Today started grey
and dark, but morphed into a beautiful September day, remarkably warm. Daniela
and I got all the way around the garden. Despite that feat (or because of it) I
had unusual difficulty getting up the six steps from the pavement to my door when
we got back. I think my hip is getting slowly worse.
However,
mercifully, that doesn’t affect knitting. Lying in bed this morning – a good
time, I find, for applying the mind to life’s problems – I thought maybe
intarsia was the answer. I have tried it – semi-intarsia, anyway: I continue to
carry the main colour across the back of the Calcutta Cup motifs. And it’s
working a treat. The cable patterns are vastly easier when I don’t have to
worry about carrying the Calcutta Cup colour along. Your idea of duplicate
stitch is excellent, Mary Lou, and, as I don’t think I’ve ever done it, it
would have the advantage of adding a new craft to my repertoire. We’ll see how
things go. There’s still quite a bit of the Calcutta Cup panel.
A priest came to
see me yesterday, a new acquaintance. I have been drawn into a web of holiness
lately. He comes from the Borders which is a hotbed of Scottish rugby and thus
was able to talk about my knitting with enthusiasm and interest. “What did you
do in 2019 when the result was a draw?” (Ans: knit half the cup into a scarf
for Grandson Thomas Mile.)
I am
intermittently reading Elizabeth Bowen’s “Bowen’s Court” about her family house
in rural Ireland. “Intermittently” because I have temporarily abandoned it for
the new Kate Atkinson, “Shrines of Gaiety”. What a strange and interesting
writer she is! But my question today concerns Bowen. Describing the offices
below-stairs she says, “Off the axis passage are the kitchen and larder, the wool
room, the game room, the servants’ hall, the laundry, the wine and the coal
cellars.” What is a wool room? Google is useless here.
Wordle: Almost
everybody did it in four today, my favourite score. The exceptions were Thomas,
three; and Rachel and Theo, five. My statistics today show 71 fours and 73
fives. I’m working at it!
My best guess would be the room where damp/wet outer garments are brought to dry. I can’t find anything on duckduckgo except companies named The Woolroom and various duvets. Cam
ReplyDeleteWool Room: Perhaps a room where woolens could be stored with moth proof cedar panels or other protective herbs?
ReplyDeleteSarah in Manhattan
Steps put a different stress on the body than walking does.
ReplyDeleteThe OED has wool-room as one of many compound words having to do with the manufacture, transfer, or storage of wool products, so my best guess is it was the room where local or home-farm-produced wool was cleaned (could be a messy job) and possibly combed, spun and woven. Having a separate room would keep the loose fibers out of everything else and vice versa.