WoolGathering: January 2019

Thursday 31 January 2019

Northumberland Literary Mitten-Naming and Rhubarb Pie Society

One Sunday in January...

Having knit and named several hundred pairs of mittens over the course of my 54-year knitting career, I find myself struggling at times to find the perfect name for every new pair of mittens without repeating myself. In an effort to maintain the highest level of creativity, I sometimes reach out for help. Over the years I have built a reliable crew of Mitten-Namers who never let me down. Thus, the recent Sunday meeting of the Northumberland Literary Mitten-Naming and Rhubarb Pie Society.

Mitten-Namers

As you may have concluded from the title of this party, I had more than Mitten-Naming on the agenda. The “literary” part was me trying to purge hundreds of books I have amassed over the years. I will admit, I am influenced by the recent Marie Kondo craze. So, in Marie Kondo fashion, I acknowledged all the joy the books had given me, spread them out on the table and told my Mitten-Namers they could not leave the house without at least ONE book. The threat worked. Nobody left empty-handed!

Marie Kondo Book Purge

The rhubarb pie was simply a hook to draw in the labour force and to reward them for their hard work. Borrowing from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society gave me a bit of a charge---as I mentioned, my originality is on a dwindle. But the pie was good…so was the wine, cheese, grapes, baguette, pate, tarts, bubbly water. No doubt about it, food, and even more so, wine, fuels creativity!

Rhubarb Pie Society

My mitten-naming team of seven inspired women was tasked with suggesting a name for each of the 35 pairs of nameless mittens I had made over the past few weeks. They buckled down to work with careful thought and deliberation. After an hour of fondling mittens and sipping wine, we were ready for the group-sharing session at which we heard all 245 proposed names. I must say they were imaginative and varied. Some names were immediately obvious, and others needed to be explained. Throb, for example. Oops, I Spilled my Merlot, fell into the more literal camp. I appointed myself the Grand Judge and undertook the final selection process a few days later. It’s not easy being a Grand Judge, but I managed to select 35 perfect mitten names from the bank of 245.

And the results you’ve all been waiting for: