I am sitting at a low wooden table with a group of Japanese mothers discussing the pros and cons of different knitting stitches.
In my hands are the embarrassingly uneven beginnings of a turquoise scarf that I am hoping will become the first-ever knitted item among the many I've started that I will actually manage to finish.
The women around me are clearly in a different league: one is putting the finishing touches to a knitted toy rabbit. Another is crocheting an impressively complicated item of clothing.