churchill on knitting (...sort of)

Lesson learnt: don't make a man help you with something that he really doesn't want to do. Even if he is the most patient man on earth, and he once took an oath to do everything you say (that's what those vows were mostly about, right?) he can still find a way of turning into a grumpy teenager.

I will never ask my husband to hold hanks of yarn while I wind knitting balls again. Almost immediately his arms drooped and his fingers curled into claws that made it virtually impossible. For a painful three quarters of an hour, the only phrases uttered were:
[me] "can you hold it taut please"
[me] "no, not that tight, I do need to be able to get it off"
[him] "I'm only doing exactly what you said"
[me] "I can do this over the back of a chair you know, I just thought you might be more effective because you are an actual person and everything".

And yes, we're still talking about wool here.

I suspect the dialogue was similar 25 years ago when Mum used to hoodwink me into the same chore. Bottom line, winding wool is just not fun. But all the best stuff comes in hanks, so it's a necessary evil. I'm hopeless at it so if you have any hints, please, do tell.

Anyway, all that super fancy yarn is for another Different lines shawl. (Pattern by Veera Valimaki, you can find it on Ravelry. I LOVE this pattern. I may never make anything else.) I've finished the first effort, a practice run in cheap dk yarn (that I started in this post). It's turned out with the size, heft and drape of a small blanket rather than a scarf. But I have a lovely, shabby, grey tweed armchair back home in Scotland, and this will look great one day, artfully draped over the back of it (amateurishly modelled here by a nasty, beige, polyester rented armchair).

So now I'm on to the real deal scarf, in beautiful fingering weight yarn (as per the pattern) and it is going to be amazeballs. Viola superwash merino, hand dyed in Canada, in colours called raven (dark navy/grey) and radioactive (chartreuse/lime). I'm toying with the idea of picking out one of the stripes in hot pink (it clashes quite nicely in that top photo), perhaps the third largest stripe?

I found a quote in my current bedside-table book, Mimi and Toutou go forth, from Churchill on the monotony of a sea voyage. I think it could equally apply to the repetitive meditation that is knitting.

For a time we drop out of the larger world, with its interests and its obligations, and become the independent citizens of a tiny state... / ...Here during a period which is too long while it lasts, too short when it is over, we may placidly reflect on the busy world that lies behind and the tumult that is before us.

I bet Churchill would have been good at holding hanks for the missus.

Linking in with the lovely people at Small things' Yarn Along.