Cold Dingle Morning

We woke up this morning to a dusting of snow around Dingle and a considerable amount more in the mountains.  Winter is here!  And is there any better time for wool???  It's about 20 f/-4c today with the wind, so hopefully people will pick up some lovely warm gifts for Christmas.  Handmade and not made in China.

I felted two scarves yesterday.  What I call Ladder Scarves as they look like a ladder or spine when laid out.  The are long and flippy, which makes them hard to photograph.  In the photo to the right you can see the texture of the merino and silk together, very shiny when ironed and the merino is nice and soft to the skin.  I used natural merino and then over-dyed it twice to get the variegated tones.  You might need a much substantial scarf  today, but this is good for most weather days in Ireland. 

I am way behind on felting projects, which is about usual.  I have too much going on in my own life that is disrupting production!  There is going to be a great craft fair on in Dingle on Sunday, December 12th from 1-6pm at Benner's Hotel.  I am working on some more scarves that will be done by then and I have more hats coming.  You'd want your hat today! 

So much seems to be coloured by Ireland's disastrous financial situation.  Everyone seems to be so resigned and depressed, but they really can reject the loan and make the banks take the burden instead of adding generations of debt to each person in Ireland.  What makes matters a lot worse is that they are calling for austerity measures for us all and then you hear about €240,000 golden handshakes being given out and how they only two weeks ago voted a pay rise for themselves.  Austerity for all would be bad enough, but it isn't for all.  Morale is quite low.  The Irish news seems to be reporting that there isn't any other option, but calling an election before they finalized the loan is one thing the Irish people can do.  Otherwise, Ireland will be colonized all over again, this time with the banks.