IT WAS a simple sign in my local library. Knit and natter and with its next session on my birthday too.

But I knew I wouldn’t be one of the ones pulling up a chair and swapping stitches and stories in Honley library this week. Too many words to thread together during the day job for me to escape on a Monday.

But it got me into a pattern of thinking about why some crafts bind our society together today as much as they ever did.

The earliest examples of knitting, or something very like it, are said to have been found by archaeologists in Egypt. And what did those early needle twirlers create? Socks!

Stands to reason really. Whether the first people to craft a single thread into something a whole lot more substantial came from Persia or Syria or North Africa, or a whole lot of other places that experts have tossed into the mix when probing the origins of knitting, remains a bit of a mystery.

But what stitches any of the theories together is the thought that knitting was probably created by need rather than as something to show creativity and skill.

You can imagine can’t you that it all began as people found different methods of putting together coverings to protect themselves from the elements using whatever was to hand.

Feet and heads are the extremities most exposed to heat, cold and distance. Cover both and you are on your way to an easier nomadic lifestyle.

So not surprisingly socks and hats are where this very amateur knitter started. Not that the weather is that extreme in the Holme Valley or that I have to trek long distances in my socks. But you get the drift.

Time it seems doesn’t change some things particularly when it comes to learning traditional skills.

Over centuries and through different cultures, knitting developed and became as much art as craft.

I’ve still got a hand-knitted suit brought back from Italy by an uncle who imported men’s knitwear and shirts through his Bond Street company.

It still shouts fashion and flair but pastel pink is really not my colour these days.

More worryingly I’ve got photographs of a small child oblivious to the hand-knitted cardigans that spoke more of determination than skill.

The child was me, the knitter an elderly family friend whose needles accompanied her everywhere and provided a constant background chatter to any conversation.

For her, knitting was as natural as breathing and she took her wool and needles everywhere. I saw her in full cardigan or mitten mode at cricket, on the bus and while balancing tea and buns on her ample knees.

The person who put her needlecraft to shame in our family was my grandfather, the most accomplished of us all when it came to wielding needles.

But his were of the embroidery kind. He’d been encouraged to grasp the finer points of needlework when he was in a military hospital during the First World War.

A shattered bone in his upper arm took time to mend and the fine control needed to make pictures with silks and linen was just what the doctor ordered.

Others in the house taught me to crochet and to knit. And while I could enjoy the quiet concentration which went with weaving loops of thread around a single crochet hook, the constant click of a pair of knitting needles was more irritating than soothing.

Crochet and read, absolutely. Knit and read? No way. And since reading was a big a part of my childhood, knitting was dropped faster than a whole row of stitches.

Then of course, fashion took a hold. Why would I want a home-knitted anything when I could buy snappy, chic little cardigans for far less both in terms of hard-earned pennies and in terms of hours.

For while I might not be the worst knitter in the world, I might just be the slowest. And fashion moves in the fast lane.

Knitting itself has swung in and out of fashion as fast as the colour orange. Yes, it’s back for the autumn and I still think it looks better on trees than on me.

But for those who are adept with their fingers and whose multi-tasking skills allows them to knit and utter purls (!) of wisdom at the same time, then the return of knit and natter to the on-trend circle of hobbies is perfect.

Find it at a library near you – or failing that, cast-on and start a group yourself. You’ll run up a perfectly fitting set of new friends in no time.