Olio – 8/15/2019

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Woven trapezoid is off the loom, by daylight I saw a flaw that I will need to address. It needed an over weave to fix it and blocking but I think turned into an interesting piece. The third photo is by natural daylight and the colors show better.

The first harvest of grapes were juiced, and jelled. The second harvest is underway over the next few days. The results were so delicious that more is going to be made, then the remaining grapes left for the local wildlife that also enjoy the spoils of the garden and orchard.

Some years the garden overwhelms with tomatoes and there are no cucumbers except those purchased at the Farmers’ Market. Some years the tomatillos don’t grow or seedlings can’t be found. This year, the tomatoes are the scarce commodity in our garden, the plants never looked very healthy, the fruit output poor. Tomatoes can be purchased by the box at a local organic practices farm for $1/pound, but I’m not sure that economically it is worth the purchase. There are 21 pints of tomatoes canned, 9 half pints of pizza sauce, and I am still gathering a few tomatoes each day or two and freezing them to make another batch of some sort of tomato product; pizza sauce, tomatoes with hot peppers, or spaghetti sauce.

The fruit trees weren’t hit this year with a bloom frost and the fruit is too plentiful. The peach trees had fruit for the first time and every peach had worm damage and didn’t ripen. The Asian Pears are so heavy with fruit that several branches broke, I should have thinned the fruit. Lesson learned. Today I cut out the broken branches and picked some of the pears to hopefully prevent further damage. The apple trees look like they have a fair amount of fruit too, but the deer have eaten all that they can reach. It is going to take a ladder to get what is left unless I can reach it from the tractor seat.

We started our orchard with 3 peach trees. When I started raising chickens, I deliberately put the run around one of the trees for shade and put rocks around the trunk so they wouldn’t damage the roots. That tree did not survive the chickens scratching and possibly the hot fertilizer they produce. The largest tree got out of control and I cut it back severely a couple of years ago and have tried to keep it properly pruned since. It had the most, largest but most damaged fruit this year. The third tree near it produced some small hard peaches, but looks like it isn’t going to survive.

Winter before last I took a pruning class, but maybe I need a class on how to raise fruit organically so that the fruit is usable, or accept that I will have pears and apples only. My little fig is growing, but there won’t be fruit from it this year and the 3 year old plum keeps getting the new growth nipped by the deer, so I guess it needs a fence.

Another round of garden harvest will happen this evening and if I get enough additional Tomatillos, another batch of Tomatillo simmer sauce with jalapenos will be made in the morning.

Grapes and Shawls – 8/13/2019

More than a dozen years ago while eldest son and his wife were supervising the construction of our house, but before the erected structure was turned over to them to do all of the inside carpentry and the interior and exterior stone work, they put in a huge garden, made friends with some of the rural neighbors, and were gifted a slip of a very old grapevine from one of them. That vine has been moved a couple of times, but has never been given a proper arbor. It currently has a ring of garden fencing around it that has filled with tall grass and which has collapsed under the weight of the vine. Last year, after having been left alone for a few years, it produced enough grapes to harvest. They are a tough skinned, purple grape, each with about 3 seeds, and a very grapey flavor. Not wanting to waste them but not having enough to do too much with, I made juice, supplemented it with bottled no sugar added concord grape juice and made jelly.

I have been watching the vine this year and it is loaded with grapes. With all the chaos of a houseful of grands for two weeks, it got by me and yesterday I realized that there are many ripe grapes and that they must have started ripening at least a week ago as there are many dried up seedy “raisens” on some of the bunches. I noted them when I went out to do chicken chores yesterday morning, then promptly forgot about them because I had a head blowing headache all day and it got so miserably hot I didn’t want to be outside anyway. At dusk when it was time to again do chicken chores, I spotted them again and by flashlight picked about 4 to 5 cups of ripe purple grapes.

This morning the sky is thick with cloud cover, severe thunderstorms are predicted, but it hasn’t gotten unbearably hot yet, so I determined to dig through the thick vines and see what was lurking under there. I had also been hesitant to reach in there a couple of weeks ago, because that is where the big rat snake went after I first saw him. After grabbing him out of the coop and relocating him, I again felt safe to reach into the thicket.

The vines are full, many still green and most on or near the ground. I picked another cup full this morning in the light and will continue over the next few days to pick as they ripen, hoping to get the 5 cups of juice I need to make a batch of grape jelly that is juice just from our vine.

This fall after the leaves are off, I will take the time to build an arbor of some sort for the vines to climb and make the harvest task easier next year. I think thinning the vines will produce enough cane to make a wreath or basket too.

I mentioned in the title, shawls. Well, there are two in the works. One is a small triangular knitted shawl with lace inserts from yarn from the estate sale of our local indy dyer who passed away early spring. The other is a woven shawl of my handspun on the 5 foot tri loom.

A few rows after what you see here, I realized that there would not be enough of the rusty colored Pohlworth to do what I had planned.

Being in a glass half full mindset last night, I decided that if I incorporated more of the dark Jacob there might be enough. Well, the glass half full turned to glass not even half full and there isn’t enough. A design decision was made to make it a trapezoid instead of a triangle, to spin another skein of Jacob, making the center predominately the darker Jacob with the rust accent stripe down the center of the back and instead of fringed edges, use tassels or ties at the upper corners. With the plaid look and the trapezoidal shape, it will be a good wrap for jeans or a casual skirt on a cool fall evening.

Being a fiber artist doesn’t always work out as planned, but flexibility in design can still bring success.

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My Journey As A Spinner – 8/11/2019

Crafting has been part of my life since I was a teen with a break during college. I learned to crochet and knit in my mid teens and to sew earlier than that. After college, I took up counted cross stitch, needlepoint, and crewel work making Christmas ornaments, Christmas stockings for each of our children, hubby, and myself. A few gifts when we were young working parents without much money. One year everyone got a crocheted afghan for Christmas. Then I decided while pregnant with child 2 that if she was a girl (we didn’t know until her delivery), that I would learn to smock and French hand sew and I made dresses, Christening gown, and bonnets for her. All the ladies got hand smocked, hand sewn nightgowns that year.

Somewhere later after kids were more independent, I took up basket making and tried a few craft shows with a friend who was also making baskets. Then I learned the “I could buy that at *name big box store* for $5” line that I still hear now that I sell hand crafted soap, handspun yarn, and knitted or woven garments.

After moving to the mountains in anticipation of retirement and having a new grandson, knitting returned to the forefront as I made socks, soakers, shirts, and sweaters for the little guy and I discovered the local yarn store (LYS) which became the Tuesday night hangout while I awaited hubby to retire and move up here too. Many friends were made there.

One summer, the LYS decided to host a retreat at a nearby hotel with vendors, classes, and social time. Having two households, still working, I didn’t have the funds to spend for the whole weekend, but did go for some social time and to take a couple of classes, one was learning to spin with a drop spindle. The instructor brought bags of various types of wool, my first introduction to anything but the merino of most yarns. I bought a basic drop spindle and fell into the rabbit hole.

The yarn on the left is the result of that class, thick, thin, poorly plied, several different wools, but it will still be in my stash when I die. Spindles have come and gone, the current supply are pictured, the small light one on the left was purchased for re enactment when a wheel is inappropriate but it is too contemporary with a hook. Next to it to the right is a Dealgan, a Scottish whorless spindle. It is fun to demonstrate in costume as it is a very old style spindle. To the right of it is a ring distaff and spindle that has 3 whorls that can be used independently or stacked to make different weights. That is the most authentic period appropriate one with the distaff to use re enacting and is taken to events. The top two are Turkish spindles, my daily go to spindles that can spin very fine yarn and usually reserved for purchased fiber blends with silk or bamboo added to the wool or for pure Alpaca.

The rabbit hole got deeper as one of my knitter friends, a University student at the time found an old Ashford Traditional spinning wheel in a barn, rescued it and made it functional and learned to spin. She then won a new wheel and decided to sell the Traddy, I bought it. That wheel was used to learn how to translate the spindle to a wheel and at the time, not knowing anything else, I purchased mill prepped roving online. Wheels came and wheels left as I tried to find the perfect one for me. Used wheels are fairly easy to sell. About 5 or 6 years ago, I started spinning at one of the local museums for events, and decided I wanted a period spinning wheel. I ordered one from E-bay (a mistake I won’t make again). It came at Christmas while eldest and his family were here and we unboxed it and tried to put it together. Parts of it were shipped to Bobbin Boy for repair and eventually I got it functional, but it was difficult to keep spinning and hurt my knee to treadle it. It was sold. Later, we were visiting eldest son and his family and walking down the main street of his town, I spotted this beauty in the window of an antique shop.

Again, parts went to Bobbin Boy for repair and adjustment and I learned to spin on an antique walking wheel.

For years, I spun happily along on various wheels and spindles using mill prepared roving and was happy as a clam. Then a local friend asked me if I was interested in the Livestock Conservancy challenge Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em to promote the 22 rare, endangered breeds of sheep and I joined. Again, I started with roving, spinning breeds to which I was unfamiliar, but then deepened the rabbit hole more by undertaking clean unprocessed fiber, combing or carding it to spin.

And then even deeper as I started purchasing half pound amounts of raw dirty fiber to wash and then comb or card to spin. And even deeper with a few raw whole or half fleeces.

This is 2 1/2 pounds, half of a Santa Cruz fleece currently in a 24 hour cold water soak prior to scouring it in hot water and rinsing then drying to prep and spin.

And part of a whole Jacob fleece that has already been washed and dried. It goes with me to events where I spin and I comb it as I need it, then card the waste to also spin. The picture above with the combs and carders, has two rolags of carded waste and a bobbin that is filling slowly with this Jacob yarn as I sit at events and talk about fiber and it’s use in the Colonial period of our history and the equipment that was used, the process, and a plug for the Livestock Conservancy who is trying to save some of the heritage breeds, not just of sheep.