NEEDLE SHARP!

Meet 95-year-old Gielie Claassen, the North West granny who still knits six days a week

- JACO HOUGH-COETZEE

SHE’S been knitting every day of her life for the past 89 years. Every day of the week, year in, year out, for nearly nine decades her needles have been click-clacking away.

She’d have no idea what to do with herself it weren’t for knitting, Gielie Claassen says – a pair of needles and a ball of yarn have been her constant companions since she was a little girl.

She was just six years old when she started knitting. It was 1932 and times were tough – so tough, in fact, that her first needles were old bicycle spokes and her wool was unraveled flour sacks.

But it was enough to learn the basics – in, over, through, out – and by the time she was 10, Gielie was knitting each member of her family a jersey for winter.

Knitting was her favorite pastime. In the mornings she’d go to school and do her homework in the afternoon before she and her brother and five sisters helped their dad, Gideon, on their farm near Ventersdorp in what’s now North West province.

And each evening Gielie would sit for hours by the glow of a lamp or candlelight and knit and knit and knit.