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.
From an early age when processed foods were really digging into families diets, I have preferred whole foods. In my early to late 20s even eating as an Ovo-lacto vegetarian as it was called in those days before Vegan was added and vegetarian described my diet. Hubby has a meat and starch preference to his diet, so meat was re-introduced to mine when we became a couple. I still don’t really care for meat and will prepare meat for him and not for me if it isn’t a stew, goulash, or casserole where the meat is part of the dish. I will eat it then and will eat vegetarian or shrimp when we eat dinner out generally.
I don’t buy mixes and canned goods (other than organic cream of soups for sauces and gravies), cooking from whole ingredients, produce that I grow or purchased from local farmers at the Farmers’ Market, even getting as much of my dairy from local farms as possible. We do like many international foods and use spices and herbs, but generally making spice mixes myself so that they don’t contain fillers and flavor enhancers. And I do like coffee and tea.
Beginning about 2 decades ago, certain foods produced unpleasant after effects including sending me to the Emergency Room thinking I was having a heart attack almost a decade ago. GERD and gas have been a bane with increasing frequency to the point that certain foods and most anything with peppers, sweet or hot, have been avoided. For a while I was purchasing low acid coffee, but really didn’t care for it and returned to drinking whatever was readily available.
After my return from last weekend’s trip, I quit on the coffee and have started my morning with a single cup of tea. I have reduced the amount of cold or hot tea during the day, have reduced portion sizes, and limited curcurbits, peppers, and heavy spices. I don’t want a life of bland boring food, but neither do I want to rely on antacids, PPI drugs or other unnatural solutions.
I have tried the raw apple cider vinegar trick, the eating a green apple a day trick, even trying aloe juice in small quantities, but avoidance seems to be the most effective relief. I remember my Dad complaining that he loved certain foods but they didn’t like him. Now I understand.
These few weeks are on the road. Away last Thursday to help out family with packing and as transportation as they prepare to move. Time was spent enjoying their company and some time alone at their house with empty boxes to fill with books, music, and linens. Thursday was hot when I arrived and after picking up grandson, we waded in the cool creek before preparing dinner.
The tiny fish darting around our feet and a few crawdads skittering away if you disturbed their rock.
Friday was rainy but much cooler and the time that everyone was away from the house was used to pack boxes, clean up the garbage that the bear got into and taking photos of the jewelweed with rain drops on the leaves.
Saturday after grandson’s volunteer time at the library, he and I drove to a local State park and walked a trail that his Mom’s Master Naturalist group had done and looked at some of her art used on the signage. It was a beautiful mild day for a nice gentle walk in the woods.
Sunday after a late breakfast out with everyone, he and I used my Lifetime Senior Pass for the National Park system to drive up on the Skyline Drive and hike a couple miles up a mountain trail, mountain goat on a couple of the rock piles, and back down the trail. I guess there were too many people out to see any wildlife other than a few butterflies.
On the way back off the Parkway, we ended up behind this lanky young man skate boarding down the Skyline Drive wearing earbuds, so he probably couldn’t hear the traffic behind him. Eventually the car in front of us, us, and the line behind us were able to go around him. It was a very long down slope, quite steep at some points causing him to do tight S turns to slow himself. I hope he made it safely without causing anyone else injury because of his stunt.
Other down time was spent spinning on one little Turk and plying on the other slightly larger Turk and knitting on a small shawl. I was so enamored with the last issue of Ply magazine that I read it through cover to cover and took it with me to reread. I had two books with me and finished one, but found the second one of zero interest to me.
I’m home for a few days to get laundry done, the house vacuumed of dog hair, the chicken coop cleaned out, then off again later in the week for a long weekend with friends as a vendor and participant at a fiber retreat. When I return from that, again a few days at home to clean up and unpack to repack and return to help the moving family out for a few more days.
The garden has given up on tomatoes and cucumbers. The sunflowers are drooping and need the heads cut. The tomatillos are not really producing anymore, but I am hopeful that there may be a few more to harvest. The peppers are heavy with fruit and there are a few pumpkins, but the chickens got in my garden every day I was gone and destroyed the fall plantings and the cover crop beds. I guess those beds will just be covered with hay for the winter instead.
It is only 11 days until I get to leave for the Knotty Ladies Fiber Retreat in Black Mountain, NC. I am excited, this is a new venue in a beautiful place. Trying to get ready to pack my car quickly as I will be traveling north for a few days later this week to help out family and I want to have everything decided and ready.
The agenda has many items:
make sure I have the goody bags packed with the items I have acquired, the door prizes, and my gift for the Dirty Santa gift exchange. DONE
gather items for the “free to take” table and other items for the “sale” table, items I don’t want but don’t want to give away. Working on it.
Assess my vending stock and decide what is going. DONE
Make some healing salves and labels for same. Maybe tomorrow
Decide on what the non crated items will be packed in as I don’t know this venue or how convenient loading in will be.
This sent me on a creative frenzy, weaving a wrap from hand spun yarn. Dyeing some hand spun yarn. Spinning another skein of yarn. The plying of that skein produced a skein of fine fingering weight smooth Shetland wool yarn of 348 yards, but it was too loosely plyed, so I sent it through the wheel again to put in more twist. It is a nicely balanced yarn now. The wrap got a crocheted top edge and some reweaving to repair the flaw and it is washed and is blocked to dry. The dyed and newly spun yarns are drying.
I need to get some crafting and a book together and make sure the laundry is done before I have to pack for the trip to help family.
I’m sure there will be way too much to do, but most of it will go with me to the fiber retreat as well along with my wheel and more fluff to spin.
If the salves don’t get done, it will be okay. If I have too much to entertain myself, at least it is contained in a basket. I never run out of crafting to play with.
The vivid emerald green of spring is fading to a drab green with highlights of yellow and red leaves mostly on the weedy shrub and weed trees, but the Sycamores are yellowing, several trees are shedding leaves already. Putting by is also a sign of impending Autumn season and that has been a task multiple days a week for the past several weeks. Some days it takes many hours and produces quantities of goodies to be enjoyed over the cold, non productive months. Some days a small batch or two of a sauce or jam are made. This morning, the Tomatillos gathered over a couple of days were made into 5 half pints of simmer sauce with the recipe from Canning by the Pint, one of Mellisa McClellan’s books. Some of those recipes are followed to the letter, others are a jumping off point for me as was today when I added several ground Jalapenos to the recipe to kick up the spice level of the sauce.
After lunch, more grapes were picked, giving me enough for another batch of grape jelly from our grapes. That recipe is from Food in Jars, another of her books. It is a low sugar recipe compared to the one on the pectin box, using 3 cups of sugar to 4 cups of juice and requiring about 20 minutes to cook, rather than the 7 cups of sugar to 5 cups of juice and the couple of minutes of cook time. I would rather spend the time and have jelly that tastes like grape, not sugar. The remaining grapes will be left for the resident critters that roam our farm at night.
It is very satisfying to hear the lids pop to seal after they are set on the towel to cool.
The pollinators are busy today, a very hot, uncomfortable day to be out. Native bees on the sunflowers and bumblebees on the Autumn Joy.
The sunflowers are Hopi Dye Seed and I hope to harvest a flower or two to try dying some wool with them. Behind them and on the edge of the Tomatillo bed are mixed sunflowers, some Mammoth, some Bronze, and one smaller flowered variety that produces masses of 6″ flowers per stalk. They are great for cut flowers for the table. Most are the typical golden yellow but one yellow variety produced lemon yellow blooms.
Most of the sunflower heads will be cut off when mature and some given to the chickens to peck the seed, others hung from the wild bird feeder pole for them to enjoy this winter. This year was a good year for sunflowers.
Unless I purchase a box of tomatoes, canning season is drawing to a close for me. I will make a couple of small batches of Asian Pear Orange Marmalade and will can the remaining Tomatillos whole as they mature. The apples are too small to make applesauce but will be pressed for cider and maybe a batch of cider vinegar made. Maybe when apples start appearing fresh at the Farmers’ Market, I will make one canning of applesauce.
Woven trapezoid is off the loom, by daylight I saw a flaw that I will need to address. It needed an over weave to fix it and blocking but I think turned into an interesting piece. The third photo is by natural daylight and the colors show better.
The first harvest of grapes were juiced, and jelled. The second harvest is underway over the next few days. The results were so delicious that more is going to be made, then the remaining grapes left for the local wildlife that also enjoy the spoils of the garden and orchard.
Some years the garden overwhelms with tomatoes and there are no cucumbers except those purchased at the Farmers’ Market. Some years the tomatillos don’t grow or seedlings can’t be found. This year, the tomatoes are the scarce commodity in our garden, the plants never looked very healthy, the fruit output poor. Tomatoes can be purchased by the box at a local organic practices farm for $1/pound, but I’m not sure that economically it is worth the purchase. There are 21 pints of tomatoes canned, 9 half pints of pizza sauce, and I am still gathering a few tomatoes each day or two and freezing them to make another batch of some sort of tomato product; pizza sauce, tomatoes with hot peppers, or spaghetti sauce.
The fruit trees weren’t hit this year with a bloom frost and the fruit is too plentiful. The peach trees had fruit for the first time and every peach had worm damage and didn’t ripen. The Asian Pears are so heavy with fruit that several branches broke, I should have thinned the fruit. Lesson learned. Today I cut out the broken branches and picked some of the pears to hopefully prevent further damage. The apple trees look like they have a fair amount of fruit too, but the deer have eaten all that they can reach. It is going to take a ladder to get what is left unless I can reach it from the tractor seat.
We started our orchard with 3 peach trees. When I started raising chickens, I deliberately put the run around one of the trees for shade and put rocks around the trunk so they wouldn’t damage the roots. That tree did not survive the chickens scratching and possibly the hot fertilizer they produce. The largest tree got out of control and I cut it back severely a couple of years ago and have tried to keep it properly pruned since. It had the most, largest but most damaged fruit this year. The third tree near it produced some small hard peaches, but looks like it isn’t going to survive.
Winter before last I took a pruning class, but maybe I need a class on how to raise fruit organically so that the fruit is usable, or accept that I will have pears and apples only. My little fig is growing, but there won’t be fruit from it this year and the 3 year old plum keeps getting the new growth nipped by the deer, so I guess it needs a fence.
Another round of garden harvest will happen this evening and if I get enough additional Tomatillos, another batch of Tomatillo simmer sauce with jalapenos will be made in the morning.
More than a dozen years ago while eldest son and his wife were supervising the construction of our house, but before the erected structure was turned over to them to do all of the inside carpentry and the interior and exterior stone work, they put in a huge garden, made friends with some of the rural neighbors, and were gifted a slip of a very old grapevine from one of them. That vine has been moved a couple of times, but has never been given a proper arbor. It currently has a ring of garden fencing around it that has filled with tall grass and which has collapsed under the weight of the vine. Last year, after having been left alone for a few years, it produced enough grapes to harvest. They are a tough skinned, purple grape, each with about 3 seeds, and a very grapey flavor. Not wanting to waste them but not having enough to do too much with, I made juice, supplemented it with bottled no sugar added concord grape juice and made jelly.
I have been watching the vine this year and it is loaded with grapes. With all the chaos of a houseful of grands for two weeks, it got by me and yesterday I realized that there are many ripe grapes and that they must have started ripening at least a week ago as there are many dried up seedy “raisens” on some of the bunches. I noted them when I went out to do chicken chores yesterday morning, then promptly forgot about them because I had a head blowing headache all day and it got so miserably hot I didn’t want to be outside anyway. At dusk when it was time to again do chicken chores, I spotted them again and by flashlight picked about 4 to 5 cups of ripe purple grapes.
This morning the sky is thick with cloud cover, severe thunderstorms are predicted, but it hasn’t gotten unbearably hot yet, so I determined to dig through the thick vines and see what was lurking under there. I had also been hesitant to reach in there a couple of weeks ago, because that is where the big rat snake went after I first saw him. After grabbing him out of the coop and relocating him, I again felt safe to reach into the thicket.
The vines are full, many still green and most on or near the ground. I picked another cup full this morning in the light and will continue over the next few days to pick as they ripen, hoping to get the 5 cups of juice I need to make a batch of grape jelly that is juice just from our vine.
This fall after the leaves are off, I will take the time to build an arbor of some sort for the vines to climb and make the harvest task easier next year. I think thinning the vines will produce enough cane to make a wreath or basket too.
I mentioned in the title, shawls. Well, there are two in the works. One is a small triangular knitted shawl with lace inserts from yarn from the estate sale of our local indy dyer who passed away early spring. The other is a woven shawl of my handspun on the 5 foot tri loom.
A few rows after what you see here, I realized that there would not be enough of the rusty colored Pohlworth to do what I had planned.
Being in a glass half full mindset last night, I decided that if I incorporated more of the dark Jacob there might be enough. Well, the glass half full turned to glass not even half full and there isn’t enough. A design decision was made to make it a trapezoid instead of a triangle, to spin another skein of Jacob, making the center predominately the darker Jacob with the rust accent stripe down the center of the back and instead of fringed edges, use tassels or ties at the upper corners. With the plaid look and the trapezoidal shape, it will be a good wrap for jeans or a casual skirt on a cool fall evening.
Being a fiber artist doesn’t always work out as planned, but flexibility in design can still bring success.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, please click the like button or leave a comment occasionally so I know it is being read. If you are drawn to it, there may be others out there who would also enjoy it, so feel free to share it with your friends.
Crafting has been part of my life since I was a teen with a break during college. I learned to crochet and knit in my mid teens and to sew earlier than that. After college, I took up counted cross stitch, needlepoint, and crewel work making Christmas ornaments, Christmas stockings for each of our children, hubby, and myself. A few gifts when we were young working parents without much money. One year everyone got a crocheted afghan for Christmas. Then I decided while pregnant with child 2 that if she was a girl (we didn’t know until her delivery), that I would learn to smock and French hand sew and I made dresses, Christening gown, and bonnets for her. All the ladies got hand smocked, hand sewn nightgowns that year.
Somewhere later after kids were more independent, I took up basket making and tried a few craft shows with a friend who was also making baskets. Then I learned the “I could buy that at *name big box store* for $5” line that I still hear now that I sell hand crafted soap, handspun yarn, and knitted or woven garments.
After moving to the mountains in anticipation of retirement and having a new grandson, knitting returned to the forefront as I made socks, soakers, shirts, and sweaters for the little guy and I discovered the local yarn store (LYS) which became the Tuesday night hangout while I awaited hubby to retire and move up here too. Many friends were made there.
One summer, the LYS decided to host a retreat at a nearby hotel with vendors, classes, and social time. Having two households, still working, I didn’t have the funds to spend for the whole weekend, but did go for some social time and to take a couple of classes, one was learning to spin with a drop spindle. The instructor brought bags of various types of wool, my first introduction to anything but the merino of most yarns. I bought a basic drop spindle and fell into the rabbit hole.
The yarn on the left is the result of that class, thick, thin, poorly plied, several different wools, but it will still be in my stash when I die. Spindles have come and gone, the current supply are pictured, the small light one on the left was purchased for re enactment when a wheel is inappropriate but it is too contemporary with a hook. Next to it to the right is a Dealgan, a Scottish whorless spindle. It is fun to demonstrate in costume as it is a very old style spindle. To the right of it is a ring distaff and spindle that has 3 whorls that can be used independently or stacked to make different weights. That is the most authentic period appropriate one with the distaff to use re enacting and is taken to events. The top two are Turkish spindles, my daily go to spindles that can spin very fine yarn and usually reserved for purchased fiber blends with silk or bamboo added to the wool or for pure Alpaca.
The rabbit hole got deeper as one of my knitter friends, a University student at the time found an old Ashford Traditional spinning wheel in a barn, rescued it and made it functional and learned to spin. She then won a new wheel and decided to sell the Traddy, I bought it. That wheel was used to learn how to translate the spindle to a wheel and at the time, not knowing anything else, I purchased mill prepped roving online. Wheels came and wheels left as I tried to find the perfect one for me. Used wheels are fairly easy to sell. About 5 or 6 years ago, I started spinning at one of the local museums for events, and decided I wanted a period spinning wheel. I ordered one from E-bay (a mistake I won’t make again). It came at Christmas while eldest and his family were here and we unboxed it and tried to put it together. Parts of it were shipped to Bobbin Boy for repair and eventually I got it functional, but it was difficult to keep spinning and hurt my knee to treadle it. It was sold. Later, we were visiting eldest son and his family and walking down the main street of his town, I spotted this beauty in the window of an antique shop.
Again, parts went to Bobbin Boy for repair and adjustment and I learned to spin on an antique walking wheel.
For years, I spun happily along on various wheels and spindles using mill prepared roving and was happy as a clam. Then a local friend asked me if I was interested in the Livestock Conservancy challenge Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em to promote the 22 rare, endangered breeds of sheep and I joined. Again, I started with roving, spinning breeds to which I was unfamiliar, but then deepened the rabbit hole more by undertaking clean unprocessed fiber, combing or carding it to spin.
And then even deeper as I started purchasing half pound amounts of raw dirty fiber to wash and then comb or card to spin. And even deeper with a few raw whole or half fleeces.
This is 2 1/2 pounds, half of a Santa Cruz fleece currently in a 24 hour cold water soak prior to scouring it in hot water and rinsing then drying to prep and spin.
And part of a whole Jacob fleece that has already been washed and dried. It goes with me to events where I spin and I comb it as I need it, then card the waste to also spin. The picture above with the combs and carders, has two rolags of carded waste and a bobbin that is filling slowly with this Jacob yarn as I sit at events and talk about fiber and it’s use in the Colonial period of our history and the equipment that was used, the process, and a plug for the Livestock Conservancy who is trying to save some of the heritage breeds, not just of sheep.
Cabin Crafted 