Like The Queen
Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.

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Sunday, April 10, 2005  

It’s shocking how much difference one day of warm sunshine can make in a burgeoning spring landscape. Today there is far less open forest showcasing golden sun rays pouring through a tree bark lattice. Today there are many more green leaves misting both the top and the understorey of our woods. There is shade on the front lawn now. Color is everywhere, in sky, on branch, spread across the ground.

It was a very windy day yesterday - sort of a March day in April - perfect for drying clothes on the line. As I began the Task of Laundry, it occurred to me that I ought to bring the cottons and linens down from the attic, since, even if it is only going to be 58 all next week, the light is just wrong for heavy brown wool. The Great Seasonal Clothing Transfer is always such a chore, I’m far too likely to put it off or do it in short, desperate spurts. This is largely because the light sockets in the attic broke the first year we were in the house and for some reason, they’ve never been repaired. BD put them all down low, on the steep slanting rafters - exactly butt height, and butts quickly backed into them, snapping them off at the threads. Now, to do anything up there, one must use flashlights.

Alas, since it’s a cramped space anyway, most things have just been dumped and stuffed into crannies whenever they’ve outlived their usefulness yet haven’t quite lost their desirability. It’s my Dorian Grey space - that secret view of my inner slob. I can fool most people most of the time with the tidy living room and well swept staircase, but if you want to know if I really am organized, you can find the truth up those narrow stairs.

Of course, bringing down all of last summer’s clothing added fodder to the laundry baskets in the bathroom. But I love doing laundry. It’s the cataloging chore of housekeeping. Both tasks are easy to do because the machines do the heavy, hard, and nasty stuff. They both produce tidiness out of clutter. Doing either makes you feel like you have Moved Ahead. At the end of the day, they both give you access to wonderful things. These are chores that make you feel virtuous! Laundry has an additional virtue - it smells good.

But even laundry attracts the taint of sin to skip about its virtues. It tempts you to do only half the task. Mind now, I am not including ironing in with the rest of the task of laundry. Ironing is too close to a chore. Anyone can be forgiven for letting ironing pile up in a basket in some utility room. That drudgery is best given to people who work in town, in brick buildings with steam coming out the back, along with your hard earned dollars. I am speaking only of washing clothes and household linens that can then be folded and put neatly in drawers or on shelves. Yet, like exercise, another one of those easy and sweet activities that always makes one feel better for having done them, laundry tempts one to do the washing, the drying and the dumping into the basket - but leave the folding and putting away for another day. Once one succumbs to that temptation, the baskets are almost empty by the time one does get around to the folding and putting away. Often the finale to laundry is only brought to the stage because one needs the basket to do - of course - the next week’s laundry!

It would be easy to fold the clothes as they come off the line, or out of the dryer. It would be refreshing to sit listening to fine music, or a book on tape, or even watching television, and swiftly fold those mountains of clothes and linens into neat tidy stacks. It takes very little time to finish up the laundry. It saves you vast amounts of time to have all your clean items where you can reach them swiftly and where the passing of days and the weight of gravity doesn’t put unsightly creases across the bosom or tummy or shoulder of a garment. There is no reason at all to stop the laundry task mid-way between hamper and drawer. Nevertheless, I do it. I suspect you do too. Not all the time. Not more often than I skip going to the gym, actually. But often enough to feel guilty about it. Often enough to really feel virtuous when I do close the last dresser drawer or stack the last towel on the bathroom shelves. Certainly often enough to write two pages about doing laundry.

La! How I wish I had laughing smiley faces for this blog - right now.

You must admit, though, this is a fiber filled post, no?

And in other fiber activities, I’ve about filled a second bobbin with BFL. I’m planning socks for this yarn and think I just may have enough 2-ply with this final spinning, to begin them. I have some other surprise ideas for this fiber and these socks, but it is too early to speak about them yet. There is a good deal of swatching to do first. I also knit another sock yarn baby bootie. I now have 3 tiny booties and one slightly larger one to match the baby sweater which I did not finish up. I must do that today, since the thing needs to be washed and dried and wrapped and given within the next 60 hours. Yikes! I’d best get cracking. Thank goodness it is supposed to hit 70 today.

posted by Bess | 7:22 AM
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