Woolly scarf

Now, you may remember that I had started knitting a scarf with that Risby Longwool yarn that I got a while ago. Being stressed as I was over the last week or so about that assignment, I have to say being able to stop every hour or so and knit a few more rows was quite therapeutic and very calming.

Initially I realised (after I'd knitted about 25cm of scarf) that I'd made it far too wide. At that rate, I'd be needing more wool than I had! So I unravelled it and started again, and this time made it to about 40cm before I realised that at some point I'd put it down mid-row, then picked it up again the wrong way round and knitted when I should've purled. So I unravelled a few rows and made it almost to the end before I had to do that again.

Solving problems on the way (by my usual method: improvisation) of not being able to recall being taught at any point how, when you've come to the end of a ball of yarn, to join in the next one, I eventually got to the part where I had to strain my memory back to my dim and distant childhood to remember being taught to cast off, but I made it to the end and rewarded myself with coffee and a bit of cake before setting about the task of adding the tassles.

For this I tried various methods, but in the end I stuck with winding it round a bit of card to make little hanks of uniform length, that I then knotted into the scarf.

I used the needles to help widen the holes in the weave so I could push the stuff through. It was dark by the time I finished one end, but it looked like this:

And then today I set about doing the other end and actually got it finished about half an hour ago. Just in time to keep me warm when I go to stand in a muddy field somewhere for Guy Fawkes Night!

I was thinking over the fortnight that I spent making this about how special a thing it would be when it was finished. In my mind I couldn't help placing it next to things of similar or higher price that I'd seen in the shops, and weighing them against each other. The idea of finding an item desirable that's made by a machine, operated by someone who isn't paid enough to care, churning thousands of them out every day before tacking the label of some designer who doesn't give a crap about my existence, suddenly seemed absurd when I compared it to my one-off, hand-made effort. No designer label, no amount of convenience compares for me to the idea that this is made with 100% undyed Lincoln longwool, farmed just up the road from me where that breed has mooched around the pastures for centuries.

Now, I know not everyone can knit. I only just can. And I know not everyone who really can has the time or inclination, so I'm not suggesting that anyone who doesn't sit there all day knitting their entire wardrobe is some kind of consumerist mug. I'm just saying that the process of creating this one thing brought it home to me that it's worth thinking sideways from time to time when we go to obtain something we want. It's worth going a little out of our way and maybe waiting a little while to get something really meaningful, worth far more really than the £20 worth of wool that went into it, rather than auto-piloting it to the chain store for something whose price doesn't reflect anything like its social and environmental cost - only a fat profit for god knows who.

When I put my scarf on after I'd finished it, it felt a lot different, meant a lot more than any garment I've donned since the little outfit my aunt made specially for me when I was a nipper. I shall wear it with pride!

Just as an aside, I found it really bizarre that someone called me "talented" for making this. Seriously? Has that word lost all its meaning? Beethovan was talented. Da Vinci was talented. Isaac Newton and Hildegard von Bingen were talented. I just knitted a scarf - a skill I learned at the age of about 5 and which not so long ago almost everyone had. It doesn't require talent of any description, just a bit of patience. If you want one like this, go ahead and make one - even if you can't knit, it takes minutes to learn all you need to for this project :)