Past, present and future are strung together, as it were, on the thread of the wish that runs through them.

- Sigmund Freud, 'Creative Writers and Daydreaming' (1908)

The metaphor of weaving runs through Freud’s writings, and here he gives particular emphasis to the link between the practice of weaving and the fulfilment of wishes. As desiring beings, we all recreate the world through our phantasies, dreams, day-dreams and creative work, in order to make life more bearable. For Freud, ‘every man is a poet at heart’- our lives are determined by wish-fulfilling activities, which string together our past, present and future.

Freud’s daughter Anna, who was a lifelong knitter, started weaving in her sixties. In 1955 she bought two second-hand looms: the first of which she worked on at her home in Maresfield Gardens, the second of which was taken to her countryside home in Suffolk. Whilst weaving, Anna worked through material for her lectures and publications. She believed that people who worked with their minds also needed a creative activity which involved their hands, for ‘good balance’. The practice of weaving also had a practical benefit, as Anna began a tradition of knitting and weaving articles which were to be sold in order to raise funds in support of the Hampstead clinic, later renamed The Anna Freud Centre.

50% Wool, 50% Cashmere 20cm x 93cm