Winding a racetrack-shaped hank by hand is its own pastime: you create a perfectly lovely round ball, all curves and come-to-me’s, rather than the matter-of-fact flat cake from a mechanical ballwinder setup.

And it gives the mind the freedom to meander the possibilities as you wrap the tethered strand steadily around and around itself; there’s something about working with a good yarn while not being held to anything yet.  Two ounces of cashmere, 400 yards, and ideas on what on earth to do with it went from totally zero to the proverbial sixty, centered by a desire to honor the recipient as well as knitterly possible.

But there is no more where that came from. I’m debating going with something else with more yardage, much though I want this to be in cashmere, just because I so do not like having to worry about whether I can finish what I started the way I want it to come out from my hands.

Let me do some swatching and measuring and checking–but in the meantime, (assessing the inner image I have now of what this project will be, something that had eluded me all day till I finally sat down and got all wound up about it),  it’s done me a great deal of good already.

To be continued.