Woolly ramblings

I absolutely love Kate's latest design: Sheep Heid. I'm drawn to sheep-y things lately, and this is just perfect. Kate is a brilliant writer, knitter and designer and her blog is wonderful. If you are not familiar with her story, it's worth spending some time on her site. She is in her second year of recovery after a stroke, and she writes very eloquently about her journey.

I'm trying to figure out how to get the wool for this hat, and then how to line the ribbing so that I can wear it. Ironically I love knitting with wool and pretty much everything about wool except how wearing it makes me itch. It's such an ironic twist of genetic fate that I find even the softest wool itchy on my skin. Luckily not on my hands, though, so I get to enjoy working with it, at least.

When I was about eight years old I was given a turquoise wool sweater. I pretty much loathed it - the colour was ugly and it was horribly itchy around the neck and armpits. For some reason it never occurred to anyone that I could at least wear a t-shirt under it. Anyways, one cold morning, my mother had hung the sweater over the open door of the oil cookstove in the kitchen (we lived in an old house in White Rock that lacked central heating) to warm it before I put it on, and parts of it melted. In hindsight, it must have been a horrid wool-synthetic blend for it to have melted and been so itchy. Anyways, I was thrilled at the sweater's demise. Unfortunately, my mother, having no idea of my true feelings about the thing, re-knit the yoke and upper sleeves in rainbow stripes (it was the 70s, in White Rock - hippie central). Horror of horrors - I had to wear the wretched thing until I finally outgrew it!

I still love wool, though, despite the early trauma. I also love Elizabeth Zimmerman, but when I read her suggestions that babies be swathed in wool from head to toe I squirm a bit - imagine being itchy all over and not having words to complain with!

I'm going to borrow my closing from another of my favourite knit-bloggers - Lene in Finland, and say "Wool with you!"