Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Foolish Question

    A few days ago, I asked, “Where is Winter?” Well it found us. When we left for grandson’s birthday dinner last night, there were snow flurries. This morning, there was a dusting on all surfaces and a morning temperature of 16f. The high staying in the 20s. Now, I know that isn’t cold in parts of the world, but it is pretty danged cold here. Tonight is a repeat, then we return to more normal 30s and low 40s daytime, 20s to low 30s nightime. I expected to get zero eggs today with it so cold, but the girls surprised me with 4. I have gone out several times today to check so they wouldn’t freeze in the nesting box. The water in the coop was frozen this morning and will be again tomorrow.

    This would have been a good day to stay in, but we had yet another appointment to keep this morning and it required a driver for the passenger, so both of us were out in the bitter breeze.

    Yesterday afternoon, I finished knitting the carry along hat I cast on a couple days ago. The pattern is Barley Hat by Tin Can Knits, the yarn is my hand spun Tunis dyed red, plied with a Jacob X Finn. I spun this skein as an early wheel project, so it has been sitting in my stash for quite a while and it has never sold. It was a good weight for a hat and enough to make a large slouchy version. It is damp and blocked in the photo.

    Knowing there would be waiting room time today, a project that has been in my queue for some time is Tool Box Cowl by Adventure DuJour Designs to use up several collected mini skeins, some of which I spun on the drop spindle. After I finished the hat, I cast on for it and got the garter rib section done and realized that I didn’t have the right needle size for the rest. My interchangeables only go down to a size 3, I have a size 2 fixed circular needle, but it is 16″ long and the cowl has 168 stitches, so too many for such a short needle. While at daughter’s house for cake after the birthday dinner, I borrowed a 24″ and continued on with the Diamond Tweed pattern on the correct size needle. I have finished the first two colors of 6 and am about to work the next Diamond Tweed section that uses color 2 and 3. Color 3 is the blue and teal mini skein in the lower right of the photo.

    Color 1 is hand spun Coopworth, Color 2 is a wool/bamboo/silk blend I spun on a drop spindle, Color 3 is a mill spun mini skein that was dyed by a friend that has passed away. Colors 4 and 5 are his yarns also, and Color 5 will be another drop spindle spun mini skein of Merino/Silk/Sari Silk. Each skein has some blue in it.

    Yesterday we picked up Saturday’s mail and in it was the yarn I had ordered as the warp for a scarf or cowl. It is Shetland lamb and baby Alpaca that will be used with my spun Romeldale CVM.

    The grayer brown is my hand spun. I had hoped that the book I had ordered with rigid heddle information and patterns would beat the yarn here, but the book is still not in. I would have had it sent to the house, but the book seller said it would come in in 2 or 3 days. The book seller I spoke with today said I should never have been told that, that it usually takes about a week and with their membership, which we have, it could have been shipped directly to me with no shipping charges and likely would have arrived sooner. Oh well! It will come in when it comes and I will plan out the use of the yarns above.

    The hat will definitely go in my shop. The cowl is probably mine. The undecided cowl/scarf/small wrap with the yarn above will likely go in the shop, brown is not my color against my face. I guess my inventory is being rebuilt for the online shop and next fall and winter’s markets.

  • The Crud

    Being a pair of over 70’s, one with a compromised immune system of unknown reason, we always get flu shots and have both gotten the old and the new pneumonia shots. As a young Air Force officer, hubby was stationed in Missouri and contracted what might have been histoplasmosis, but because they couldn’t culture it, he ended up having a thoracotomy from the back instead of the chest and a partial lung lobe removed. As a result, if he ever gets an upper respiratory infection, he will begin to get better then it settles in his lungs and usually becomes bronchitis.

    Three weeks ago, he began to have cold symptoms, then a full blown cold, then started feeling better by earlier in the week. By Thursday, we were in the doctor’s office and he ended up on antibiotics. I had tiptoed around, washing my hands frequently, keeping surfaces wiped down with cleaner, washing dishes in the dishwasher on hot and doing everything but wearing a hazmat suit and respirator mask, but by Wednesday, I knew I hadn’t avoided it. In my case, upper respiratory infections generally go to my sinuses, but usually not as bad as his and shorter lived.

    Saturdays in our house begin with breakfast out and then the farmers market, but we had a winter weather advisory and I really didn’t need anything available this time of year at the market, so we decided to change our routine. When I got up, it was in the low 30’s and there was a trace of tiny ice pellets on the back deck. It wasn’t doing anything when I went out to do morning chicken chores and let them out. Since the weather wasn’t looking too bad, we drove in and got fast food and came home, built fires in the basement woodstove and the living room fireplace and hunkered down indoors to see what the weather would bring. The temperature has climbed slowly during the day to the upper 30s and it has rained and rained and we have kept the fires burning, it was so gloomy out. The weather forecast shows today’s high will be around midnight tonight hitting about 41, then turning downward all day tomorrow to a low tomorrow night of 16. At least the precipitation is supposed to end before the temperature falls and we have several days of real winter temperatures.

    Because of having caught his crud and the weather being crud, today has been a sit and knit, drinks lots of hot tea and a quick stir fry dinner with leftover rice. I turned mine into a big bowl of miso soup. I figure I might drown the crud.

  • Organized Disorganization – 1/17/2020

    After the holiday markets and many months of knitting up my hand spun yarn, my yarn stock was low. When spinning in Colonial costume, I generally spin washed Jacob fleece, spinning from locks, combing or carding it to spin, but not using processed batts, top, or roving. I took advantage of lower stock and less stress to get things made to clean up my fiber area, see post https://cabincrafted.fangorn.space/?p=415 , but didn’t return to spinning then as I had been given a rigid heddle loom for Christmas and the announcement of the imminent birth of our 8th grandchild. I immediately bought cotton yarn and wove a baby blanket for him as I knew I couldn’t get a blanket knit fast enough. He was born on January 5th, the same day I mailed the blanket and it arrived the day he came home.

    I had begun knitting fingerless mitts for myself as every pair I knit ended up being sold except one pair that were too small for me. Hats and fingerless mitts make good carry along projects and I worked on them in waiting rooms whilst hubby was having some medical imaging testing done on several days. They were finished, but wanting them to be long enough to be warm, I had made them too long to be functional, so I set them aside for a few days and returned to my spinning. I had bought 4 ounces of Romeldale CVM roving from a friend, a second 4 ounces, the first having been turned into yarn for the mitts that didn’t fit and the too long ones, and I returned to finish spinning it. While that skein was being washed, I looked to see what else I had besides the Jacob. In my stash of fiber was some roving that I could identify as Coopworth from another friend and spun it. With woven cowls and scarves in mind.

    Two days ago, I ripped back the mitts to a more appropriate length, picked up the stitches and knit on new ribbing to make them useful, just in time for this weekend’s winter weather advisory. Then needing a carry with me project, I pulled a skein of yarn that I spun several years ago that has never sold and started a hat.

    And I went to my newly organized stash to pull out more fiber to spin. This is where the disorganized part comes in. The fiber is all neatly bagged in bins, but I failed to put any identifying information in the bags, so other than a braid I got at the spinner’s Christmas party and the Jacob that I washed and bagged, I have almost no idea what I have.

    There is still a little of the merino that a friend and I sent for processing, and a small ball of Cormo that was gifted to me, but there are bags that I can’t identify.

    I am spinning the gray brown and I think, maybe, it is Coopworth from a friend. The creamy gray is a mystery. It feels like it might have alpaca in it, but I have no idea when I purchased it or from where. I don’t think I will dig deeper into the bins until I finish these two, knowing that there is a pound of fiber on it’s way to me in the mail. I think I will label them. I guess that is a good idea, my memory just isn’t serving me well today.

  • Where is Winter? – 1/15/2020

    So far this is proving to be a mild winter, gray and drizzly. It suggests that stink bugs, ticks, and fleas will be prevalent this summer. It is so mild, that the weeds that are usually beat back in the vegetable garden in winter are not only growing, but thriving. Last summer, the garden was a lot of work and I tried to stay on top of the weeding, but was losing the battle with some of them. I never beat the mint bed and the Creeping Charlie is taking over and choking out everything. The garden is also too big for me to keep it all in rotation. I have looked at options for reducing the size, making some of the boxes 4 boards high instead of 2, but the perennials are at the two ends with a 4 X 8 bed of blueberry bushes that finally produced last summer, the 3 barrels that are old and fragile of red raspberries and I fear they would disintegrate if I try to move them and they finally have the raspberries contained at one end. The other end has the asparagus bed that is now 6 or 7 years old and produces more asparagus than daughter, a friend, and I can eat in a season. Those two perennial ends do control the garden size to some extent.

    One side of the garden is a pathway away from the chicken pen for about half of the garden length, beyond the chicken pen is one of the worst patches of Creeping Charlie. I have considered pulling down all of the fencing and starting over. If the fencing was hard up against the boxes on the side that the chickens can reach, the length of the garden and if I keep the plantings far enough away from the fence to prevent long necks from reaching through to eat my veggies, perhaps their scratching would keep the weeds down on that side of the garden. The chickens won’t touch the Creeping Charlie to eat, but maybe their scratching for seeds and goodies tossed down there would reduce it. The sides of the garden nearer the house and south of the berries could be reduced and the boards from those boxes used to make the rear boxes taller so they are easier for me to work. The issue there is the post that has the solar charger on it is on that edge, though the charger is dead. Maybe it could be moved with the fence or just be removed entirely. If moved, I could hang a gate on it.

    In April, the university has a service day that you can sign up for help. Maybe some help getting the fencing in order for the garden and chicken pen would be incentive to keep at it.

    Today’s forecast looks like maybe the thunderstorms from a few days ago are going to be followed as the adage says with some snow to start the weekend. More likely it will be a sloppy mix of snow, freezing rain, and rain with little or no accumulation.

    The hens must think it is spring. This week I have had a day with 3 eggs, one with 4, and yesterday I got 5. There probably won’t be any today, but that is okay. This is the first winter I have gotten any from my hens.

    The warm weather has had me reluctant to use one of my Christmas gifts, a cast iron bread pan, but this bread is an easy loaf that can be made in just a couple of hours with no kneading, so we had a hot loaf of Herb and Onion bread for dinner one evening.

    The drizzle outside, the doctor’s appointments, and now a pair of head colds between us have keep me indoors and instead of warping the loom, I finished spinning 4 ounces of Romeldale CVM that I got from my friend Gail (Sunrise Valley Farm) and got a generous 289.5 yards of light fingering yarn from it. It is now washed and awaiting the arrival of a purchase of mill spun alpaca, silk, wool blend yarn from another friend. The mill spun will be the warp for a scarf or wrap and the CVM the weft. I also spun 3 ounces of Coopworth from another friend, Debbie (Hearts of the Meadow Farm) and got 112.5 yards of worsted weight from it. I have ordered another 8 ounces of Coopworth that may be from the same lot, or will at least coordinate with it and it will become another scarf or wrap. I am going to try to spin some of it tight enough and fine enough to be the warp.

    Today after a frustrating attempt to order a rigid heddle book online using a gift card, we went to Barnes and Noble and ordered it there. I hope to learn some new techniques and patterns to work into my weaving. With the 8 ounces of Coopworth to match the maroon above, I ordered another 8 ounces of this

    It doesn’t really have a plan, but I have a 4.8 oz braid of BFL and Tussah Silk that might go well with it. I’ll have to wait to see how they spin before I decide.

  • Sounding ignorant – 1/12/2020

    Don’t young people realize that their language usage is often one of the first ways that others judge them? While sitting in a local restaurant, a trio of college women were sitting in the adjacent booth. Two with their back to us, but the one sitting across the table from them was facing us, and she wasn’t speaking quietly. In two sentences, she used “like” half a dozen times.

    Shortly after that, I was reading an interview with a young man who was identified as a journalist, and though he probably does not write the way he speaks, he also used “like” an inordinate number of times in just a few sentences.

    Reading a news article this evening on student debt, an interviewer asked college students how much debt they had, what they thought about proposals to forgive debt, and whether they would be willing to help pay the debt for others. This comment again caught my eye. “Cause like, I have to make my own money, so like, if I make my money, like, I kind of want to keep my money that, like, I make, and not have to, like, give it to my friends.”

    Does this young woman have any idea how that would sound in an interview? And when she isn’t hired, will she realize that her inability to put together a coherent sentence might have had an impact on her potential hiring?

    “Ya know, like, you know, you like sound like ignorant, when you like speak this way.”

  • Corporate Lack of Customer Concern – 1/8/2020

    In recent weeks, I have had to reach out to two major corporations concerning issues and their response has been apparent disinterest.

    First, our heating pad failed. It was only a few months old, but I had not kept the box or the receipt, it was a store brand, but the store would not deal with it. I purchased a name brand heating pad from a different store, kept the box and the receipt as it said it had a 3 year warranty. It lasted a month and failed. On the company website the contact was for an online chat. The chatter’s name and language usage suggested they were not in this country, but I followed all of the procedures including submitting photos of various codes located on the plug, the receipt, and the heating pad and the chat abruptly ended. More searching revealed an email route, so I went through the entire procedure again, including the photos. That was the end of the exchange. I have received no further instruction, no refund, no new heating pad. Needless to say, I won’t support that company again, though they make a good many products other than heating pads.

    Next, our primary grocer like so many others have a rewards program. This grocer’s rewards offer fuel points earned by purchases and some purchases have double up to 4 times value points. Before the holidays, they had two different rewards going. If you spent a certain amount during a several week period, you earned 20 to 40% off a general merchandise purchase. We needed new everyday glassware and chose to spend our 20% off on a set. When we got to the register, I asked if I had to do anything special to get the reward and was told no, it would come off automatically. It didn’t. Also before the holidays, purchasing gift cards earned you double fuel points. We purchased some cards as gifts. On Christmas eve, I realized we needed gas, but the grocer gas pumps were closed, so I stopped at a convenience store and purchased enough to await reopening after Christmas. On December 27, we went to fill the tank, the pump asked if I wanted to use the entire reward to which I prompted yes, but the price per gallon did not reduce and the pump wouldn’t let me cancel so I pumped gas, hoping that the points just didn’t come off but were still available. Making a grocery purchase after that, the receipt indicated that the points were gone. They got my benefit, I paid full price for my gas. An email to grocer’s Corporate explaining this produced no response and no refund of points.

    They both got their money and the customer’s satisfaction doesn’t seem to matter. We have one other grocery option in town, but I don’t like the store and don’t get fuel discounts with them. Stuck supporting an uncaring Corporation or shopping in a store I don’t like. Conundrum.

  • Olde Christmas 1/5/2020

    Wilderness Road Regional Museum celebrated Olde Christmas today with the traditional King’s cake and the burning of the greens. There was story time at one end of the museum and my weaver friend, Kim and I at the other end. There were cookies, hot tea, and craft beer available. A roving fiddler to provide music. A Colonial toy set up by another friend, Mary.

    The local militia gathered and fired off a multi gun salute.

    We wove and spun for about 4 hours for visitors, discussing fiber in the Colonial era, visited with each other and guests.

    I said goodbye to the wheel in my photo as it was donated today to the museum, reducing my herd to two, my huge Walking wheel and my everyday “in the style of” wheel. When I spin there, it will be one of my options for use.

    Next time, someone else will take my picture, selfies don’t seem to work so well.

  • Done – 1/4/2020

    The blanket beat the baby. The weave was completed last evening, but I didn’t want to work with my sewing machine without very good light, so it rested on the loom overnight with the small towel.

    After the morning Farmers Market run for some protein and veggies, which we did between the early morning rain and the arrival of the cold front with wind and more rain, the weave was carefully removed from the loom. The third panel was added to the other two, the ends hemmed. The other three pieces were also hemmed.

    The crochet hook located and a single crochet edge applied.

    With fingers crossed that there wouldn’t be too much shrinkage, the four pieces were put in a cool water quick wash in the washing machine and a dry on low in the dryer. The blanket shrank a bit as expected, but is still baby blanket size. I think the Lily Sugar and Cream shrank too much for the towel to still be a towel and the smaller one is a dish drying mat or hot pad size. The dish cloth is ok.

    Maybe 3 more woven with the same warp amount and the three blocks, I will have a set of placemats. If packaged with the hot mat and 4 napkins sewn from a matching color cotton fabric, it will make a nice set to gift or sell.

    As tomorrow is Olde Christmas at Wilderness Road Regional Museum, the rest of the evening is being spent making sure that I have clean fleece to spin, fiber on the ring distaff for spindle spinning, and a basic men’s hat cast on with hand spun Jacob on the bone DPNs. That will give me plenty to demonstrate to any visitors that tour through the museum. The militia will be outdoors and will fire off a salute to Christmas. There will be goodies to eat, craft beer to buy, some crafted gifts to purchase, and music. It is a family friendly event, so if you are a local reader, it should be a nice if cool day to come out for some fun.

  • When funny is not funny – 1/3/2020

    I hate laugh tracks. I am not a television watcher. If I am home alone, it never gets turned on. If hubby is home, it is background noise even if he is reading, on his computer, or his smartphone. If it is on and I am in the same room, I either have on headphones listening to pod casts or music, or I am knitting, spinning, or weaving not paying much attention to it.

    For the past several years, I have noticed a hearing difficulty in noisy environments and in October, it was confirmed as fairly significant hearing loss in my right ear, slight loss at high frequencies in my left. The loss in my right ear was significant enough that we took the major budget hit to get me a single hearing aid. It has helped considerably though it is still not set to full functioning, that will occur Monday morning, but one difficulty I have noted is directionality of sound. I guess if we had been willing to fork up twice as much budget money, I would have more directional microphones, but I have what I have.

    Our house is a log home with heavy timber roofing system, so if I stand in the living room, the main support beam is way up in the air, well more than 20 feet. Behind the living room is an open kitchen and dining area, but it has an 8 foot ceiling and above that ceiling is the loft. The loft is our “den,” our sitting area where my craft tools are, where hubby’s flat screen TV is mounted, and where our comfy chairs are.

    Often when I am in the kitchen, below the loft and he is in the loft with the TV on, I hear the voice sounds, often not distinguishable as conversation, but the annoying laugh track comes through clearly. Some shows vary the track a little, others such as some older sitcom reruns use the same excessive, repetitive track until I want to run screaming from the house. If I am in the room with the TV, and a line is spoken that is funny, I will laugh, often a line is spoken that lacks any level of humor and the laugh track is played. I don’t need to be cued to laugh when something is funny, nor will I laugh just because of their cue if it is not. Fortunately, movies don’t have laugh tracks.

  • Here we go again, Lessons learned – 1/2/2020

    I am a relatively new weaver. Having used a rigid heddle loom briefly a couple of years ago, one that I had help warping. Getting a 5′ Tri loom in 2018 and weaving a few shawls and wraps on it. Borrowing a small rigid heddle loom for a 4th grade demonstration event on spinning, weaving, and colonial clothing in early December, I wove off the small amount of warp on it, warped it myself, used it and wove off the remainder of the warp after the event. For Christmas, I was given a 16″ rigid heddle loom and the announcement of another expected grandchild.

    Christmas night, after waxing and assembling it, I warped that loom following my memory with guidance from the booklet that came with it and wove the sampler wrap pattern in that booklet. I felt like I had the confidence to tackle a cotton woven baby blanket. I had only woven wool, wool/acrylic blend up to that point. The cotton was purchased after Christmas and again I warped the loom, using white warp. The weft that was purchased was variegated and about 6 inches into the weave, I realized that the variegated yarn wasn’t strong enough color and the blanket would have looked washed out. Back out the next day to pick up a dark solid from the colors in the variegate and a plan to make the blanket color blocked. As the panels from the 16 inch loom aren’t wide enough alone, the plan and warp was to make 3 panels to be sewn together, hemmed and a crochet edge applied. The weaving was progressing much more quickly than I thought it would and I was marking every 6 inches, checking off my sketch. I was on the last panel and put it aside to go to the New Year’s Eve party at Mountain Lake. Yesterday, I pulled the loom table over to finish the weaving and realized I had a fair amount of warp left. Not wanting to waste it, I put a spacer in and wove a 12 X 12″ wash cloth. Carefully cut everything off the loom and carried it in to the sewing machine to secure the ends before I cut the panels apart, layed it out on the ironing board to cut it and DRAT, I made one panel one color block too short, that is 9 inches. I was disappointed that I had made such an error, but the 12 by 24″ panel will make a small towel to go with the wash cloth. But that meant the loom had to be warped again to weave the final panel.

    Since I had to go through the steps again (I’m getting quicker at it and more efficient), I warped enough to make a second towel while I’m at it.

    Lessons learned: 1) I don’t like weaving cotton very much; 2) make sure your pattern is accurate and pay more attention to it; 3) practice improves.

    Since the loom was requested to take some of the burden off my joints from knitting, to add some different styles of garments and accessories to my shop, and to make some gifts, I guess the extra weaving gives me a head start. I need to get lining fabric and rope or twill to make bags/purses out of some of the earlier wool weaving and finish this blanket, SOON!