The Girasole is Finally Finished!

I am going to try again to write a post. My attempt on Sunday failed miserably because Seamus came to sit on my lap after I had typed two sentences, and walked on the keyboard striking a combination of keys that turned Windows from portrait to landscape. My usual computer fixing trick of turning the computer off and back on did not solve this problem, which necessitated a walk to the 3rd floor to wake a sleeping Conor and ask him to fix it-he loves it when I wake him up to fix my computer. He's never actually told me that, but I know it must be true. On the way back downstairs I walked by the laundry room and remembered that I needed to wash sheets. While I was in there, I decided to do a little straightening and folding of clothes, which led to cleaning the room. While cleaning, I unearthed a huge pile of lines that needed ironing, so I ironed for about two hours because, really, what is the point of having a collection of beautiful old linens if you can never use them because they are not ironed. I had forgotten how much I enjoy ironing linens. There is something so satisfying about turning that wrinkled lump of cloth into something beautifully smooth , and the smell of starch and warm linen evokes happy childhood memories. It was then time to move on to cooking dinner, and by then the urge to write a blog post had long ago disappeared.

So here we go for a second try. The sun is shining today. Hooray!!! But it was -8 degrees when I took Conor to school and there is a wicked wind blowing. Boo!!! But the sun is shining. Yay!!! I am so happy to see the sun, can you tell? I will ignore the fact that the heat, which is only set on 62 is coming on every five minutes, because I am so thrilled to see the sun.

I finally finished my afghan that I was slogging along on. I am quite pleased with it, and am not sure why I grew so tired of it. It is very warm-maybe I grew tired of it in the summer because I forgot how wonderful it would be to have such a warm thing to snuggle under during the long, cold winter nights. It is a Girasole-a pattern by Jared Flood and it was a relatively easy knit. I made it using Cascade Eco Wool, which is not at all the type of yarn called for in the pattern, but I have a hard time following directions when it comes to knitting, and I am glad that I used this yarn. It is a great value, and although it is considered to be a bulky yarn, I feel that it really is more of a heavy worsted weight. It is soft too, which surprised me when I first started knitting with it. It took a little less than two full skeins to do the body and I used leftovers in neutral tones to do the edging. So here it is. Ta Da!!! The first photo is Seamus enjoying it while I was putting on the edging. It was hard to photograph because it is so large, but I think the photos give an idea of what it looks like.

I'd better get back to the basement. I have fiber soaking to dye for the February Spindies Artist's Paintbox. The color is red, and I am dyeing some Cormo wool, and two types of fiber from local fleeces. One of the fibers is Romney wool from the very first fleece I ever bought, and the other is fiber from a member of my spinning group who is a shepherd and it is mainly Ile de France, a breed I never see mentioned, which is a cross between English Leicester and Rambouillet. Sandy mostly raised her sheep for meat, but the Ile de France is good for both meat and medium fiber, so I am really pleased with this fiber.

Alright now, I really need to go dye. I know I am putting it off because it is so cold in my dye studio because it is in the basement, and it's a bit nippy down there when the temperature is this low. It wouldn't be quite so bad if there wasn't so much water involved in the whole process, and since we don't want felted fiber, it has to be cold water. I will persevere though, and create some beautiful red fiber just in time for Valentine's Day.