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Me and my big mouth.
We steered clear of the fair food and rides at the midway at
the State Fair today, and stuck to the animals and agricultural attractions. As
we wandered through the family arts building, the littles exclaimed over the
antique toys, pointed out the African patchwork quilt with the elephant in the
middle, and ogled the Lego creations. Since this was mainly a “look don’t
touch” building, I figured we would take a quick tour and move on to the animal
barns.
As interest in the cross-stitched ornament display wore
thin, we turned and happened across an exhibit featuring wool. There were
several women demonstrating the art of spinning wool, and Little Lady was
fascinated, especially when she saw a spinning wheel that was designed for use
by a child. She watched the spinning wheel turn; I watched the wheels turning
in her head.
Touching and trying the equipment was off-limits at this
display, but we were able to watch the women work the spinning wheels. Watching
them deftly twist the fibers, pick free the pieces of straw, and guide the
newly-formed yarn onto the wheel was inspiring, even for Little Man. One of the
women talked directly to Little Lady, showing her a picture of the llama that
had “gotten a haircut” to collect the wool she was working from the big bag on
the floor. Little eyes flashed from photo to bag to hands on wheel…the wheels
turned…
We had a chance to feel a several types of wool, fibers,
yarns, and knitting equipment. Wool from sheep and llamas, fibers from corn
protein and skim milk- we talked about which ones were soft, which were more
coarse, how these might feel against our skin if they were made into a shirt, a
blanket. We looked at the raw wool, the balls of yarn, the knitted sweaters and
scarves. Turning, turning…
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| textile fashion show |
We were walking down the stairs when activity on the main
stage caught Little Lady’s eye and she was off. She clamored into a seat in the front row next
to a bored looking little girl. Slumped into her seat, I assumed this young
lady was there against her will- stuck waiting for her mother or grandmother to
finish up their crafty wonderings. Little Lady provided a stark contrast to
this dejected youngling: my girl sat crisscross applesauce, leaning forward on
her chair, staring raptly at what turned out to be the Textile Fashion Show. A
small collection of older women and one little girl made up the runway model
crew; a gray haired, bespectacled matron announced the models and described the
fibers and processes used to create the crocheted vests, knitted scarves, and
woven wraps displayed to the meager crowd. My boy was impressed, but his
attention wandered after a few minutes and he moved on to explore the antique
toys display behind me. My girl was enthralled: she watched, perched on the
edge of her seat, for over 20 minutes. The wheels in her head spun faster than
the spinning wheels…
I will admit: I lost interest shortly after my son, and kept
an eye on the top of her cowgirl hat in the audience as we looked at other
things.
I should also admit that I don’t know much of anything about
wool, yarn, or anything related to knitting. In fact, within the last month I
sold a huge bin of yarn and several teach-yourself-to-knit books in our garage
sale. I had some pipe dream a while back that I would learn to knit and
crochet…but it turns out that my little sausage fingers were clearly not made
for clicking those sticks. I kept a few balls of yarn and my round looms (the
only knitting that has ever made sense to me!), but I sent the rest on its
merry way with a happy little lady and said “Good riddance!”
Clearly, I made a mistake.
Back to the fashion show: after nearly half an hour, Little
Lady flew over to me, yammering on and on about the scarves and hats and
sweaters she’d seen. Questions, answering her own questions, more questions:
What kind of wool was that blue sweater made out of? It was probably a sheep or
a llama. How did the wool get blue? Llamas and sheep don’t come in blue. Maybe
they painted it. Then, the kicker:
“Momma, can you teach me how to make a scarf out of wool?”
Ummm…no? I don’t know how to knit? I don’t have the
patience? My fingers are too fat, I am too busy, I don’t want to? Clearly I
needed a better reason to offer up to those big eyes under that cowboy hat…
“I would love to honey, but we don’t have any wool.”
That did it. I felt only marginally guilty at the let-down I
saw then: it was true that we didn’t have any wool, right? I mean, I do enough
cool stuff, don’t I? I can’t do everything, can I? No knitting- that’s out. End
of story.
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| "A bag of wool, just for me!" |
It was about that time, when I was finishing up my inner pep
talk and congratulating myself on my clever diversion, when we walked into the
gift shop, directly into a big sign that said “Wool for Sale.”
Well, crap.
Me and my big mouth.
Now we have this bag of wool, and I have no idea what to do
with it. Little Lady is thrilled- even Little Man couldn’t wait to get it out
of the bag and fee how soft it is. I am less than thrilled: I have no spinning
wheel, I don’t know where Rumplestiltskin’s studio is, and a cursory search on Pinterest
turned up nothing! I obviously could have come up with more reasons why I
shouldn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t get involved in this project…but I’d just be
lying and making excuses. Isn’t there an old adage about weaving a web of lies,
and getting hung up in it? Seems like that would be fitting here…
If it was a new toy from Target she was asking for, I’d have
had no problem saying no and dropping the whole thing. I am not a pushover when
it comes to buying new, impulse buy stuff for the kids: I don’t suffer that
kind of guilt. My guilt comes when I say no to something meaningful because I
just don’t feel like doing it. She’s intrigued, she’s engaged, she wants to
learn a time-honored artistic tradition inspired by first-hand experience with
it in an unlikely setting…we have the materials right in front of us, she’s
ramped up about learning, and doing, and making something with her own hands…and
I’m ready to weasel my way out of it? Why?
So here I am, staring at this mass of soft cream and brown
wool (ok, ok, I’m kind of glaring at it), waiting for some inspiration. If I
can just figure out how to make it into something more yarn-like than this
wobbly wisp of fluff, that will be a start.
If I only knew how to build a spinning wheel…
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| kind of looks like a squirrel...sigh... |
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