Balls of Wool Day 49 Y2

Yarn drying

Balls of Wool

I spent part of the past two weeks preparing a Christmas gift for my daughter, the Fashion Design major.  As part of her studies at Pratt Institute, she has learned to sew like a French couturier, knit like an Irish fisherman, and braid like a wedding hair stylist.  I am satisfied that she has garnered numerous life skills that are useful and certainly financial assets.  
My idea was to make available to her some of the wool yarn that my mother squirreled away in her knitting bags.  After her death, my sister and I divided most of my mother’s craft, knitting, sewing and art supplies.  Among the bounty I received were at least twenty skeins of wool in different colors.  I have kept it in our basement for the past two years because it wreaked so strongly of Napthalene.  Moth Balls. I am allergic to moth balls.  The challenge came when I decided to give this wool to my daughter. I was stymied as to how to remove the heavy, noxious smell from this beautiful, multi-colored wool.  
Using the advice of random people online, I tried airing it outside, tossing it in the drier on “air only” with a a dryer sheet, spraying it with Fabreeze, washing it with Woolite and rinsing with white vinegar, washing it with Woolite and baking soda.  None of these attempts were successful.  I had a heavy, sodden mass of Napthalene smelling, semi-tangled wool on my hands when I reached the end of my patience.  In exasperation, I took all the skeins and laid them outside on the front porch swing to dry.  I abandoned them.  I checked them on the second day and they had frozen into smelly popsicle shapes.  On the fifth or sixth day, I decided my punishment had been just, though severe, and brought the now-dry wool inside.  To my utter astonishment, the wool was dry and odorless! 
I brought it inside to roll it into balls.  I experienced a funny and unexpected sense of deja-vu as I started rolling the wool for my daughter. I developed a system of looping the wool around my knees and rolling the balls around my hands.  As I did so, I flashed back upon doing this same process with my mother all throughout my childhood and into adulthood.  It was a companionable aspect of her knitting that we shared.  We would sit face to face.  In alternating shifts, she would wind, and I would hold the yarn taut between my arms that resembled nothing less than football goal posts.  When my arms grew tired, we would switch positions.  Every sweater, scarf, pocketbook, pillow case, and blanket that she would knit, we would do this.  We could have had a World War Three argument, but we would assume our positions silently, in unspoken accord. 
My mother knit. In church, in restaurants and at parties, she knit.  My mother’s last job, that lasted about four seasons, was as a docent at the Martha’s Vineyard Campground Meeting Association Museum.  The job required that she sit in a rocking chair on the ground floor of a ginger bread cottage.  Visitors would pay $2 to hear her tell the tale of being the oldest living campground member and her memories of the “good old days.” 
She would describe life in the 1800‘s, while all the time, rocking and knitting.  She sold the items she would knit through a local artisan’s cooperative, and what she didn’t sell, she gave to family members.  The last thing she knit me was a prayer shawl.  It was made even more special because she knit it with intention; it was meant for me.  Whenever I wear it, I feel her presence.
It has felt so joyful to prepare to share her wool with my daughter.  The memories and the satisfaction of her art are being passed on to another generation; that, alone, is gift enough for me.

I spent part of the past two weeks preparing a Christmas gift for my daughter, the Fashion Design major.  As part of her studies at Pratt Institute, she has learned to sew like a French couturier, knit like an Irish fisherman, and braid like a wedding hair stylist.  I am satisfied that she has garnered numerous life skills that are useful and certainly financial assets.  

My idea was to make available to her some of the wool yarn that my mother squirreled away in her knitting bags.  After her death, my sister and I divided most of my mother’s craft, knitting, sewing and art supplies.  Among the bounty I received were at least twenty skeins of wool in different colors.  I have kept it in our basement for the past two years because it wreaked so strongly of Napthalene.  Moth Balls. I am allergic to moth balls.  The challenge came when I decided to give this wool to my daughter. I was stymied as to how to remove the heavy, noxious smell from this beautiful, multi-colored wool.  

Using the advice of random people online, I tried airing it outside, tossing it in the drier on “air only” with a a dryer sheet, spraying it with Fabreeze, washing it with Woolite and rinsing with white vinegar, washing it with Woolite and baking soda.  None of these attempts were successful.  I had a heavy, sodden mass of Napthalene smelling, semi-tangled wool on my hands when I reached the end of my patience.  In exasperation, I took all the skeins and laid them outside on the front porch swing to dry.  I abandoned them.  I checked them on the second day and they had frozen into smelly popsicle shapes.  On the fifth or sixth day, I decided my punishment had been just, though severe, and brought the now-dry wool inside.  To my utter astonishment, the wool was dry and odorless! 

I brought it inside to roll it into balls.  I experienced a funny and unexpected sense of deja-vu as I started rolling the wool for my daughter. I developed a system of looping the wool around my knees and rolling the balls around my hands.  As I did so, I flashed back upon doing this same process with my mother all throughout my childhood and into adulthood.  It was a companionable aspect of her knitting that we shared.  We would sit face to face.  In alternating shifts, she would wind, and I would hold the yarn taut between my arms that resembled nothing less than football goal posts.  When my arms grew tired, we would switch positions.  Every sweater, scarf, pocketbook, pillow case, and blanket that she would knit, we would do this.  We could have had a World War Three argument, but we would assume our positions silently, in unspoken accord. 

My mother knit. In church, in restaurants and at parties, she knit.  My mother’s last job, that lasted about four seasons, was as a docent at the Martha’s Vineyard Campground Meeting Association Museum.  The job required that she sit in a rocking chair on the ground floor of a ginger bread cottage.  Visitors would pay $2 to hear her tell the tale of being the oldest living campground member and her memories of the “good old days.” 

She would describe life in the 1800‘s, while all the time, rocking and knitting.  She sold the items she would knit through a local artisan’s cooperative, and what she didn’t sell, she gave to family members.  The last thing she knit me was a prayer shawl.  It was made even more special because she knit it with intention; it was meant for me.  Whenever I wear it, I feel her presence.

It has felt so joyful to prepare to share her wool with my daughter.  The memories and the satisfaction of her art are being passed on to another generation; that, alone, is gift enough for me.