Fiber Arts and Equipment – Page 26

Opportunities

I haven’t done any living history since March, but next weekend, an opportunity is there. Saturday is at Wilderness Road Regional Museum, and Sunday will be small group tours of Ingles Tavern at Ingles Ferry (the Ingles of Mary Draper Ingles fame) by reservation. I can’t do both and will do the Sunday at Ingles Tavern, not taking a wheel, just a basket of fluff, my tools, and a couple of spindles. I can sit in the shade of one of the huge trees or walk around and spin while groups come and go.

Conversation about this opportunity also initiated discussion about doing a class of some sort at the museum. As I have already done salve making, and spinning, we will offer an old fashioned lard soap class to be taught by me at the museum on August 12 from 5:30-7. Information will be forthcoming on their Facebook page and website. There will be a small cost to cover materials, but you will go home with a bar of soap and the museum will have soap to sell once it cures.

After such a dry spell of not doing any of these activities, I love that this has presented itself to go along with the Heritage Day sponsored by Montgomery Museum on August 21, where I will demonstrate spinning on spindles and a wheel as well as vend, and the following weekend getting to go to a fiber retreat, visit with friends, spin, socialize, and set up a table of items to vend.

In the meantime, I’m finishing up a square for my blanket, not a wool I want close to my skin, so definitely not on an edge. I love when I finally have enough stitches to knit it on to a 16″ needle instead of doing magic loop on a 32″ needle.

And I gave up on the mitts, frogged them and am using that yarn to knit a small shawl.

I will get back to mitts using finer yarn and a single ball, it was getting so tangled I made an error that wasn’t worth the effort to try to fix since I only had about 2″ of the mitts done.

The Tour de Fleece challenge ends today with final posts due by Tuesday morning, mine is already in and tomorrow we start a mini challenge to go through the end of July. I have 8 beautiful ounces of Falklands wool, I will begin a spin on it with one of my Jenkins spindles to finish out the month, maybe be able to use it during August, and it will go with me to the retreat. I don’t want to use it for the demonstrations as it is a dyed braid and I generally use natural colored wools for demonstrations and washed locks if I am going to card or comb as part of the event.

On an unrelated side note. When I went to gather eggs this afternoon, I checked the potato patch and dug up 4 medium egg sized Kennebeck potatoes that were roasted with rainbow carrots, kohlrabi, and chicken breasts for dinner. It looks like it is about time to dig that bed and store some spuds for good eating. I also bought a couple of pounds of red beets at the Farmer’s Market yesterday and boiled them to have the first of the season beets. I don’t know why I don’t grow them myself.

Preparations

Events start up in August, two of them within a week. Trying to get goods for my shop prepared requires beginning early as soap takes a month to 6 weeks to fully cure and it takes time to spin and knit items. My focus in the first half of the year has been on spinning challenges and not a lot of items have been knit, a mini shawl here, a hat there. This month’s theme was to challenge ourselves to spin, ply, and create an item. To challenge myself, I learned a new technique called Ply on the Fly where you spin singles and ply immediately. Learning this produced a thicker yarn than I usually spin and ply, but it was perfect for knitting a hat. A bit of left over yarn from knitting blanket squares gave me enough to add a couple of stripes.

In my scrap bin, I uncovered most of three skeins from spinning for the Shave ‘Em 2 Save ‘Em event, parts of those skeins were used in my half hap shawl that I knit. Those three wools coordinated well, so I used them to knit a cowl.

And then divided what was left from them to knit mitts two at a time, so I am shuffling 6 balls of wool.

The past two days have also been spent making soap, a project that I have neglected since last November. Yesterday I made 20 bars, today, 20 more, and tomorrow, at least 10 more will be made, perhaps 20 more. Prices for the ingredients have increased dramatically. Some of the oils were provided by Son 1 and DIL in part in payment for soap I made for them and in part as a gift and that helps.

I have been striving to eliminate non biodegradable disposables in packaging my products. One of my favorite moisturizers is Cocoa Butter which because of it’s crumbly texture is difficult to use, but a bit of formulation experimentation, I came up with a lotion bar, but it still would crumble when it got thin. I found some cardboard tubes and created lotion tubes that apply like a deodorant stick and do not crumble.

Each tube holds 2 ounces and when used up, the tube is biodegradable.

With a supply of herbal salves, some yarn, and products being produced, I hope I will have enough to make a nice display. I will have to slow down my Breed Blanket square making and focus more on items for the shop. The blanket already has 31 squares which will make it 40 X 48″ and there are still 5 months so a minimum of 5 more squares to make. That would be a 48 X 48″ blanket even if I only make one a month.

Summer showers and socialization

We are in the period of summer where we can count on a pop up down pour sometime during the day. Thursday started out rainy with Elsa hopping by but cleared by afternoon for a very pleasant walk. Yesterday it rained in the morning, cleared for our walk, then clouded up and rained some again. Today was gorgeous, then it clouded and poured for half an hour. It is still gloomy and drizzling, but will probably end before dark. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday look like copies of today.

Before the day turned wet, a friend came over and we sat on the front porch for a few hours in the pleasant breeze and spun and knitted together. She had a couple new spindle to show me and let me try one, I had a couple new to me ones that she was going to take one home to play with. I demonstrated plying on the fly which I just learned for the month’s challenge and she taught me Norwegian purling. I expect we both will hit up You Tube in each other’s absence for more practice. It is so nice to be able to be with someone outside our home again. The only reason we were on the porch was because it was a beautiful day, not too hot, and with a breeze.

Last night I finished knitting a square for my blanket from the Helsinge wool that was sent to me with a spindle from Sweden. I love the variation in color and had hoped to get two square from it, but only got one with enough wool left over to add to a hat.

I’m now knitting a square from wool I finished at the end of last month and didn’t get it knit and spinning Navajo churro which is spinning fine, but is not a pleasant next to your skin wool and it has lots of coarse hairs from it’s double coat. It is typically used to make rope or in traditional Navajo blankets.

Today, since the hens have been locked in for a couple weeks and egg production had improved, I gave them free range time. The only egg I got was the one layed before I turned them loose. I guess I will search the spots around the house to see if they hid any. More of the pullets are beginning to lay, at least 5 of them are laying cute little eggs that take 3 to equal one hen egg. The Marans has darkened hers up and a tiny light brown pair appear. The Easter egger that lays the blue/green egg is beginning to have a decent sized one.

Mature Olive egg, Marans, Buff or NH Red, and Easter Egger.

I am toying with moving one more mature hen to the actual coop which will put 16 in there, 3 of them almost 3 years old before we send the rest of the old ladies and the two rowdy roos to freezer camp. Maybe the pullets are going to overwhelm me with eggs once they are all laying and I will regret adding to that coop, but those three aren’t producing a lot and they are pretty colors.

While my friend was here, I was demonstrating an exercise and ended up with an ouch. Something in my back behind my hip popped and now is sore walking on stairs or unlevel ground. No pain when not in motion, but lifting is also uncomfortable. I’ve been sitting on and off ice all afternoon. I guess I should take an NSAID too.