Category: Crafting

Winter Hit Hard

Fortunately it isn’t going to last long and has been dry except for snow flurries, often with the sun shining.

We had a wedding and reception here last weekend with about 45 guests. The bride, groom, their sons, and her parents stayed here for 4 nights a few extra guests for dinner the night before and lunch the day after and it was cold, but not as cold as it became a couple of days later. We haven’t gotten up to freezing for several days and a few mid teens nights. It is supposed to temper back to more normal for this time of year weather for the next week.

I have mentioned that the deer population seems to be extremely high this year and they must have figured out that they can’t get shot if they are on our farm.

As I was preparing dinner a day or two ago, I looked down the hill to our lower hay field and there were at least 20 deer grazing down there. The hunting around here doesn’t seem to be reducing the impact. With chronic wasting disease and hemorrhagic disease in deer both spreading across Virginia, it will reduce the load, but will make it more dangerous to take the meat through hunting. So far there is no evidence that the prions from chronic wasting disease has or can be spread to humans, but if it does, it would produce the same type of brain deterioration that Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease does. Wisdom would require that deer taken for meat should be checked and if infected, not eaten.

The monthly Jenkins challenge is two fold. Those of us who wanted to participate, sent 4 ounces of fiber to one of two “Elves” who spent a couple of days together preparing small 5 gram packages labelled with the first 25 days of December and returned them to the participants. Alternatively you could just spin for 15 minutes per day. I elected to participate in the Fibre Sample group and have enjoyed the surprise and pleasure of opening the little package each morning, spinning, plying, and skeining it into a mini skein. At the end of the month, I will need to find a plan for the 25 mini skeins of yarn from different breeds, different breeds, and a variety of colors.

Along with the daily spinning, a couple of Christmas gifts are being made.

This afternoon, Christmas cards were written and prepared to be mailed tomorrow. The house is finally decorated except for the tree which I still need to set up and decorate. Most of the gifts have been purchased or made, but a couple still are undecided. The ones that had to be mailed have been. Christmas is coming up too fast.

Indulgence

Almost two decades ago, I began my trip into the fiber world rabbit hole by taking a beginner drop spindle class. I was already a knitter and crocheter, though both of those now are secondary as they aggravate the osteoarthritis in my almost 8 decade old hands. The drop spindle fascinated me and making yarn was absolutely magical. Of course I quickly wanted a spinning wheel and have owned several over the past couple of decades including the antique great wheel in the header.

Along the way, I discovered Turkish cross armed spindles and the rabbit hole deepened as they were so very portable and because of their construction, allow the spun wool cop to be removed without having to wind it off the shaft of the drop spindle. Several different makers spindles were tried until I discovered the Jenkins spindles and over the years, a number of them have entered my supply of tools. Several as gifts from my husband, my fiber indulger. He also buys me wool.

During the shut in period of Covid, I returned to spinning mostly on the spindles, including a very inexpensive plain top whorl one that I use when I am at the museum doing living history for class groups. Spinning yarn on the spindles slowed my production down to a manageable level.

Recently, while demonstrating at the Fall Festival, since I was outside on uneven ground, I spun almost entirely on the top whorl and realized when I got home with a spindle full of singles, that my yarn ball winder would wind it off the shaft quickly, making a ball I could ply from both ends or if I wanted to ply with a second strand, I could slip a toilet paper tube over the ball winder shaft and wind it on to that.

There is a maker of very quality top whorl spindles, Golding, and I stumbled on one I loved. With a November birthday, my love purchased the spindle with it’s bright brass ring and brass heart on the whorl as a gift for me. The spindle came with a generous sample of wool blended with silk and I have had a glorious cold snowy day using it to spin the sample and then ply it using the two ends of the ball of singles.

This morning, before devoting myself to the new spindle, I finished knitting a pair of fingerless mitts, and spun for a while on one of my Jenkins Turkish spindles. The basket with them in the picture is a spindle basket by Susan Preuss that was a generous gift from a friend a few years ago. It is perfect for holding a top whorl spindle and some wool, or tucking a small Turkish spindle inside with some wool.

Today has been a quiet, peaceful day of crafting, and preparing a delicious, easy dinner of mushroom and butternut raviolis in sage and garlic browned butter. Topped off with the most decadent dark chocolate truffle cakelet that was gifted to me by another friend. A good day.

Still here, I think

Toward the end of October, my love tripped over the base of a broken sign on a public street and broke his collarbone enough to displace it 2 cm. It took them 11 days to schedule surgery to put in a plate to hold it together. It has been a week since surgery and he is still only minimally functional, requiring lots of assistance. Fortunately it was his non dominant arm, but is still very uncomfortable for him. He is 18 days in from the injury and facing several more weeks of wearing a sling. We hope that the pain settles soon so we can begin to get him out and walking again. He had just finished a 5.5 mile walk when the accident occurred. We don’t want him to lose all of the good he had done for his health since last spring.

The 18 days have mostly been home confinement and as I don’t want to leave him here alone while he requires assistance, my ventures out have been short and necessary such as picking up online ordered groceries or prescriptions and bandage material for the daily incision care.

This has allowed a lot of reading time and crafting time. A gal that does history education with me at the museum is a self published author and I have gone through 3 of her historical novels. I finished spinning a skein of yarn, spindle spun the start of another, knit about half of a Nordic star scarf with wool my daughter and SIL brought me from their honeymoon in Iceland (I was the teen supervisor for her kiddos), and started a hat from some previously spun yarns.

The weather has turned from mild and dry to cold and wet this week. The rain is much needed, though we only got a little more than an inch. There is some more predicted in the next week including our first snow shower possibility. As Thanksgiving approaches, the seasonal cactus is showing it’s beauty.

This is the month of family birthdays, with Thanksgiving crammed in the midst and a wedding to add to the festivities. We are hoping that though hubby will still be in a sling, he will feel well enough to fully participate in all of the celebrations. It will be fun having everyone together here and at daughter’s home.

So life goes on here, though my blogging as been sporadic.