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The simplest of tasks: from a skein to a ball

This Easter weekend, we went for our traditional trip to the city. Sydney downtown, for us, means taking the train to Central Station, walking to China town and Paddy's market, buying a bit of this and a bit of that (a pair of earrings this time to add to my collection of earrings from around the world), then eating wontons in hot chilli broth at our favourite china town place, finally walking down Darling Harbour, to the Queen Victoria building (QVB), where my son loves playing the public piano. His main love these days is Chopin, and he pulled quite a little happy crowd. 

With all this under our belts, mum gets her treat - we go to Morris and Sons, the yarn shop on York Street, just 2 minutes from the QVB, that makes a yarn lover think that they are in a candy shop. Anyway, as always, my persistent observation that we knitters and crocheters end up buying way too much yarn. And well, it was Easter weekend after all, and I had been working crazy hard at the University, so I did deserve a treat (excuses, excuses), I ended up buying three lovely skeins of Manos Del Uruguay Algeria (Mauve, absolutely lovely, soft, amazing colours, 405 m to a 100 gms). 

And the first thing I do coming back home is turn the skeins into balls, ready for knitting. I always keep the labels too, so that I can plan my projects with all of the information included in the labels. I have no yarn winder. I have my knees, around which go the skeins of yarn, and the special technique taught by mum and grandma to ensure that the resulting ball of wool is soft, with enough space to breathe, and not tight and hard. 


Not doing this stretches the wool and spoils its fluffy quality, and if the ball has to sit for a few months waiting its turn to be knit up, well, all the worse. Also, its a lovely, very physical-material way to really FEEL the wool you will be knitting with. Believe it or not, but as I do this simple action, mindfully, round and round, I go into imagination zone of the possibilities of what I can make with this. How the yarn feels informs that deeply, I think. 

You simply put your fingers around the existing core of the ball while you work the yarn into the next layer, then gently take out your fingers and then repeat. That's it, literally - no yarn winder required, and this can be done anywhere. As a nice lady once mentioned as we chatted in a yarn shop, you always have your knees and hands with you! 



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