Friday, March 23, 2007
I was flipping through last week's Improper Bostonian last week when came across on article about Spark - the local craft studio where you can get all your crafting groove on, including jewelry-making, paper crafts, and of course knitting, and do it all in a social, collaborative setting. I've mentioned Spark way back when, and even though I was really excited about its concept back then, I found that it just wasn't for me. Not much of a surprise is it?
But the real issue is everytime I go in, I don't exactly get a cozy, inviting vibe from the decor and general atmosphere. All the plastic bins and cubbie holes of scissors and rulers and various crafting materials remind me of a first grade classroom or an after-school daycare center. I would know, as I have been both in first grade and in a daycare center. May your children never know the horrors of the latter. I can still see Bobby in the corner eating glitter-covered glue or David sticking playdough up his runny nose, amongst other things. Little children can be so vile, especially when there's more than 50 of them in one room.
And the piles of dog-eared magazines laying the tables, meant for crafting inspiration, are also how your doctor's waiting room is decorated. It's very bright, clean, sterile, uncomfortable. No disrespect to Spark, mind you. It really is a cool place. My reactions are all very unexpected ones, and entirely my own.
So anyway, Improper did an article featuring Spark, and there was one line that really made my day:
"Knitting supplies include inexpensive, colorful lion wool for beginners..."
That one little phrase is just so rich! So delicious! Lion wool! LION WOOL, with a lowercase "L"!!!
Can you just picture a non-knitter reading this line, and thinking, "Lion wool? Wool made from lions? Is inexpensive? And colorful? And for BEGINNERS?"
I am sure they meant to write Lion BRAND Wool, which indeed is inexpensive, colorful, and for beginners (I guess? Whatever "beginner" wool means), and in large supply at Spark.
But then I thought maybe I was missing something. Maybe there is such a thing as wool culled from lions, the same kind of lions who are usually caked in dried blood from eating wildebeests all day, and who use their ribs as toothpicks afterwards. I mean I am still rather new to the knitting scene, learning new stuff all the time, so why not? You get nice wool from rabbits, goats, yaks, camels...why not a lion?
And I could imagine a lion's mane as very amenable to being made into fiber. Afterall it is thick, long and lush. I don't know if it's soft as I have never had the pleasure of petting a lion, but it couldn't be any more coarse than the hair of a yak? (Never petted a yak either though.)
After much thought - probably too much thought - I realized that lion wool just can't possibly be. Can you imagine the logistics of it? Keeping a farm full of male lions, next to your merinos and alpacas? Shearing lion wool? Would you tranquilize them first? What to feed them? So many questions, not enough money.
However there's a market for everything, so perhaps cultivating lion wool is not entirely out of the question. It could happen one day. I mean through sheer force of imagination man has taken seaweed and turned it into yarn. For crying out loud, how is lion not the next logical step?
Lion wool, lion wool...There is something very pleasing in that concept. A lion is a cat. A very big cat. I like cats. I like it when they purr. Mmmm. I can just picture it now: Scout or Hello Yarn carrying lion roving in their shops. It wouldn't be cheap, oh no, but imagine yourself spinning lion yarn - from a real live lion's mane! - by the fire. How old-fashioned and wildly exotic at the same time! And wouldn't you just love to knit your own pair of socks made from Sundara Yarn 100% superwash lionwool?
I am sure that someone, somewhere, someday, will make this lion wool dream of mine a reality. I myself would totally turn this blog post into a business plan, but alas. I am too busy organizing a penpal club.
Above: Artist's rendition of a sheep and lion farm, for the cultivation of fine wools.
Filed Under: General Knitting | WTF