they want, and someone else puts another yarn

down on the counter, and they happen to be next to each other

and you just think, "Wow! I never would have put those

territory, aren't you? In the colour combos, but also in the

colours together, but wow!" I love that.

techniques. That's a driver for you.

The learning, yeah, and I think that's really

important as well. There's different types of people.

There's some people that are the perfectionists and they have to

get it right, and they need the finished article, and that's

where they derive their sense of achievement and enjoyment. And

there's others that are process driven, like me, and then

there's people where we just want to constantly be changing

and learning and moving and that's who I am. And I think

it's really good for... don't they say it's great for

cognitive function and the ageing brain, if you can keep

learning and keep introducing new skills and rebuilding in all

those pathways.

Yeah! And I guess if you think about your past, you

didn't get to be... was it CFO?... and work with Richard

Branson, unless you were a high-achieving, ambitious

person. And I guess all of that drive is in you somewhere, and

it's going in your knitting and learning new techniques.

Yeah, there is that but also, as an accountant,

I'm the very outside of the box... you know, creative... I'm

not a creative accountant in the bad sense, but I am an outside

the box accountant that is driven... I'll look at different

things with performance, and holistically as a business as a

whole. So my style of accounting really worked for him in that

business, and the way that I will lead a team is like that.

And it is also the way that I approach my knitting. Whereas

Darren, my husband, is an accountant but he's a much more

detail-driven in-the-weeds accountant, and he doesn't have

an interest in knitting things and wouldn't know where to start

with creating a project or chucking colours together,

because that's not who he is. Actually it would stress him

out. I sometimes say, "What do you think of this colour and

this colour?" and he's just like, "What?! I don't even..."

But that creativity is a driver for you?

Yeah, the creativity's a driver for me but

I recognise that with some people, unless they've got the

formula and the pattern and it's written out, and the

predictability of how the colours will work, they'll get

really stressed out about it. But once that bit is taken care

of, then they find it equally enjoyable to sit and knit.

And actually, that's amazing, isn't it? That knitting

could be a great task for both different types of people with

very different... cognitive needs, we could call it, I

suppose. The fact that you can get your needs met in your way,

being more creative.

Yeah, so that's very interesting. And that's why

I think that it's so good at bringing together all the

different types of people. You don't have to be a particular

type of person to enjoy knitting; you can pretty much be

any background and any type and your brain can work in any way.

You could be someone that has to be predictable and methodical,

or someone that likes the chaos like I do. Actually, I like the

chaos but then I really like the order and the maths side of

knitting. So yeah, it all works.

You're running Knit Nites, aren't you, at Tribe?

Yeah. At the minute they're virtual.

But they were in person for a while, weren't

they?

They were.

Is there anything that surprises you about the

conversations that come up, that feels different about the kind

of conversations people have while their knitting, compared

to if people were in a pub or a restaurant or...?

I mean, we talk a lot more about yarns and

patterns and things! [Laughs]

Yeah sure. I guess many of the people don't know

each other? Or do they? Before they come?

Yeah. It's a lot easier to sit in a group when

you've got your knitting, than say if you're all sat there in a

circle with nothing but each other! And we get new people all

the time. Every week we've got at least one new person, and

that's great. We've all got something that unites us all,

but we all recognise that we're extremely different. And on our

virtual Knit Nites we're global. We're all over the world. We've

got people in Finland and Australia and the States and

Portugal and from all over the place in different time zones on

this one call, and that's nice. We're all knitting very

different things in different colours, and we can all

appreciate what the other person's making.

I think that's another thing, you know, you

were talking about the idea of being able to regulate your eye

contact when you're knitting. I guess the other thing is you do

just have an automatic topic of conversation, even with

non-knitters when they talk to you on a bus or something. It's

in a way less awkward. They can ask you about your knitting

or...

It's like having a cute baby. I mean that's when

you've always got people that will come and talk to you if

you've got a cute dog or a baby.

Yes, this is true. [Laughs]

It is kind of like that. For ages we were thought

of as really weird. I was a closet knitter for a very long

time in my childhood, because it was not cool to be knitting. You

didn't tell anyone that you did it. But it is cool now! It's

kind of fine. It's a little bit fringe, but it's fine.

Yeah, I was certainly... I mean I didn't

always knit. Sometimes I was doing other things like cross

stitch, and I don't think I realised how much I needed it

for my mental wellbeing. But I would always get my revision

done quite early, and then the night before exams I'd be

secretly in my bedroom cross stitching. Because obviously, if

you did that openly, people would be annoyed at you that

you'd finished revising, but I just get to the point where I'm

done. Psychologically, I can't cram any more into this brain.

Now I'm doing something else. But I feel like it almost opened

a different trapdoor in my mind, that doing something rhythmical

with my hands allowed the revision to percolate in a way,

I felt.

Yeah, definitely. And it was a reward for me as

well. I'd get a whole bunch of revision done, and then allow

myself to go knit a few more line, because it was just so

good. I know some people would reward themselves with cake or a

cigarette or something, but knitting's a super healthy way

of rewarding yourself, I guess, with hindsight.

I relearnt, actually. My mum insisted I learnt when I

started my doctorate in Clinical Psychology, because she thought

it was a good thing to do. And it did turn out to be the

perfect thing for revision breaks. I was knitting a big

shawl, so they had rows, and you could do a row or two rows, and

then there's a finite end to your break. And then you go back

to the books.

Yeah. You do have to be disciplined enough to say,

"I'm not going to just do one more row."

Or when you're knitting in the round, it's even

harder. [Laughs] The rows are less finite. Well, Milli, it has

been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much

for joining me on the podcast. If people want to find out more

about you or Tribe, how would they find out more?

Probably through the Tribe Yarns website:

www.tribeyarns.com. And then I do send out a newsletter, which

tends to be long and has a lot in it, but I only do that once

every month or every six weeks. I'm not very good at sending

that more often than that. So subscribe to the newsletter. And

follow me on Instagram @tribeyarnslife where there's

always lots of pictures of me and my family.

In beautiful Richmond!

Thank you so much for listening to the Why I Knit podcast. If

you'd like to find out more about therapeutic knitting, you

can follow me on Instagram @knittingistherapeutic, or at my

website:

www.therapeuticknitting.org. If

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