Knitting - Anne Bartlett

When Sandra is widowed tragically early in her early 40s, with no children to distract her, and a career as a college lecturer only keeping her mildly busy, she feels she needs a new direction in her life.

This comes in the unlikely shape of Martha, a woman she meets completely randomly when they both stop to help in a medical emergency in a shopping mall. Martha has also experienced grief, but appears to have worked it through. She is also a keen, talented, but almost obsessive knitter, who lives and breathes her skill. Sandra is fascinated by her work, and eager to develop other strands to her career, decides to organise an exhibition on the history of women's clothing and textiles, asking Martha to help her by creating replicas of various items.

What follows is not a conventional friendship, nor a conventional healing, but whatever it is, it changes Sandra's life very much for the better...