Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • 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!

  • 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.