It was fortunate that it was summer. Hemming's winter fur had been coming out in handfuls, and he faithfully collected it. Using the spindle he had made weeks ago, he had spun a good amount of it into yarn. The wolf had a fair sized ball in front of him now, and he twisted the loose end back and forth in his fingers as he thought. Hemming was sitting cross-legged, surrounded by the tall grasses of Serena Reserve, and with a foot he held open a large hardcover book he had found in one of the little towns nearby. He stared at the diagrams on the pages, trying to figure out how exactly one would perform this old human task: knitting.
A few hours ago he had collected a handful of sticks from the woods and whittled them down so they were round and almost perfectly smooth. The wolf had done six in total, and they at least roughly matched each other in size. He dropped his carving stone back into his den, which was starting to get more cluttered and more like his old home, and grabbed his ball of yarn and the book before heading out into AniWaya lands. For what seemed like the first time in many days, the rain had stopped falling, though dark clouds lingered on the horizon. Hemming would take advantage of the nice weather while it was here.
He did find it a little odd that he was making things out of his own fur, but for now it was all he had. Perhaps the mane of the wapiti that roamed AniWaya would be a good source, but he wasn't willing to sneak up on them and didn't want to kill one either, unless their meat was needed. So, the wolf held twisted lengths of his own fur held in his hand, one of the smooth needles in the other. He was determined to figure this out today, though he found the picture instructions slightly cryptic. The first step was a cast on, and after trying many interpretations of the images he eventually had a crooked row of stitches on the needle. Turning the needle around, he picked up the other and started to imitate the other steps. This time he wasn't starting from nothing, and if he made a severe enough mistake it was likely that he might have to take it all out.
After a while, he seemed to have gotten a handle on it, making the stitch successfully as long as he didn't get distracted and forget which part of the loop he was supposed to stick the needle through, or which way to wrap the yarn around. A row or two later, and he was grinning happily, repeating the simple stitch over and over. His toes still held the book open at the page, but merely out of having forgotten they were still doing so. Once and a while he would stop and inspect what the piece of fabric that was growing slowly and frown at a lopsided or twisted stitch, but overall he felt as if it was going swimmingly, even if he had spent an hour or so and only had half an inch of his knitting to show of it.
Dagrun, as usual, was sitting happily on his head. She was quiet, save for the occasional thoughtful mumble as Hemming held up his work. The little bird was more interested in the chirping of the other birds in distant trees, and the hungry flight of hawks.
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