Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Happy New Year to All – 1/1/2020

    There I did it! I wrote 2020 for the first time. The old calendar is down, the traditional new one is up. For several years, daughter had a special calendar made for us each year with family photos, some years of current pictures, one year of photos or our children and grandchildren from years before. When she moved back to Virginia and we could see them regularly, hubby began getting a calendar published by a local artist with his paintings from around our rural, mountain region.

    Most years of our married life, we have stayed home, watched the ball in NY Times square drop, snacked on the traditional cheese, sausage, and crackers, shared a toast of the last of the season’s eggnog at midnight and gone to bed.

    Prior to having children, we often left the day after Christmas with the local ski club or a ski shop trip and went to Vermont to ski, often having a New Year’s Eve Party in whatever hotel we were booked and returning home on the bus on New Year’s Day. Once we were retired and living in the mountains on our retirement farm, we started seeking out a local party, making reservations, to spend New Year’s Eve with others. The first one of those we did was a poor meal and a poorer party, leaving shortly after the toast and driving home.

    We are fortunate to live just a few miles downhill from Mountain Lake Resort, of Dirty Dancing fame. Three years ago, I spotted a billboard for a New Year’s Eve Party there, that included a wonderful meal in their Harvest Restaurant, party with band, favors, and champagne midnight toast, room, and breakfast also in their Harvest Restaurant. We booked a reservation, went and had a great time, meeting new people as you sit at round tables seating 10 and getting to know other folks that came to party. No drive home after midnight and a couple adult beverages, just a walk upstairs to your room. That year our daughter and her family were living with us prior to purchasing their home and they took care of the dogs.

    Last year, the management decided the event required a 2 night stay. Living so close and the increased cost, we decided to skip it, instead going to a movie, having a snack at the theater’s restaurant, coming home to watch the ball drop once again. Apparently, the management’s decision cost them many other partiers besides up and this year they returned to a single night stay requirement. We made our reservations several months ago and figured that if we fed the dogs before we left, hubby drove back down the mountain between dinner and the party to let them out and lock them back in the house, and took advantage of the breakfast on the early end, that we could go and have fun.

    Lots of age variation sharing an evening of frivolity. Entirely too much adult beverage consumed by many of them. Party hats, tiaras, and party horns, a DJ with the whole gamut of music from rock and roll, disco, R & B, country, rap, you name it, and a champagne toast after the count down. We had a great time, awoke to cold wind and snow flurries, a hot breakfast, and a drive halfway back down the mountain to our home. The dogs survived as did the chickens that didn’t get locked up last night.

    We are grateful for the health to enjoy a fun night out, the means to afford it occasionally, the company of old and new friends. We wish you and yours a happy and prosperous year ahead.

  • A Studio – 12/30/2019

    As a fiber artist that is acquiring more pieces of equipment with which to use/play, the loft was beginning to look cluttered. Since we rid the loft of the peeling pleather love seat and replaced it with a wooden rocking chair that was a catch all in our bedroom, there was more space between our chairs and the TV wall. I wanted a studio, an organized place for my tools, fiber, packing boxes for the online shop and my shop records.

    I could have moved it all to the basement, but if I did, I would rarely be in the same room with hubby and since our computers, router, and printer are in the loft, it made more sense to reorganize the space available. The loft has a large roll top desk that was a gift to hubby about 37 years ago and it has lots of drawers and the printer on top, it is a good place for the shop records, labels, and cardstock used to tag yarn, garments made, and body products. The desk is behind our chairs. By shifting the chairs forward a few feet, there is still plenty of room to the wall with the TV, still room for the rocking chair and lateral file that acts as a side table as well, but gave me room to reorganize.

    Before I started, my huge walking wheel which is functional but mostly a display piece was shoved back in the corner. It was pulled forward against the railing.

    The cube unit that has bins of fiber fit against the side of the desk, moving it off the back wall, the built in cubby shelves were cleaned and reorganized, making space for bins with flattened boxes and bubble wrap. The bookcase that has tools, books, and yarn samples was shifted, the spinning stool moved to the other side of it and currently holding baskets that have yet to be sorted out. That made room for the 5′ tri loom.

    I am currently weaving on the rigid heddle loom, so my spinning wheel is in front of the tri loom. If I want to spin, the table with the loom on it will be swapped or I will pull up the padded desk chair and spin.

    When the craft of the day is weaving on the tri loom, the rigid heddle or spinning wheel just need to be shifted forward or to one side to give me space to work.

    I dislike clutter and disorganization. It is frustrating to look for something and can’t find it or have to move things around to get to it. I can be in the room with hubby as he watches TV or works on his computer and still enjoy my fiber crafts. My comfy chair is still by his, a place to knit, read, spin, or weave, but by turning it around or swapping equipment, I can keep things organized.

  • Old Habits Die Hard – 12/29/2019

    When our children were young, I could hardly wait for Thanksgiving to pass so I could decorate for Christmas. Wreaths with bows on all the front windows, candles in every window. We had an artificial tree, so it could be put up and left for a month. My Santa collection on shelves and mantel. Once daughter was old enough to recognize that her birthday was right after Thanksgiving insisted that I not decorate until after her birthday, so the most I would do is sneak up a door wreath.

    When we would visit hubby’s parents after Christmas, I was always bothered that my mother in law no longer decorated, to the point that on a couple of occasions when they weren’t coming to us and hubby’s sister for the holidays, I sent a small decorated potted fir tree to them. I didn’t understand. As I have aged, it has become more difficult to haul the big plastic bins up from the basement to decorate, but eldest son and his family, then later daughter and her family lived here and it was fun decorating for the grandkids and I had help hauling bins around.

    This year I was very late attempting any level of decorating. I got the huge artificial wreath decorated with the hand stitched ornaments made by my sister in law and step mom, the collectible Santas and gnomes, the door wreath out and up, tiny tree decorated with Hallmark minis, and quit. That wasn’t done until at least the second week of December. About a week and a half before Christmas, we went to cut our tree and got it decorated, which gave me the incentive to get the rest of the Santas and Christmas linens out.

    It hasn’t felt like Christmas. With temperatures in the upper 50’s to mid 60’s except for the ice storm, it has just been too warm.

    But when I was still a work outside of the home gal, I traditionally took down the decorations either the weekend after Christmas or New Year’s Day. Since I retired, the decorations sometimes stayed up longer. This year I am already done with having it up. It is more difficult to dust and vacuum, the dogs tails were knocking ornaments off the tree with no packages under it to make them keep their distance. A couple of days ago, I put baskets, crates, low stools, and other obstacles in the way to keep them away, but that looked so tacky.

    This morning, after my morning coffee, I took the decorations off of the tree, unplugged the mini tree, and brought the tree ornament boxes up and boxed it away. After lunch, the tree was hauled out of the house and off to the woods and the few fallen needles vacuumed up. The wreath on the sled on the front porch and the door wreath are down. The door wreath will be replaced with the winter one, the little garden banner by the front door replaced with a generic winter one. The linens washed and folded and packed away along with the little tree, wall hangings, and soft sculpture decorations. The Santas and Gnomes are still up, but it takes a full day to decorate and a full day to pack it up and I prefer to split it up into two or three days.

    Over the next few days, the rest will be packed away for another year and I will celebrate Old Christmas in Colonial costume at Wilderness Road Regional Museum.

  • Three Days After – 12/28/2019

    The Christmas loom was warped and woven using the sample pattern in the booklet that came with the loom. I didn’t care for two of the 8 pattern techniques, so I only used 6 of them. The booklet didn’t tell you what the end length would be and I am not experienced enough to realize that the amount of warp was insufficient to make a decent length scarf for the width. I am not concerned about that as it is just the right amount to make two purses. I will buy the lining fabric and twill tape to make the strap and hope that they will be a nice addition to the shop.

    This is it folded in half and drying after it’s bath. I think the fringe will need to be shortened about half or two thirds to make it look right. My idea will have a slip pocket in the back of the lining and woven tape down the sides and under the bottom for extra support and then woven tape to create the strap.

    Christmas brought us some news that has the loom already rewarped with cotton. The warp is white, the weft is variegated, but I don’t think it has enough color, so tomorrow a trip back to Joanne’s will be made to try to match one of the colors in the variegated yarn to add stripes of color.

    This is a 135″ weave. When cut in thirds and offset, it will make it color blocked. I think the solid color will be a textured weave of some sort. Until I get the remaining yarn, I will continue to knit some Romeldale CVM from Sunrise Valley Farm that I am knitting into fingerless mitts for me. I really would like to have them finished by next weekend when I will participate in Old Christmas and the burning of the greens at Wilderness Road Regional Museum. At that time, I will be donating my sitting quill wheel to the museum and when I am there spinning or teaching, I will use one of their wheels that I have repaired or this one that I am donating and will no longer have to haul one of my wheels to the venue.

  • The Rabbit Hole has deepened – 12/25/2019

    My love added to my fiber toys this morning. Under the tree was an Ashford Samplet 16″ rigid heddle loom.

    We began our morning with Huevos Rancheros, a dish I traditionally fix on Christmas and New Year’s mornings. It is a special treat for him, one he grew up with. It was just us this morning so no rush on opening gifts, he already had most of his with his new leather chair and his refurbished “new” computer, but there were a few minor surprises under the tree for him.

    We took gifts to daughter’s house and had an exchange with them, then home and I upacked the loom box.

    When our house was being built, I made several 5 gallon buckets of home-made paste floor wax. The instructions said to wax or seal the wood before assembly, so I opened on of the remaining buckets, scooped out a tin full of the wax and spent about an hour hand waxing the pieces. Then assembly commenced.

    With my recent lesson, having warped my friend’s borrowed loom, and the very detailed instruction booklet, I successfully warped the loom with some of my hand spun dk weight yarn.

    My stocking contained a Barnes and Noble gift card, so a book or two of projects and techniques will be added to my growing collection of craft and fiber history books, several had been added by eldest son’s family for my birthday and Christmas. The booklet with the loom has a sample scarf with instructions for several different weaving techniques to try in the meantime.

    The Let it Snow box in the photo above was the gift from daughter and her family. Treats and a beautiful cribbage game in a wooden box. I used to play it with my Dad and plan to refresh my skills and teach her and her kids.

    Youngest son and his family sent us a pair o mugs with all of our grandchildren represented on them. Tonight I am enjoying my evening tea from mine.

    As a Christmas bonus, the year old hens produced 3 eggs today. We have been getting 1 or 2, and I have never had hens lay in the winter before. Such a treat to still be getting farm fresh eggs to eat and cook with this time of year.

    I think my favorite gift from hubby today is a tiny music box in my stocking.

    It plays, “You Are My Sunshine.”

    Here’s hoping you had Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah.

  • Winter Solstice with family 12/22/2019

    Eldest son and eldest grandson made a very quick visit, arriving yesterday afternoon and leaving this evening. I traditionally prepare the Christmas Day dinner, turkey, ham, and all the fixings, but since they couldn’t be here on Christmas Day and since they arrived on the Solstice, we had Christmas/Solstice dinner with all the fixings for them and daughter and her kiddos. Brother and sister got to spend some time together as did the cousins, and they shared gifts, I got some help in the kitchen, and we all ate well. I even spatchcocked the turkey all by myself. Doing a chicken isn’t too hard, but a larger turkey is difficult for me to do.

    Yesterday morning, two of the young men who are part of the team who mow our farm and get a share of the hay for a small herd they share, came over with chain saws, a hydraulic log splitter, dump bed truck, and a big tractor and cut up a red oak tree that fell into our hay field winter before last. They had hayed around it for two summers. They brought the entire cord plus of wood up to my woodpile and dumped it. They even offered to stack it for me which I refused as I hadn’t expected the entire tree. The three grands got out there while dinner was being prepared and spent a couple hours stacking firewood.

    This morning, this is what I found. The kids ate well and I’ll bet slept well. This morning after fixing biscuits and gravy with grandson’s help, sharing gifts with son and grandson; grandson and I went out and did some cleanup of the last little bit, hopped the short stack on the right over the pile on to some cedar poles on the opposite side of the big stack where we had also stacked the clean up amount.

    Son was in the house nursing a finger he had seriously cut about a week ago and finishing grading the papers from one of his upperclass University classes he teaches. To try to keep grandson out of his way and away from too much TV time, I also got his help finally pruning back the dead asparagus tops and getting spoiled straw from the compost pile over it, getting about a foot of hay into the chicken run for them to peck through and to keep it less slippery for me when it rains. The big round bale was wedged between two objects that made it difficult for me to peel layers off of it, but with his help it is now more accessible. I asked son if I could keep grandson for a while. He jokingly asked me how long. My response was as long as I could still get good help out of him or until he started treating me like a parent instead of grandmom.

    Son got his grades done and submitted in time to have hot turkey sandwiches and other leftovers before heading home this evening.

    We will go to daughter’s house on Christmas Eve for dinner and back for a bit on Christmas Day give them their gifts. Christmas morning will be quiet, just us. Jim will primarily get a stocking as his gift was “the chair III” which arrived Wednesday and he has been enjoying it for a few days now.

    On Thursday afternoon, daughter came over and she and I were able to get the two deteriorating pleather loveseats onto our trailer and off loaded at the local trash location. After Christmas decorations are down, we will consider what to get to put in the living room. The loft got a rocking chair that had been in our bedroom and had become a place to dump things instead of putting them away. Maybe I will be better about keeping that area organized now.

  • Colonial Christmas 4th grade style – 12/20/2019

    The fourth graders at the local elementary school have just finished up studying about Jamestown and today is the last day of school before winter break. There are 3 classes that rotate with 3 teachers for Science and History with one, Math with one, and Language Arts with one with a 4th teacher that is support. To end their unit and try to have some level of control on this last full day, they planned a Colonial Christmas celebration. In one room they dipped candles, in another they made pomander balls, the third room had a Christmas movie playing, making herb coated ornaments, and me in Colonial clothing with a lesson about colonial clothing, textiles, spinning, and weaving. I always take many “toys,” several different types of spindles, lucet, combs, carders, my wheel, and this time a borrowed rigid heddle loom. I love this type of event.

    The children had an hour in each room, so I had 6 groups for about 30 minutes each to talk about a brief history of spinning, history of homespun, and some weaving. Some groups watched and asked a few questions, the most common one was, “Do you wear that every day?” Some groups wanted hands on and I allowed carding of wool and playing with the various spindles that I demonstrated first. With the number and age of the kids, I didn’t let them handle the sharp combs and knew that letting any of them use the wheel I was asking for trouble. And as the rigid heddle was borrowed from a friend, I only demonstrated on it.

    There were photos taken by various adults, but none by me.

    My favorite question though, was as I was packing up to leave, a tiny little gal approached and very quietly asked if she could ask me something. Of course, I replied. She asked, “Where you around in Jamestown?” I laughed my way home with that one. The old lady with her spinning wheel.

    Another great opportunity to teach the youth and maybe interest some of them in pursuing an interest in fiber.

  • Olio – 12/16/2019

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    Yesterday was spent in recovery from the long, cold, wet day on Saturday, but wasn’t totally idle. The craft display stuff was returned to the guest room closet where it is stored, the inventory checked, sorted, and put away this morning.

    The pop up tent is still slightly open in the garage drying, but will be packed up soon and tucked away in the garage with the weights and cart. My next two events are spinning demonstrations in Colonial costume on December 20 for the local elementary fourth graders, and at Wilderness Road Regional Museum on January 6 for old Christmas and the burning of the greens. Neither of those events are vending events.

    I have written about “the chair” and “the chair II.” At some point, once all of our furniture was moved to this house and the basement had been finished (several years after the house was completed), we did some rearranging. We had a leather couch and club chair that had been our living room furniture for years that moved with me. A Lazy Boy couch that is leather on the seats and back and synthetic leather on the low wear areas that stayed in the apartment in Virginia Beach until hubby retired and it moved with him and was added to the living room here initially. We had an oak futon that was in an office/guest room when we sold our home in Virginia Beach and it moved with me as a guest bed in my apartment in Blacksburg and later into the loft of the house. When the basement was finished we moved the Lazy Boy couch and the futon to the basement rec room leaving a huge hole in the living room, so we went to a local furniture store and bought a reclining loveseat to fill the hole. It didn’t match the color of the leather couch very well, so we decided to move the loveseat to the loft, and get another love seat, just like the first one but a better color match. One of the loveseat purchases generated a Father’s Day Sale coupon that resulted in the disposal of “the chair” and the purchase of “the chair II.”

    “The chair II” was heavily used and the phony leather deteriorated pretty quickly. The loveseats which we thought had leather on the sitting surfaces were gently use, but once our daughter and her family moved in with us for a couple of years while they sold their Florida house, saved for the down payment for their local house, the living room loveseat started getting lots of use and it didn’t take long for us to discover that the leather sitting parts were not leather.

    It was soon cracked and shedding pleather so I bought a stretchy cover to try to slow down the progress. The upstairs one was doing fine, but again, it received little use until “the chair II” was discarded. It only took about two weeks use for it to begin breaking down as well.

    The living room one is going to be discarded and is currently sitting on the front porch to make way for the Christmas tree. After Christmas, a second rocking chair will be added to the living room. The cover will be put on the second one to try to get more use out if once the new chair is delivered mid week. It seems almost like fraud to sell furniture that wasn’t inexpensive junk (we thought) that can’t hold up to basic wear over a couple of years.

    This morning, I had another check up at the hearing clinic to raise the functionality closer to 100% effectiveness on my hearing aid. While we were out and about, we drove to Joe’s Christmas Tree Farm, about 10 miles from home, hoping to get lucky like last year and find a precut reasonably sized tree right near the store, but not this year. We didn’t want a huge tree this year, nor did we want to spend a long time walking the farm in the rain. They had some 7 foot trees near the store and as we were the only customers at the time, the young man working the yard brought out his chain saw and cut down our tree for us, drilled it for the stand, tied it and put it on our car while we shopped inside and paid for the tree. The tree was small enough for me to handle once home and it is up and decorated.

    This gave me the incentive to finish decorating with my Santa collection and the snow village. This weekend, eldest son and eldest grandson will arrive to spend two days with us. I will prepare Christmas dinner with all the fixings on Saturday for them and daughter and her family.

    This is an impromptu Christmas decoration. This begonia has bloomed better since I brought it in for the winter than it did outdoors all summer.

    And to close today’s post, “Esplain to me Lucy,” why does a box of raw sugar need vegan and gluten free labels on it. My science background tells me that sugar is a plant product, not a gluten bearing plant.

  • Up & Down, Up & Down again – 12/14/2019

    Another Saturday double booked. The second Holiday market set up at 8 a.m., to take down at 2 p.m., at least that was the schedule. The vendors all set up in the rain this morning, but we got unloaded, tents up and organized mostly by opening at 9 a.m. It was surprisingly busy considering the rain. Knowing that it was to be wet, and since I have wool and soap, we bought me 4 clear shower curtain liners to hang on the back and sides to protect my wares. They worked well and are now spread all over the garage to dry. The sun finally came out off and on around noon and with it, wind gusts. I have 100 pounds of weight, 25 per leg to hold down my tent, so it really wasn’t a problem, except when a big gust came, I grabbed for the tent, a mistake, as one of my tables, the one in the center of the photo with heavy box, soap display, signage, and all my salves, lotions bars, beard oils and soaps blew over backwards, into the wet. And to make it more of a mess, it took my chair over too that had a travel mug of coffee in the holder and it poured over all my business cards. By the time my vendor friends and I got it all picked up and I got it sorted back out, it was about 1:30 and I gave up, loaded my car and came home.

    I was fortunate, only the elongated sign frame broke and only a few labels and my business cards were lost. The photo is from last weekend, I didn’t manage to take any today, much less of the mess.

    After a quick trip home to unload the tables, wet tent, wet liners, wet red table cloth, and a quick change into Colonial costume, I headed over to Wilderness Road Regional Museum for the 3rd of 4 nights of Noel Nights and Christmas Bazaar and set up again. The circuit breaker that wasn’t working last weekend was repaired, so we had several space heaters running in the German Barn and it was much more comfortable in there tonight. Instead of spinning, I gave a spinning lesson to a friend who was there with her husband, our local blacksmith, while he was also vending.

    The craft shows are over for me for this year. I still have a couple dozen holiday shape and scent soaps, very few knits or woven garments left. Tomorrow it will all be sorted out, make sure it is all dry, and stowed away properly instead of just randomly unloaded in the garage and hallway.

    I learned a lesson this morning however. In the future, the wooden table will not have a rack with signage and heavy items on it, it will be used for the yarn and lighter items. The study plastic table will hold the heavier items, and the signage will have to be displayed a different way. I was lucky. Several vendors had breakage as the wind blew down displays. Others had to take down parts of their displays to prevent them blowing down. And everyone, needs to make sure to bring weights for their tents, we didn’t have any tents take off today, like last year, but many were not weighted down which contributed to displays being knocked down and damaged.

  • Not Lara’s Ice Palace – 12/13/2019

    This is not a scene from Dr. Zhivago, but what we awoke to this morning. It is more than a little crunchy.

    Tomorrow’s Holiday Market is low 40s and 80% chance of rain. I don’t think it will be as successful as last week. If I can safely get out later, I will go buy 4 inexpensive shower curtain liners for the back and back parts of the sides of my pop up tent. Right now, I need to try to finish a pair of mitts and band some salves, try to pack up the car without slip sliding.