I recently sent off applications for 4 craft events, one just before Thanksgiving and 3 Holiday Markets, the first 3 Saturdays in December. Today, I was notified that the Holiday Market one was approved. At hubby’s suggestion, I ordered some soap molds in holiday shapes and will make some soaps for those events.
I always have something on the needles for these events, in this case, I have a scarf/mini shawl. Some handspun worsted weights that will become fingerless mitts or mittens in various sizes sitting in the wings.
But also on the needles is Free Your Fade Shawl by Andrea Mowry. When I was at Black Mountain at the Knotty Ladies retreat last month, I purchased Only the Finest yarn, a 788 yard (8 oz) multi skein of 4 two ounce skeins of coordinated fingering weight yarn that is 97% Alpaca and 3% Blue Faced Leicester. Also a full skein, 395 yards (4 oz) of a 5th color. The yarn is delightfully soft and the colors very much my fall/winter colors.
The colors left to right are the order I will use. I have used the first two ounces and faded to the second color. The fades will be narrower than the pattern as it uses only 2 fades of 3 colors, but the Merlot wine color will be the widest and will be at the edge against my face. The total yardage of the yarn I purchased is slightly more than needed, but I’m sure the remnants can be used in a hat. It is rare for me to knit for myself, but between the cost of the yarn and the time it will take to knit 1000 yards, I couldn’t ask enough to sell it, not that I would want to.
I am certain that my Great Grandmother who grew up in eastern rural North Carolina in a large family was raised with a huge garden, yard chickens, and the knowledge to can and otherwise preserve what could not be eaten right away to have for the non productive winter months. They probably could grow collards or kale well into the winter, likely made kraut and pickles in large crocks to be dipped into all winter, cold stored apples and pumpkins.
My Grandmother was born in the same environment, but moved to the city as a young woman and I am unaware whether she canned, but I know she didn’t after I was born, she was working outside the home at a bank by then. My mother made a few attempts when I was a young teen, but I remember jars of foods she had prepared, bursting on the shelves in the room off the garage.
Though I had a garden of some size through most of my adult life in nearly every home and making Pomegranate jelly with my Dad most autumns, I really didn’t get into canning until we retired and bought our farm. I keep a decent sized garden, have a small orchard, and many wild berries. This area has a strong ethic of buy local and eat local and the environmental impact of doing so spoke loudly to me. I knew that I wanted to raise chickens for eggs and grow much of our food. That which I can’t or don’t grow, I try to purchase from the Farmers’ Market, both meat and produce. Though I don’t buy produce to can, I do try to save as much of what we grow as I possible by freezing, fermenting, or canning.
The Asian Pear trees produce much more than fruit than we can consume. Last year, we gathered the apples and pears and took them to Wilderness Road Regional Museum and pressed them into a delicious fruit cider. Some of the pears were made into marmalade and jam. This year I was away from about the time the fruit was ripening until the middle of last week. The deer got a lot of it, but enough remained to make 7 pints of applesauce, 3 pints of pear sauce, more than 5 half pints of Pear Marmalade. And a enough of the undamaged ones to enjoy fresh and to barter for some hot peppers in two varieties that I don’t grow.
After a decade of trying to water bath can in an 8 quart stock pot, constantly looking for a shallow “rack” to put under the jars, I purchased a real water bath canner, a 21.5 quart one with a real rack.
Though the tomatoes didn’t do well this year, there are jars of tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa. The cucumbers thrived and many jars of pickles were canned, other varieties fermented and stored in the refrigerator. The hot peppers are still producing and 5 quarts are pickled in the refrigerator, the rest to be shelf stable canned, or being turned into fermented hot sauces in the style of Sriracha or dried.
There are just the two of us with occasional visits from grown children, some of the pickles and sauces will be shared, but we should eat well. The garden is still producing green beans to be enjoyed and frozen, hot peppers to be canned, and pumpkins that won’t be revealed until the leaves die back or we get a frost.
Each year I look at the shelves and wonder if we will eat it all, each spring I anxiously await fresh foods from the Farmers’ Market and early garden as the shelves empty of preserved garden goodness and fill with empty jars awaiting a new season of canning. The canner won’t be put away until the last pepper is picked and the excess pumpkin canned for holiday pies, then the canning tools and food mill will be packed in the big pot and stored away for another year. Waste not, want not.
The Autumnal Equinox is just 5 days away. We have days of cool fall like weather (today) and days of Hades hot (like yesterday). The days are shorter by about 2 minutes each day, the trees are beginning to color, some leaves are falling. The shorter days and cooler nights are when the peppers produce like there will be no tomorrow. The pumpkins that I feared wouldn’t do anything have taken over the entire lower edge of the garden and the blueberry bed and there are green pumpkins that will ultimately turn tan as Seminole pumpkins do.
Yesterday I posted that I harvested apples and pears upon my return home. Later in the afternoon, I picked a whole basket of peppers and enough beans to cook with dinner. The second planting of beans all came from the same seed package, however the beans growing are two different varieties.
The peppers were tackled as dinner was being prepared and 5 quarts of Jalapenos were pickled, the red ones set aside to make more Sriracha style sauce, and the rest cut in half and seeded to dry. They sat overnight in a basket and this afternoon were put in a very low oven to finish drying.
The Anchos are beginning to develop and turn red. One of the plants didn’t survive to develop, so there won’t be too many of them this year. They are going to be solar dried for enchilada sauce. Also this afternoon the bucket of fruit was addressed with a batch of Pear Orange Marmalade made and canned.
That is my favorite of the sweet preserves that I make and it hardly put a dent in the number of pears picked yesterday. Tomorrow I will address the apples, making applesauce and then will decide what to do with more pears.
I didn’t think the deer ate the pears, but all of yesterday’s windfall were gone this morning, so I shook the tree to bring down more for them to clean up tonight.
Fall also brings delivery of the Alliums to be fall planted. Yesterday I got a notice that they had been shipped and today they were in the mailbox.
Outside the chicken pen some volunteers sprouted a while back. At first I thought it was corn, but as it developed, I realized that the volunteers were actually sorghum. The heads were cut to dry this morning so that the seed can be added to birdfeed for the wild birds this winter.
The Alliums will have to wait for another few weeks before they can be planted here. In the meantime, they will be stored and the bed for them enriched with compost and prepared for the planting.
I love the produce of fall, but hate that it signals the upcoming cold and short days.
I’ve been away for 6 days helping family as they renovate a house in preparation to move. Being there has allowed the adults to work after their day jobs and on weekends without having to worry about the young teen. I was able to be with him on a day off from school, pick him up on two other days as the bus from this school doesn’t run to his current home, and get him to school this morning. It allowed me to help with daily household chores such as laundry and preparing dinner so they could work longer without having to get home to him.
I also filled boxes. They are true bibliophiles and music lovers. Books were packed and boxes and bookcases moved. Extra linens packed and moved. The kitchen and big furniture will have to be moved once the renovation is complete enough to allow them to function in the house, but they are getting closer.
This was my second trip to help out since they purchased the house just as school began and I know that they are grateful as they repeatedly let me know. On this trip, I was talking about trying to pick the apples when I got home, that the deer had not already pulled down and eaten, being fruit that was all over my reach. The Asian pears also heavy with fruit that the birds were damaging and fruit was beginning to fall. The deer don’t seem to want the pears. Generally I pull the tractor near the trees, stand on the seat and grab what I can. They asked me why I didn’t have a fruit picker tool, I didn’t even know they existed. They showed up on Sunday with a brand new extension pole fruit picking basket for me as a gift.
After arrived home today, getting unpacked, and laundry started, I took my new tool out to try.
What a genius idea. Though some of the fruit is bird damaged, there are plenty of apples to make applesauce, and plenty of pears to make Pear and Orange marmalade, my favorite.
The 8 gallon bucket was half filled with the remaining apples and filled to the top with pears. There are many more pears out there, most very small or bird damaged, but I harvested more than enough to can. We generally have a later frost that kills the early fruit blooms and the later blooms produce enough fruit for our use and the fruit gets larger because it isn’t crowded. We did not have that frost this year and one of the two Asian pears had so much fruit that it broke several branches and mostly the fruit is small. If there isn’t a later frost next year, I know I must thin the pears and once it gets cold, I must prune the damaged branches.
I love my gift. I was safely able to get a harvest and the rest of the week is supposed to be a bit cooler, so I will can applesauce and jam.
We live a few miles from Blacksburg, Virginia, home of Virginia Tech, thus home of many home sport events. Each of these events bring large numbers of visitors to the town; alumnae, parents of current students, visitors from the other teams. Being a large university, there are organized social groups, such as fraternities and sororities and some not so organized gatherings, tailgate parties, and both legal and underage drinking.
Blacksburg also has some beautiful and some unique features. Each spring the roadway medians are planted with seasonal flowers. A bit later in the spring, large hanging pots of flowers are hung from the lamp posts. The medians are well cared for with new flowers planted as the seasons change providing blooms of color to enjoy. Also placed around town are “Hokie Birds,” fiberglass statues about 5 feet tall painted by local artists in varied themes and sponsored or owned by businesses and individuals.
I don’t know how many of them there are, but you see them everywhere. Over the years since they were erected, several have been stolen or vandalized, usually around home sporting event days.
The original town of Blacksburg had 16 blocks and those blocks are designated on signage. A couple of years ago, a local artist produced 16 bronze frogs based on the local green frog and they were placed around town on walls, concrete pedestals, and the curb type edge around some of the flower beds.
One of the frogs was stolen from in front of the Lyric, the local historical movie theater in town, right across from campus. Then another disappeared, reducing the number to 14. Last evening as we were taking our daily walk, this time on the Huckleberry Trail, we spotted this:
The little green frog that sat on a substantial concrete pier is gone along with the pier. Taken during or after the home football game. The path is used by many to get from local parking to an access point to the stadium. The football goers have caused enough property damage to private properties abutting the trail, that the town had to erect a 48″ wire fence to prevent shortcuts through peoples yards.
Most of the stolen and vandalized Hokie birds have been recovered and repaired, but the 3 frogs are gone. This is a crime, not a prank. It troubles me that anyone would even consider stealing or vandalizing the art. They certainly can’t display it in their home and they have deprived others of the enjoyment of seeing it in passing.
Though we don’t live within the town, we consider it our town too and such theft and destruction hurts, that people can be so inconsiderate and crass.
The brain is a miraculous organ. It keeps our bodies functioning even when disease robs us of our memories. We use only a portion of this amazing living computer. Sometimes an accident or illness cause it to glitch.
There are many historical events in my life that I remember with clarity, where I was, what I was doing having lived through 7 decades so far. I was sitting in typing class in high school when the P.A. crackled to life to tell us that our President had been shot, it was the day after my 16th birthday and a party had been planned and then cancelled. I was an occupational counselor in a high school when the space shuttle Challenger blew up over our country on re-entry and all activity stopped as we watched on the handful of TVs in the library. The 9/11/2001 terrorists attacks occurred when I was a high school counselor in a brand new High School and Technology Center with a TV in every classroom and public place in the building. In a city that was a major military hub of the east coast of the USA, many of our student’s having parents working in the Pentagon as we watched horrified as the Twin Towers burned and fell and the Pentagon burned from the strike on it. There are dozen of events etched in my mind, Nixon resigning, Saigon evacuation, Reagan shot, Bobby Kennedy assassinated, the Cuba missile crisis, etc.
But a glitch in the form of a ski fall a few years ago resulting in a concussion, followed by an auto accident this past February with another concussion and now I can’t remember a simple 8 line knitting pattern that I have knit 3 prior times. Every line has to be marked as I knit. It is not a complicated lace, simply remembering which end of the row to increase until the 8th row, binding off some stitches and then repeat. It is frustrating, it is making doing more complex lace pattern almost impossible. Most of the symptoms, such as headache and dizziness are rare now, some simple tasks like releasing the parking brake on the car before backing up have resolved, the occular migraines are much less occurrent, but basic math functions require a calculator, and knitting requires a magnetic marker. I don’t know if these functions will ever fully return or if I will have to keep my knitting simpler and keep my smart phone nearby for it’s calculator function (who still has a real calculator except high school and college math students.) I hope it heals, but at least I have tools to help me through.
Each time I have a vending opportunity and sell little or nothing, I have second thoughts about the whole process. Is it worth it to load it all up, set it all up, sit there for hours, only to pack it up with maybe a few dollars in my pocket? Then the notices start arriving about opportunities that I haven’t tried before, hubby suggests new shapes or scents for soaps, I try a new product for myself and think it will sell and start downloading the applications.
Last night I ordered some “holiday” shaped molds and a flower shaped mold for cold process soap. Last spring, I added a sheep, a goat, and a couple traditional shapes. I rarely make the loaf shape that has to be sliced anymore. I played with a gorgeous swirl, but it didn’t set up properly and had to be re batched which caused the swirl to be incorporated. Then last night, shortly after I completed applications for two events I have never done before, a friend and I chatted and she may have yet another we can do together, both demonstrating fiber prep and spinning as well as vending our wares. The Holiday Markets at the Blacksburg Farmers’ Market, that I have done those for several years and had mixed results will conflict with one of the others, but I can still possibly do two of them. If they all pan out, that will be 5 events in a couple of months and will hopefully reduce my stock so I can reassess what sells and what doesn’t. Oddly, the two soaps that are preferred by my eldest’s family and by me are two that don’t sell at events very well.
I started out with mostly body care products and a few knit hats. As I have continued my adventure in spinning, more knits and weaves have been added, but the types of markets that I am doing generally don’t support the cost that a hand spun, hand knit or hand woven garment require. If I were to value my time invested in the process, the prices would be so high as to frighten off lookers. As a result, I generally try to recoup my fiber cost and some tiny amount for my design and time, but mostly consider it my entertainment expense. If a 4 ounces bag of wool costs $15-$25, pricing a hand spun, hand knit hat at $30 causes folks pause, but really doesn’t pay me for my time at all. It takes several hours to spin the fiber and several more to knit a hat out of medium weight yarn, my hand spun is often finer and so takes longer, so the pay for my time is $5-$15 total for 8-10 hours of work, not even sweatshop pay.
Maybe I’m going about this wrong. I started making soap for family, but only one son’s family wants it. With jobs and kids in the house, they need easy to care for clothing, so hand washable hand knit woolens aren’t favored. I have tried online shops and don’t sell much if anything there either. Maybe I should just make enough soap for the two families, spin and knit what I will wear and not worry about selling any of it.
Can you tell, I am discouraged, but still hopeful?
I wonder how I managed when I worked outside of the home. I have been retired for almost a decade now and time to sit and not do anything but rest just doesn’t seem to be in my day. That may be because I generally can’t sit calmly and do nothing, I have to be reading, knitting, spinning, or up gardening, cooking, or cleaning the house or the laundry.
Hubby is a night owl that prefers to sleep later, I live by the sun, ready for bed by 9:30 p.m. and awake with first light. That morning time is used to do animal chores, garden, or sit and spin.
Once we are both about the house, the other household chores are tackled. With two large dogs, there is always vacuuming or mopping to be done. Most of the rugs in the house have been discarded over the years, except for the Oriental in the living room. The wood floors are easier to keep clean than rugs. The living room rug needs professional cleaning, but gets vacuumed several times a week until there are no dogs in the house.
Each day, we try to get in a brisk walk of more than 2 miles. Most of those walks are taken on an old paved rail grade that begins at the Blackburg library and ends in Christiansburg with a side leg that goes off of it at about the 3 mile mark in the opposite direction to an old farm that is now a park. Other days, we go to the local pond that has a graded soil and gravel path around it and is almost a mile, so we do it twice, with the path down to it and back, it gives us our two miles. On these walks, I often take seasonal photos. When I am solo, I wander the hills around our house or if visiting eldest son, try to walk their road or hike with the grandson.
Today the photos were mostly wild flowers, it seems that most of them are shades of purple, though I didn’t take the time to try to identify them.
And a barely flowing creek, another victim of our current drought.
Being retired does provide more freedom to attend events during the week, to grocery shop when needed, not just on weekends, and to help out with grandchildren.
Some weeks are spent in the kitchen, others doing fibery crafts.
About a week ago, I left for a fiber retreat in the south west part of the North Carolina mountains. The venue was delightful, as was the company of the friends that gathered. It began a week that has been devoted to fibery crafts. For the retreat, I had packed plenty of fiber to keep me busy spinning, but half way through the first day, I got bored with the natural colors that I generally spin and indulged in a grab bag of sunshine yellow and heirloom tomato red Romney wool. The idea was to work a gradient beginning with the yellow, but as I pulled it out of the bag, I realized that though they looked lovely together in the bag, they would not gradient, so the slightly more than 3 ounces was spun separately and it plyed up finer than I had hoped for as I wanted to weave a shawl with the 8 ounce grab bag. Once home Sunday afternoon, I began on the red using a long draw technique and got 4.9 ounces of yarn heavy enough to weave, but not enough yardage.
At the retreat, we do door prizes and have a dirty Santa exchange and in the exchange, I got a 4ish ounce bag of Pohlworth that I realized was very compatible with the Romney.
It was spun yesterday, plyed this morning and though I haven’t measured it off the bobbin yet, it is 4.2 ounces or similar weight long draw spun yarn.
This day is too hot to garden or cook anything more than a stir fry this evening, so the morning was spent playing with other fibers as well. The last of the Santa Cruz wool was washed and rinsed for a 4th time and set to dry on the deck. It is so full of vegetable matter, mostly feed or weed seed that I may never get it prepped to spin.
Before I left for the retreat, I realized that a lovely little Jacob raw fleece that I had improperly stored had several moths in it. Hoping to save it, I put it in a black garbage bag and threw it in the deep freezer. This morning, I removed it and hung the black bag in my closed car. It is supposed to get up into the 90’s today which in the superheated car should kill off any eggs that may have been layed. The freezer should have killed any moths and larva. After it has had a couple of days in the car, I will open it and examine it for damage and wash it if I caught it in time to save it.
Though today is stifling hot, there are signs of autumn, some of the early changing trees and scrub coloring, the Autumn Joy turning pink.
At the retreat, I took a class in Rigid Heddle weaving. It is not new to me, but looked like fun. The instructor had prewarped the looms with white cotton and I grabbed a skein of Aran weight Acrylic to use as my weft. We made two mug rugs in class and after. I failed to leave enough space between my two to get good fringe, so did rough easy to remove knots until I got home. Last night I sat and hem stitched the edges after removing my temporary knots, and evened the fringe on them.
A gal never has too many spindles so about 10 days ago, I ordered a Jeri Brock Turkish spindle. It came today and is cute with it’s laser cut out. It is a bit stockier and more substantial than my Jenkins and looks like because the shaft is heavier, it might be better to carry in my bag with a bit of fiber to spin and save the more delicate Jenkins for home or when it can be securely packed in the middle of a suitcase along with my Snyder turk that I use for plying. When traveling not to a retreat or demonstrating event, I always have a spindle or two so I can still spin.
My Facebook memory of today was jars and jars of tomato sauce canned and cooling on the counter. Not this year, the tomatoes failed early and the bed sits idle. I’m still toying with buying a 25 pound box when the weather cools again and getting at least a pot of spaghetti sauce cooked down. The cost is about the same as buying the Organic store brand at the local grocer, but then I would have to “doctor” it up. Indecision.
I am home from a few days of fun with friends at one of the fiber retreats that I attend as a participant and as a vendor. We changed the location this year from a State Park in Tennessee to the Blue Ridge YMCA Assembly in Black Mountain, North Carolina. A couple of years ago, I volunteered to work on organizing the goody bags for the first 25 participants that register as overnight guests, and as a vendor, agree to donate a door prize. This year, because it is Labor Day weekend, we lost a few regulars, but had a few new folks. We also have a voluntary “Dirty Santa” gift exchange game. I was fortunate to have a beautiful copper shawl pin donated as a door prize by a blacksmith friend, JJL Forge, you can find him on Facebook. A good discount on a yarn bowl, and I had a 4 ounce hank of roving plus a hand spun, hand knit scarf that I made that were also door prizes. With gifts donated by other vendors and folks that just wanted to add to the fun, there was a door prize for everyone.
We have several husbands that come and hang out, hike, or in one case spin with us. I cleaned up at this retreat. I gave a friend some fiber she could spin or blend with some of her wool from her animals. She was a commuter participant so she could care for her animals and this morning, she returned with the two white balls of the softest white Cormo roving as a gift for me. The teal and gray sock ball was my door prize. The red roving top left was my gift exchange result, the 5 balls of yarn in the center were a purchase for a wrap for me. The yellow skein sitting on the reddish and pinkish roving was a grab bag that I purchased because I took only natural colored fiber with me and wanted some color. The yellow part was spun and plyed yesterday.
Some participants do not spin so there are knitters and crocheters that come as well. We had some different vendors this year, Unplanned Peacock Yarns came, vended and donated mini skeins for the goody bags. Happy Art by Kay donated a painted plate as a door prize and a box of home made toffee for each goody bag. We had two artists that taught classes, one watercolor painting, one Bob Ross painting. Classes in Zentangle, Darning knits, Reading knitting charts, 2 different yoga classes, Word bracelet making, 2 different weaving classes, and so much more to keep us busy and allowing breaks in the knitting or spinning if you signed up for any of the classes.
It was busy, relaxing, rewarding, and I am glad to be home to catch up here for a few days. There is laundry to finish, a yard to mow, a house to vacuum and dust, but goodies to play with in my down times.
Cabin Crafted 