Some people come to knitting late. Rhona Arthur came to it through memory: the click of her mother’s needles, the grannies who could turn a heel without so much as glancing at a pattern. She grew up surrounded by the craft, taught herself as a student, and spent decades producing children’s sweaters and complex Kaffe Fassett designs. By any measure, she was an accomplished knitter.
And yet, something was missing. Rhona had spent years bringing other people’s beautiful patterns to life, but she had no idea how to create her own. In October 2023, she enrolled on the City & Guilds accredited Skill Stage 3 Knitting course at the School of Stitched Textiles, and what followed was a revelation. Not just in technique, but in how she sees the world entirely.
Inspired by Rhona’s story? The City & Guilds accredited Skill Stage 3 Knitting course at SST is designed for knitters who are ready to move beyond other people’s patterns and develop their own creative voice. Whether you are a confident knitter looking to formalise your skills or someone with a burning desire to design, Skill Stage 3 offers the structured learning, expert tuition, and creative support to get you there. Find out more and register your interest here.
“Learning the basics of design has made the biggest impact on me. It has changed how I look at the world and interact with it.”
Rhona Arthur – Knitting Skill Stage 3
A Lifetime of Knitting, and Still So Much to Learn
I have childhood memories of my mother and grandmothers knitting. My mother churned out shawl collar sweaters in different colours to be passed down through her three children, while the grannies specialised in socks, turning heels and watching children play without so much as a pattern. I started knitting as a student, imagining a specific sleeveless cardigan and deciding to teach myself to make it. The lovely pale blue button-through was fastened with a pom-pom drawstring, because I couldn’t work out how to make buttonholes.
I moved on, and soon I was producing children’s sweaters and designer knits like Kaffe Fassett. But as I got more leisure time, I found myself reflecting that I had spent a lot of my life knitting other people’s beautiful patterns, with no idea how to create my own. That was what brought me to SST.
In October 2023, faced with a long winter ahead and ready for a new challenge, I enrolled on the Skill Stage 3 Knitting course. My main motivation was to be able to design my own patterns and to learn new skills. I spent time researching the course before I committed, because I wanted something flexible enough to fit around my lifestyle, but which also offered structured learning and proper student support. The City & Guilds certification was a very important part of the appeal. I wanted to be confident that my skills were genuinely up to standard, and the assessments gave me exactly that.
The Course That Opened a World of Knitting I Never Knew Existed
At the start, I thought I was quite proficient in the key techniques after so many years of knitting. Ha! It was only as a mature student that I really started to learn the history, heritage, and techniques which are part of this wonderful craft. I relished all the research aspects, though I would probably not have had the motivation to explore them without the challenge of assessment. I was amazed to find so many techniques I had never heard of, and so many different ways of doing the same thing. Casting on and off alone opened up a whole new world, Norwegian purl was a complete revelation, and then there were the various global knitting styles and traditions, which I had never even considered before.
What I had not anticipated was quite how much the design element would change things for me. Learning the basics of design has made the biggest impact. It has changed how I look at the world and how I interact with it. I was apprehensive about drawing, as I am no artist, but I have learned to use digital tools and design packages to take the images in my head and turn them into a pattern. I love visiting museums, galleries, historic houses, and gardens, and now I can use those experiences to really connect with design in a wholly different way.
Casting Off
Rhona came to Skill Stage 3 as an experienced knitter and left as a designer with a business idea, a new creative lens, and a depth of knowledge she never expected to find. Her story is a reminder that there is always more to discover in a craft you love, and that the right course at the right moment can change everything.
