Shawl Weather

I spoke about the chill on the back of my neck the other day.  And you know what? I have a whole heap of the perfect solution.  I have been wearing one, and occasionally two every day since our weather turned from fall to Alberta winter.

Forgive the fuzzy pictures.  The originals are, I think, on my laptop.

My mom always asks what I do with them all.    I'm not sure what others do.  Many people just enjoy knitting them but never really wear them.  I wore them.  All the time.

Back when I started knitting and worked in an office, I had a pretty plain wardrobe.  Dark pants or skirts, plain blouses, simple tops, one of several jackets or  a plain lightweight cardigan.  For many years I had a large collection of pendants and necklaces and satin scarves to offset the basic uniform like wardrobe I wore.  A cog in the wheel wardrobe for a cog in somebody else's wheel.    

When I started knitting small shawls,  I started wearing them.  It was like jewelery.  No.  It was better than jewelery.  My office was set up directly under a HVAC  vent, near an main back entrance, and I was always chilly.  It gave me such pleasure to wear something I had handmade and I was thrilled to be warmer.  

It came to be like thumbing my nose at anything and anybody I felt trapped by.  It was a statement that I am, I exist, that I was a thinking vibrant person who stood on my own, that I did not need anyone else to talk for me.  This small statement, became a reminder, a prayer and a litany to recite, that I was so much more.  Those small shawls and scarves of my early days knitting and wearing them every day, were a salvation of sorts.  

I wore them working at the yarn store too.  Everyday, something knitted.  And then, while life was sorting itself out to now, I didn't wear them much anymore.  I did not need them in the same way and I was always swathed in sweaters and usually, that was enough.  I only very rarely wore them when I babysat.   With the change in houses, and furniture, and situations, the shawls and scarves, for the first time in a while, have a pretty pragmatic, rational purpose.  I feel chilly.   

They are in a underbed storage  container, but since the cold arrived, I have been digging for interesting stuff in there daily.  They come out, but never seem to go back.  To me that is a sign of a less than perfect solution. Or laziness.  ;)  Still, it is what I have right now.  I am looking at options for easier tossing them at the end of a day. 

Just fyi, I am wearing the green silk one today.  Silk.  Just for hanging around at home.  Because I can.

I am leaning to keeping underbed storage long term, but I envision a cascade of them where I walk everyday, where air moves and stirs all the time, where they are out in a bright lit room as a place to put them while they are in such frequent use.  

Command hooks, this may be your time to shine.     

 It's only been cold for a couple weeks.  I have all winter to sort this out!