Woolly Minded

This week is National Wool Week. I celebrated the start of it by completing the first creation in my 'Millinery for Kayleigh' hat collection. It is purple. It has a ribbon. It is funky. However, not everyone in the room appreciated the cutting edge fashion statement it was making. Phoebe was trying to sit on it.

'Should it look like that?' said Heather.
Andy, wisely, kept his lips pressed closed.
'Like what?' I said.
'Like that,' said Heather. 'With that big bit sticking from the top. Shouldn't you sew it up rather than leaving it open like a giant egg cosy?'
'It looks exactly like the picture in the pattern,' I said, showing her the pattern. Good grief, I thought, it is half past eight in the evening and I've just cooked this person dinner. If I were her, I'd back down now.

But she is her mother's daughter and she persisted.

'And you're going to make Kayleigh wear it, are you?' she said.
'I'm not going to make her wear it,' I said. 'But I shall expect her to try it on at least once, if only so I can take an amusing photo to put on the blog.'
'I suppose it's not the weirdest hat she's got,' said Heather.
Andy chips in at this point.
'She could keep things in the top,' he said. 'Like a potato, maybe.'
'More like a melon,' said Heather. 'It's HUGE! She won't be able to see where she's going.'
'I'm not liking the turn this conversation is taking,' I said.
'I expect she'll love it,' said Andy. 'And in years to come she'll remember it fondly as 'the best hat Gran ever knitted for me.'

You have to understand that all this disrespectful chit-chat between two people who AREN'T KNITTERS was punctuated by much laughing and hilarity. I was doing my best to ignore them and was rooting through my wool bag, selecting wool for 'Millinery for Kayleigh' Hat Two. I chose a pale blue and mid-pink. I was thinking 'stripes 'n' tassles.'

'I might knit another like this,' I said, holding my purple and ribboned egg cosy confection up and inspecting it. 'To fit me. And when we next go shopping together, daughter dear, I shall wear it. In public.'
'You could knit one for Andy,' said Heather.
'She could knit one for you,' said Andy.
'Yes,' said Heather. 'Then we could go out looking like a bunch of weirdos together.'

Anyway, National Wool Week. My Country Living magazine for November has much to say about National Wool Week and in the middle is a pull-out poster of sheep. I am thrilled with this poster and it is now stuck to the wall in the kitchen. There are twelve sheep featured. My favourites are the Greyface Dartmoor, the Southdown and the Herdwick, because they are round and fuzzy and have cute faces. This, I appreciate, is the response of a vegetarian, but I make no apologies. The Manx Loghtan looks scary with its mass of horns, the Lincoln Longwool looks like it would be forever walking into walls and the Welsh Mountain Badger Face is bizarre because it has the appearance of a badger's head attached to a sheep which looks vaguely wrong and rather deceitful.

Andy inspected the poster.
I said,' When we get our smallholding, we could keep sheep for wool.'
'Yes,' he said. 'I'm quite happy to manage sheep. I have delivered lambs through the proper channel and by caesarean. I have trimmed feet. I have dipped. I can even turn one over.'
'Can you shear?' I said.
'No,' said Andy. 'But we can learn. But let's not get Wensleydales. They look like too much aggravation.'

I agreed. Wensleydales look like a cross between a small pony and Dougal from the Magic Roundabout. I was already having nightmares about the mud and poo that would cling to them in the Winter.

'You do know that even if we keep sheep for wool only, they would have to go to the abattoir eventually, don't you?' said Andy.
'I thought we could let them die of old age,' I said, in my role as the hopeful vegetarian.
And then Andy spoke great sense about the quality of fleece deteriorating with age, problems with teeth, the fiscal realities of feeding an animal for little return etc etc and I felt my heart sink a little, because I knew what he said to be true.

'Can't you just euthanase them?' I said.
'No,' said Andy. 'Not even in your little vegetarian world is that going to be realistic.'

Ah well, I'm sure it will all turn out okay in the end. I mean, I squished Queen Stella for the good of the hive (although the rose-coloured spectacle wearing romantic in me wishes I'd put her in a matchbox, travelled miles away from home and released her into the forest a la the Huntsman and Snow White). I am keen to learn spinning and weaving sometime in the future. I am keen to make a wool rug, nay let's go crazy and make it a whole carpet, for the cosy country living room I am determined we are going to live in eventually.

But for now I shall stick to developing my knitting skills. I might have a go at socks. Come to think of it, most of my scarves started out as socks, only I was never quite sure how to start turning the heel.