Anyone who ever tried knitting will know how complicated it is to keep track of the type and number of stitches in a pattern that resembles a string of algebra equations.

Knitters must concentrate on counting stitches as they tick off the part of the pattern they complete since losing count could mean a hole in their woolly creation.

Which is why it is remarkable that Bridget Micallef, a blind woman, recently started knitting.

“Right now I’m doing a very complicated one. I’m using a circular needle for the first time. It’s a jacket,” she said, as she held up her work proudly.

Ms Micallef, 45, has devised a method that works: A knitting pattern is sent to her by e-mail and she opens it on her home computer that reads it out loud. She then translates it to Braille and follows the pattern by feeling the instructions with her fingertips.

Ms Micallef started attending knitting classes two years ago with the encouragement of a friend who enrolled her in a course.

It was something she always wanted to do as, when she was a child, her mother taught her basic knitting. On her first day of class she found that the teacher had not been informed she was blind.

“I realised she panicked and told her I was ready to opt out if she felt she would not cope. But she said we’d take it as a challenge. And I managed with her help and my determination,” she said. Ms Micallef, who works as an audio-typist in Parliament, lost her eyesight when she was 17.

Her vision started deteriorating when she was five and got a virus through sea contamination while swimming. She was prescribed eye drops to treat the virus and the drops led to glaucoma.

When she went completely blind she had to leave school. But she was determined this would not be the end of her love for learning.

“I left school in May and the following November I started learning Braille. It was going to give me back my main hobby – reading,” she said.

But Ms Micallef had to, and still does, battle with the lack of availability of Braille books locally.

She gets her books from a UK lending library as there are no Maltese works available in Braille except for the Maltese Bible – although the first 19 volumes have not yet been translated to Braille.

Ms Micallef has an insatiable thirst for learning and is currently following a short online course to learn the nutritional value of food.

Her next challenge will be to follow a Braille music course so that she can resume playing the piano – something which, like knitting, she stopped when she lost her eyesight.

She believes it is never too late to learn something or to pick up on past passions...

It’s never too late for the proverbial stitch in time.

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