Heather's Web

At Wool on the Exe we are all about community! We are a yarn shop of course, but we are also a community interest company. We are a space for learning, a hub for sharing our enthusiasm for wool, and a social space for making connections!

One of our lovely members, Heather, felt a particular affinity for the importance of making connections and finding growth and healing through craft. Heather has offered to volunteer her time to help us expand what we do, by sharing written pieces in our newsletter and also leading our annual winter community project. 

We invited Heather to share her story and tell us more about how she will be working with us.

Who am I and why am I volunteering for Wool on the Exe?

I am a teacher, although I have been out of work for several years now due to poor mental health. During this time, it has become fully apparent: I am a knitter.

I was drawn to teaching, and still want to get back to it, because I care about connection – meeting a child in their world, showing them I think it is valuable, then sharing worlds and both of us growing and rejoicing in the new territory we discover.

Despite my passion, I had a nervous breakdown in 2019 and this left me completely unable to do basic tasks of life. For a long while I couldn’t even knit; it might sound ridiculous, but I would physically sit for hours on end, rocking, sweating and crying, with my knitting right beside me, but I would be too anxious to pick it up. I was also entirely housebound, and so I couldn’t meet other knitters, or Wool on the Exe.

However, thankfully, I did start to get better and the better I got the more I could knit, the more I could knit, the better I got… There is nothing else for me, like knitting. It grounds me, soothes me, uplifts me, and excites me. It makes me feel proud of myself and happy to be the person that I am.

Putting time and energy into knitting produces this artefact that is sort of at once part of me, and also separate, separate enough that I can feel fond of it, then connected enough to me that I even feel, sort of… fond of myself!

There is also the joy of learning something new, a new technique or pattern, and I find it exhilarating. I am even learning to crochet and spin now – more pleasures in my arsenal.

But, this didn’t just happen on its own. Indeed, I don’t think it could have. It happened for me because I was guided, encouraged, delighted, and inspired by Wool on the Exe.

I was isolated, housebound and living in a social drought, my leaves had all withered and my roots were shrivelling into dust… It got to the point I even thought I didn’t want social contact, ever again! But then I started popping in at the shop.

At first, I was very anxious being in the shop – I have Tourette’s and I would tic a lot, I was scared of the social interactions, and I couldn’t touch anything because of my fear that I would contaminate it.

However, bit by bit the team at Wool on the Exe showed me more and more love, just the right amount at just the right time (think about how a dried-up plant needs watering), and I grew into a happy, nourished being that is really quite unrecognisable to what I was before. Now, I come in to the shop most Thursdays and it brightens up my week, my life. It puts a spring in my step and sets me off well to get on through to… my next visit at the shop!

Repeat this cycle over and over for a good year now, and I have become increasingly confident, and so incredibly grateful to get to know Debbie, Ella, Gail and now I’m getting to know Hannah too! They are such a special bunch of people; they are warm, nurturing, and kind, and they make Wool on the Exe what it is, which to me is a safe place, a lifeline, a joy, a gift! And I value that so dearly.

I also met some of you, just in the shop or at workshops, and I realised what it meant to be part of a community. I value that dearly, too. I had never realised what a community could be before.

Actually, my cat did try to teach me…

My name is now Heather Dilys Webb. Because I had a traumatic childhood, I knew I wanted to get rid of my old surname – I felt it tied me to my parents and I didn’t want that anymore. But I found it so tricky to just make up a name! I was getting more and more desperate, all the while really struggling with my trauma, until one night I cried non-stop from dusk to dawn.

That is when my cat, Lillibet, put her head to my head, and put a picture of a web into my mind – she chose our name. At the time, the web meant my partner Konrad, Lillibet and me. I belong with them, and they belong with me. I make sense with them, and they make sense with me. This is vitally precious to me.

Now, I am delighted to say, that I feel my web is even bigger than my family – it is part of the community I belong to, the Wool on the Exe community.

There are numerous ways I am going to be volunteering with Wool on the Exe, and I would love it if you were to join me there, because as one big web of people I think we have all got so much to offer to, and gain from, each other.

Firstly, there is the Cowl for Christmas project. For six weeks, I will be meeting online with people who feel lonely or isolated, to knit cowls for each other. (If you or someone you know is interested, please know you are heartily invited and get in touch with the shop!) I hope that it becomes an opportunity to share love, good wishes, and warm feelings, because I know how much the soul misses this when it is left alone. I am also expecting high spirits, a sense of humour, and childlike joy!

Meanwhile, I will continue working on my own personal projects. I confess, I have many on the go… For example, I am knitting a lace shawl for me on my wedding day, and a colourwork waistcoat for my partner’s wedding outfit, I’m knitting a hap shawl the way Ethel taught me on the wonderful workshop at Wool on the Exe, and I am designing my own Fair Isle cardigan, with my own abstract motifs based on Lillibet. I am knitting the Carol shawl up on the wall at Wool on the Exe, with some of Debbie’s beautiful hand-dyed yarn, and I am designing a couple of my own cardigans that use some of WYS’s gorgeous yarns and intarsia, because I have to pack my clothes with colours somehow! I am knitting some Woolly Wormhead hats with unusual construction techniques and, the list goes on… I haven’t even told you about the crochet projects I have got on the go!

I do realise I actually need to get these projects finished now, and find some way to bridle my passion! But I do have boisterous knitting ambitions. One day, I hope I am competent in designing my own patterns, maybe even using, or creating my own, unusual construction techniques.

However, I also want to learn old skills, folk skills, from cultures around the world. I like to research different ways knitting has been done, different techniques that have been used, and I do intend to share what I learn in ‘Heather’s Web’.

So, what is Heather’s Web?

At the end of Wool on the Exe’s Newsletters, I will be getting a short segment to share wonderful patterns I come across, and beautiful yarn from the shop that could be used to make them up. Sometimes I will even take the yarns as the first inspiration, because they are so gorgeous, and see what patterns I think would show them off well.

I will be sharing knitting and crochet patterns for a range of things: womenswear, menswear, things for baby, accessories, and home furnishings. I will also share knits suitable for the younger knitter.

I can’t wait to get involved with the Wool on the Exe community in this way, and I really do hope we can all get creative and happy together. I know how much I want knitting, crochet, and spinning to be a central artery in my life, and I sincerely wish that all our hearts can beat together.

Given my experience, my perspective on what Wool on the Exe is, to me, is clear: it’s a place to connect, and to be soothed, to be excited, to learn, and to be with like-minded others. It is one of the most valuable parts of my life, and I hope I see you in there some day!