More Rain = More Knitting

Yes it rained again today! As usual the hardest rainfall was between 3-4pm when the children have to walk home from school.

By the evening the rain cloud had puffed off somewhere else and I enjoyed a walk out in the cold, fresh air as I accompanied my son to his karate.
While he is in lessons I pass my time in the library, organizing the English section on a voluntary basis - but that is a story for another time.

Normally I spend my first half hour repairing the ravages of the high school English class. The Israeli teachers have been on strike for a month now but strikes rarely seem to affect teachers in Shlomi. However, the high school English teacher decided to join them today so the English section of the library was in immaculate condition.

Instead I sat and chatted with my friend the librarian. I often knit while I'm waiting so she immediately asked if I had knit my scarf. When I answered yes her next question flummoxed me - she asked why I had knit it so small!

To be honest the scarf is quite short because I insist on wearing scarves as often as possible during the short Israeli winter even when it is not cold enough for me to bear to wrap the scarf round my neck.
In such a situation 'English length' scarves become entangled in my jackets and bags so I made this one 'Israeli length' - just long enough to hang to my waist when draped decoratively round my neck.

But she was referring to the width. In her mind a proper scarf should resemble a wrap.
It is another one of those culture gaps.

For the first 18 years of my life I lived in a country cold enough to require the use of a scarf during winter months. For me a scarf is a draught excluder, filling in the gap between the neck and the coat collar, sealing out the chilly breezes that sneak down the back on a cold day and leave you feeling stiff and sore.

For an Israeli, raised in a country where even a heavy winter coat is rarely a necessity, a scarf is pure decoration to be draped over the shoulders, falling off with annoying regularity and providing little in the way of warmth.

Anyway here is the scarf.


The yarn is jewel coloured cotton chenille recycled from a couple of sweaters I had worn until they were falling apart but still couldn't bear to be parted from. The yarn was quite thin so I combined two colours. To make it extra soft and squidy I knit it in double rib.
The imperfection of the yarn gives it a slightly ragged look but it feels lovely and I adore the colours. (which unfortunately don't show up too well in these pictures)