The tube held every size of needle, from long grey metal super-skinny ones to the little plastic chubby needles that kids learn on. There were crochet needles too - my sister's, which she used for magicking up fine sparkling cotton creations throughout our childhood.
Anyhoo, before you went to knit something, you'd take the tube and turn it upside-down and dump all the needles out. The needles made this sound as they tipped over, a metallic tinkle-clanging; it was momentary, quickly absorbed by carpet. To me, it was the sound of Something Starting. You'd rifle through all the needles to pick out a pair, and then embark on making something treaty and pretty and fun.
Years later, I got a needle organiser - it looked like a giant version of one of those jewellery travel pouches. Inside it had a zillion little pockets; each pair of needles stored separately and neatly. And silently.
I had forgotten about all things needle-ey until recently, when my mom passed on the Glenlivet tube to me. And I tipped the contents out, and there was the clannnnng, and I was just transported, this childlike excitement flooded through me as the needles announced: Something Starting.I know, I know... easily pleased :-)
4 comments:
Transported once again to a different time and place, and an old black tin tea caddy with Chinese designs.....
what was it with those black chinese tea caddies and where did they come from? I don't remember us keeping tea in it but we definitely had one around the house and I remember seeing them in friends' houses also..
We never had one, but I think an aunt did - to me, it was as impossibly exotic as a unicorn. Or a butter curler :-)
Are you trying to tell us you've found a Unicorn?
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