MAPLETON, Maine — Wilma Winslow of Mapleton has spent more than four decades teaching people to knit, helping them create warm clothes and accessories and learn a skill for life.
On a recent, seasonably cool November night, Winslow was leading a small group of retirees and youngest granddaughter Amanda in a knitting class at Presque Isle High School. Some were working on hats, others mittens and socks, as a bowl of lemon fudge made its way around the table.
“My mother always knit and crocheted and when I was about 6 years old, I wanted to do some too. She started me on some curtain pulls,” Winslow said.
“When I got into high school, I decided I wanted to knit a pair of socks. I was laid up in bed with rheumatic fever, so they got me the stuff to knit.”
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- Wilma Winslow, seated center, poses with her Monday night knitting class, from left, granddaughter Amanda Winslow, Dorothy Gillespie, Donna Michaud and Opal Marquis. (Anthony Brino)
Hooked on the craft as a teenager, Winslow started knitting sweaters for babies and young children in her neighborhood. Later, knitting for her own children and extended relatives became a staple of winter life when she married Carl Winslow and helped run the family dairy and potato farm on Mapleton’s Creasey Ridge Road.
Winslow said she learned a lot of the craft from her mom and aunts, as well as books. She can follow a pattern, tweak it, design her own or knit from scratch, and has showed numerous others how to do the same.
“My mom did things just by looking. I’m at the point where I can look at something and do it,” Winslow said.
Any knitter, or family member of a knitter, knows the process can seem monotonous, but that’s hardly the case, Winslow said.
“I like to see them as they’re being completed; it pushes you to keep going with another row until you’re finished.”
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- Wilma Winslow, left, talks with Donna Michaud and Opal Marquis during an MSAD1 Adult Ed knitting class. (Anthony Brino)
Winslow started teaching knitting back in 1972, first through home-based classes then through programs with Presque Isle High School and Maine School Administrative District 1’s Adult Education Program.
Today, Winslow is glad to see knitting making something of a comeback among young and older adults alike, although she said she has only had one man in all of her classes, plus a grandson she taught at home.
Overall, there are likely hundreds of people who’ve learned knitting through Winslow.
“I get them started and they go from there,” she said. “I’ve had people come to my classes years ago, and I see them on the street and they say, ‘Guess what? I’m still knitting.’”
