When I was 14, an older lady, a friend of my mother's, invited me over to her house. The reason for the invitation was unclear, but my mother, ever polite, felt it was important for me to go. I was a stereotypical teen girl, obsessed with boy bands and Lip Smackers, so I whined all week, trying to get out of it. I remember doing my best Molly Ringwald impression and shrieking, "This is so unfair!" while my mother looked on, unmoved.

My mother's sense of decorum was stronger than my sense of injustice at missing Saturday at the mall, so I found myself in Auntie Grace's* living room that fateful afternoon.

Auntie Grace was authoritative and eagle-eyed. She was an elegant dresser with neat, tidy hair. Once we were seated in her living room, she revealed the reason she had invited me over.

"Your mother tells me you are 14," she said, observing me from across the room.
"Yeah," I said.
"Fourteen makes you a woman," she said.
"Really?"
"Yes," said Auntie Grace.
She seemed surprised I didn't know this.
"There are certain things a woman must know if she is to be successful," she said.

She reached down to pick up a basket by the side of her chair. Until that moment, I hadn't noticed it. It was a basket full of yarn. Auntie Grace handed me a ball of wool and a pair of knitting needles.

"Have you any idea what it is?" she asked me.
I shrugged.

Auntie Grace looked at me then, squinting from behind her glasses as if she were trying to work out some private puzzle. After a moment, she smiled broadly and said with jolly finality, "You will know it. By the end of the day, you will know it well." As if it were inevitable, a done deal.

Thirteen years later, it seems Auntie Grace's words were prophetic. I did know knitting by the end of the day, and I still know it today. Knitting is now my trade. I design hand-knit patterns and teach people how to knit them. It started that day in Auntie Grace's house. The magic of creating something beautiful and useful, with nothing but my own two hands and a pair of sticks, continues to amaze to me.

One of my goals is to share knitting with others, so I try to make it easy to understand. I also like to design garments for a modern wardrobe. This Honey Stitch Cowl is easy to make and modern in design. With a panel of dense cables bracketed by a twisted rib, it's all textures and shapes, straight lines and curves, merged into a chunky cowl that manages to look kind of timeless. It's a cowl that both Auntie Grace and I could look good wearing.

The cables may appear intimidating, but they're actually very simple, and in the tutorial video I'll demo a knitting hack that will make your cabling fly by—without using a double-pointed needle!

To knit the Honey Stitch Cowl you should be comfortable knitting, purling, casting on and casting off. The other techniques you can pick up by watching the tutorial video. Through the Honey Stitch Cowl I hope you'll discover the joy of knitting and, to quote a wise lady, that you will know knitting, and know it well.

*Name has been changed.

Find more on knitting at Davina Choy's website Sheep & Stitch.

Check out this free knitting pattern for Davina's Honey Stitch Cowl and make a modern classic to enjoy for years.