Top designer Emily Peacock has taken some time out from her hectic schedule to reveal how she overcame a kit-related mishap.
Emily suffered for her art
Emily writes:
"I’m in agony. Having packed kits for the last month the middle finger of my right hand – my ‘winding finger’ – has quit without giving notice.
For me, so much lies in the presentation of my kits. I get secret pleasure from seeing my wools lying inside the pack in neat rows, twisted into bright, fat, little caterpillars. The method for achieving such greatness lies in the folding of workable lengths of wool, inserting my winding finger in the loop and making small circular motions until the desired tension is achieved... not too tight you understand, nor limp and apologetic. Just so. The ends are then inserted through the loop, the tension is adjusted evenly and there you have it: Perrr-fection.
I rub my finger feeling sorry for myself and wonder how on Earth I can continue working. Rest, after all, is the cure for such repetitive strain injuries.
“We could use a pencil instead of your finger,” says my youngest daughter.
“Good idea, but it would take too long.”
“Could you use your other hand?” says my eldest.
“The same might happen – and these days I am trying to learn from my mistakes.”
“What if I take one end,” jokes my husband, “and run around you in circles, in a sort of homage to a May Pole dance?”
Ordinarily I would have laughed, but I am not to be amused. They back off.
I grump into the kitchen to cook dinner and soon various sounds emanate from the living room. A snap is followed by a silence, a whirring noise and the sound of two girls giggling.
Hubby emerges pink-faced and beaming into the kitchen. “I have it,” he says.
He holds up a contraption that has clearly taken inspiration from Wallace and Gromit. The hook of a coat hanger has been jammed into the front of a cordless drill, which he proudly demonstrates with a whirr.
“I call it The Peacock 3000– it’ll be patented as a wool-winder, but you could probably also whip up a mean omelette.”
The finger is now beginning its recovery process and I am one happy wool-winding bunny. I look at my husband with a new-found curiosity and wonder where all this ingenuity could take us... Hmmmm. Something for catching spiders and opening jars perhaps... "
- For more of Emily's sumptuous designs, visit her website.
