This book (soon to be a film) tells the story of single mum Georgia whose wool shop becomes the venue for a Friday night knitting club. The disparate women of different ages and backgrounds who come to the club are drawn together by their love of knitting. As the needles click and their garments grow, the conversation meanders from dropped stitches to love and back again. There are now two sequels: 'Knit Two' and 'Knit the Season'. Visit www.thefridaynightknittingclub.co.uk for excerpts and information.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: 'The Friday Night Knitting Club' and 'Knit Two' by Kate Jacobs (£7.99, Hodder Paperbacks)

Buy from Amazon: 'Knit the Season' by Kate Jacobs (£8.18, Berkley Publishing Group)

This 1996 film stars Winona Ryder as post graduate student and confused bride-to-be Finn Dodd. She decides to spend the summer with her grandmother and great aunt, who are making a wedding quilt for her with the help of a group of friends. The theme of the quilt is ‘Where love resides’ and each woman is making a patch that shows where she finds happiness. As Finn works on her master’s thesis, she listens to the women’s tales of life and love and starts to reflect on her own life.

Buy the DVD from Amazon: 'How to Make an American Quilt', £4.04.

You might also like...

Beginner's guide to quilting, plus projects to try

Disney’s 1950s animated classic has a scene in which ‘Cinderelly’s’ mice and bird friends embellish her dress so that she can go to the ball. Consulting a dressmaking book, the mice ladies measure out the trim, cut the ribbon to the perfect length and sew it all on with needles and thread that are as big as they are. When one of the guys tries to help out, a female mouse says: ‘Leave the sewing to the women, now you go get some trimmin'.’

Buy the DVD from Play.com: Cinderella, £11.17

Centring on the life of black women in 1930s America, sewing represents freedom and financial independence for the main character, Celie, who uses her skills to start her own business making trousers. Later in the book, when Celie has an argument with her friend Sofia, Sofia signals a truce by suggesting they make a quilt. The quilt, composed of different patterns sewn together, symbolises diverse people coming together in unity. The book has been made into a film and a musical.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Phoenix House, £7.99)

You might also like...

Sew a patchwork cushion from material that holds memories

The reclusive and miserly Silas Marner is likened to a solitary spider, weaving cloth in his cottage on the edge of the village where he lives. He’s distraught when a thief breaks in and steals all the gold he’s made from selling his cloth. Soon after, a golden-haired child appears mysteriously at his door and he is convinced that she has been sent to him. He brings her up as his own and finally finds happiness and acceptance in his village. It could be said that the process of weaving functions as a metaphor for the creation of a community, with its many interwoven threads.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: Silas Marner by George Eliot (Wordsworth Editions, £1.99)

Miss Marple, amateur detective and avid knitter, is one of the most famous of Agatha Christie’s characters. An elderly spinster, she lives in the village of St Mary Mead and solves crimes in her spare time. One of her tricks is to sit in a corner knitting (as demonstrated by Julia McKenzie in the role, left) so that she can eavesdrop on people talking. Miss Marple appears in 12 of Agatha Christie's crime novels and 20 short stories. She has also starred in her own television series and several films, such as 'The Mirror Crack’d' and 'Murder, She Said'.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: Miss Marple Omnibus by Agatha Christie (Harper Collins paperbacks, £14)

You might also like...

10 reasons to love knitting (besides as a cover for eavesdropping!)

Scarlett O’Hara lives on the family plantation, Tara, in 1860s Georgia. After the family plantation has been ravaged by the civil war, Scarlett needs to raise money. She decides to ask Rhett Butler for a loan and, she says to Mammy, ‘I’ve got to go looking like a queen’. All her clothes are gone, so she asks her servant Mammy to make her a dress out of the living room curtains. Known as the curtain dress, this elaborate green velvet gown symbolises Scarlett’s determination to survive and her resourcefulness in the face of adversity.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: 'Gone with the Wind' by Margaret Mitchell (£8.99, Pan). Buy the DVD from Amazon: 'Gone with the Wind' (£8.79)

You might also like...

Turn an old jumper into something new

John Wheelwright narrates the story of his childhood, when his best friend Owen Meany accidentally killed his mother with a baseball. He remembers how his mother was an expert seamstress who kept a dressmaker’s dummy next to her bed. The dummy was always dressed in tasteful clothes as she had a habit of taking clothes from expensive stores, copying them and then returning them. The dummy wore the clothes while she sewed.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' by John Irving (Black Swan, £8.99)

You might also like...

Sharpen up your dressmaking skills

There are many references to sewing in this classic tale set in early twentieth century Canada, where patchwork is regarded as a respectable activity for young ladies. Unfortunately, 11-year-old Anne sees things differently: ‘I do not like patchwork," said Anne dolefully, hunting out her workbasket and sitting down before a little heap of red and white diamonds with a sigh. ‘I think some kinds of sewing would be
 nice; but there's no scope for imagination in patchwork. It's 
just one little seam after another and you never seem to be
getting anywhere.’ The book was made into a memorable TV series in the 1970s.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: 'Anne of Green Gables' by LM Montgomery (Puffin, £6.99)

You might also like...

Beginner's guide to patchwork, plus projects to try

This classic children’s story about life in the Alps features a blind grandmother who lives with her daughter and grandson and knits all day long. The family is very poor, and the grandmother thinks that she is helping to support the family through her handiwork. Every evening her daughter undoes the knitting, which is a mess, and rewinds the ball of yarn so that the grandmother can begin again the next day and maintain her dignity as a useful member of the household.

Buy from All About You’s online bookshop: 'Heidi' by Johanna Spyri (Puffin, £6.99)