Yesterday I picked up 8 skeins of beautiful vintage "hand washable, shrink controlled" green wool yarn at an estate sale, as I have some projects on the table that require a simple crocheted chain embellishment. Because the yarn had the same little old lady smell I remember my grandmother's house having, I decided to wash the skeins on gentle in a mesh delicates bag which held 4 skeins nice and snug, preventing them from unraveling. I felt very smart about the whole thing. When I removed my prize from the washer, however, I was confronted with the depth of my ignorance. You see, when you wash wool, the fibers cling to one another creating an intensely interwoven mat. Each skein came out of the bag intact, but the individual strands were almost indiscernible.
Today I have spent many hours committed to ripping the strands of yarn from their cohesive woolen nest and balling them up. And I have come to an important realization: Grandma's house didn't smell like little old lady... It smelled like wool.
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