Cabin Crafted

Category: crafting

  • A Sewing Day

    I am not currently active on Facebook so I will not see reactions or comments made there. The blog has a like button and a comment section at the end that I can see. If you like what you read, please click like.

    A few weeks ago, I made 5 cloth masks, 2 for each of us and 1 for daughter as she has been doing grocery runs for us. This morning daughter initiated a text exchange and finally a phone call asking for a mask for her daughter so she can resume Taekwondo outdoor classes. They will be limiting the number of participants, spread out 10 feet apart, and must wear a mask. We ended up on the phone to determine style and size. While on the phone, her son asked for one too and we decided daughter needed a second one. I don’t have any fun fabrics, but do have two different gray fabrics and some ribbon that could be used as ties. The afternoon was spent cutting and sewing 5 more masks so they each have two for being out in public.

    Hopefully this will help keep them safe as the state is allowing more and more activities to resume. We are still self isolating except for curbside pick up of some groceries and animal supplies. We will go through a drive through or curbside food delivery occasionally if we are out on one of the other errands.

    Daughter set out today to get the remaining plant starts for the garden for her daughter that I helped with via emailed garden plans, instructions, and support. They wanted two Jalapenos plants in what they bought, but couldn’t find any. There are a couple of other places to try, but I may end up starting the seed for her which will slow them down some, but they will still get peppers before the season ends in the fall. They sent me a picture of granddaughter’s garden with plant seed up and starts planted. I wish I could have helped more with it, but pleased that I could provide guidance and planning.

    Such a neat little garden and a great lesson for the 8 year old.

    Two nights ago, when I went out to lock up the hens, 5 of them had apparently gone under the garden gate and again wrecked havoc. They dug up 3 of the tomatoes, trampled peas, scattered the hay from the aisles. I had to call for help to get them out, did repairs in the falling dark and finished the job yesterday morning. I finally got a new battery for one of my solar fence chargers, so I will be stringing electric wire to keep the deer and fence climbers out. The charger isn’t my preferred one, but I can’t get that one open to see what battery it needs. The back is screwed on with tiny star headed screws and I don’t have a star bit that small. I put a board across the opening under the gate, but I haven’t given the hens any free range time since. I guess I will have to expand their run and only free range them when they can be supervised. Several of them will go over the gate in the garden.

    I really don’t want them in there now that the sunflowers and corn have been planted this evening in anticipation of 5 days of rain. In a week or two, the pole beans can be planted in there as well.

    The blueberries have berries, the raspberries have flowers, and there are potato sprouts showing. The garden is now fully planted except for the pole beans, a second planting of bush beans in a few weeks, and some herbs that will be tucked between the tomatoes and peppers so that we can have dilly beans and pesto. The pumpkins are started in a flat and will be planted out when they have secondary leaves and I can see where the sunflowers are. The corn block is 4.5 feet by 13.5 feet. That should be a sufficient sized block to get some corn. If the electric will stop the raccoons.

  • Is it Sunday, the day of rest?

    Each morning, I have to look at my phone to see what day of the week it is. They all run together now. It was somewhat of a problem after I retired, but there were a few regular things we did that helped keep them straight.

    We woke to a spring frost. It was pretty, but I forgot to cover the begonias last night and they don’t look happy today.

    It started warming up quickly and I took string out to make trellis for the peas before they start sprawling on the ground.

    After lunch, I tackled a project that has been sitting around for months. When I first started Rev War reenactment, I purchased a skirt/petticoat and some of the other components of the outfit online, mostly from Etsy. The petticoat was a navy and oatmeal checkered patterns and after aligning myself with the local militia group, learned that the pattern was not period appropriate and cotton wasn’t widely used, so I made myself a navy linen one. The checkered one hung over the back of my sewing chair with the plan of using the yards and yards of fabric to make some valences for some of the windows where we had removed the stained and nasty Roman shades. I finally took the time to cut the fabric and sew the seams. I had two pressure rods that fit the windows in question and a job done. I should have lined them, but had no appropriate lining fabric. When it is safe to be out and about again, I will buy some unbleached muslin and add a lining layer.

    There is enough left to make a valence for the double living room window as well, but I want to put drapes up first, so the old Roman Shades will hang until they can be purchased and a double rod bought.

    Since I had the sewing machine out and still have plenty of the quilting cotton I made masks from, I tackled the fitted kind with a filter pocket. The pleated kind I made first, with elastic loops, pulls my hearing aid out and fogs my glasses. I tried making one of the ribbon with buttons on both ends to hold it on, but it still caused the same issue. The one I made today is tied on with a strip that runs though casings on both edges. I used one long piece of grosgrain ribbon stitched lengthwise in half for the ties.

    Using a folded pipe cleaner in the nose bridge pocket, it can be molded enough to not cause much fogging and if I put my long hair up in a high twist, the tie is held high enough to not pull out my hearing aid. Win win. There is still a lot of that fabric, so I think a second one will be made so there is one to wear when one is in the wash. I learned from my mistakes on this one, so a second one should be a breeze.

  • Chickens make great compost

    Yesterday morning, we had two neighbors visit and help with the grass mowing since the belt for the riding mower still hasn’t come in.

    Meet Jumper Jr. and her sister “Bad” Penny. They belong to the neighbor to the west and find our spring grass greener than their own every year. The neighbor is a female farmer and she spends too much of her time in the spring trying to outsmart these two with new strands of barbed wire, new posts, new fencing, but Jumper Jr. like her Mom would, will go over the fence. When she makes a hole, she sometimes bring along other visitors.

    After preparing and eating lunch, I donned sunscreen, a wide brimmed hat securely tied down, and a long sleeved shirt, gathered some weeding tools and headed out to the garden. It was very, very windy, I think it tried to rip my head off a few times when it grabbed at the hat.

    Three of the rebuilt boxes had not been weeded when the boxes were set, so my project was to get the weeds out from inside the boxes and from the paths between boxes. Also it was time to remove the hay from the asparagus bed and in doing so, I broke off the very first spear, white from being covered and about 3 inches long. Not to waste fresh food, it was wiped clean and eaten right in the garden. I didn’t see any more new spears, but the hay is off and they will start emerging now. They are such a delight each spring.

    The boxes were cleared, the weeds piled in a tub to dump in the chicken run for them to dig through, eat the leaves, and make more compost. Because of the slope of their run, I try to keep a layer of spoiled hay on the ground, also when I clean the coop, the dirty straw or pine chips go in the run, and all kitchen scraps go to the chickens. They dig through all of that matter, adding chicken fertilizer to it and kicking a good amount of thoroughly broken down material through the fence at the down hill end of the run. This was raked and shoveled into the garden cart and wheeled around the garden. Each of the three boxes weeded today received an entire cart full of rich compost and a few fat earthworms that had taken up residence in it.

    Those boxes will be easy to keep weeded now until time to plant beans, cucumbers, and the tomato and pepper starts. There is still a 4 X 8 foot bed that hasn’t been weeded and a new 4 X 4 foot box that needs a load of compost. The corn bed needs to be weeded and the hills dug, but it is still 4 or 5 weeks before it can be planted. See the mint on the center right. I think I am going to sacrifice a dark tarp and hold it down with heavy rocks on the edges, just leave it in place for a year. The sun will kill the mint off. While adding a bit of compost to the raspberry barrels, I spotted a Preying Mantis nest, YAY! It is inside the garden and will hatch in late April or May. Helping keep the pests at bay.

    Today and tomorrow are rainy, so no garden work for a couple of days. Today’s high is 40 degrees (f) colder than it was three days ago. Ah, spring fickleness.

    Yesterday before gardening, I finished the second skinny scarf for daughter’s wardrobe accent. I love knitting and weaving for family rather than taking the time and effort to spin yarn, knit or weave and then put it in my shop for less than it is worth in time and skill. These two days will be for spinning and knitting.

    Oh, and that gorgeous handstitched (not machine stitched) quilt, I won on a $.50 ticket to a raffle about 15 years ago. It is a treasure.

  • Finishing Day

    Today was chilly and gloomy outside, no incentive to go out and play outdoors. The American Shakespeare Theater had a performance by their travelling troupe on the Blackfriar’s stage via live stream with no live audience on Facebook today of Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. I had seen a different troupe perform it on that stage live with eldest son a family a few years ago and very much wanted to watch the performance today. There were so many people watching it that the stream was choppy and the words weren’t with the mouths. After about 30 minutes, I logged off of it disappointed. Son 1 said it improved once the viewers dropped to around 1300, but I had quit by then.

    Instead of sitting here on social media and news, I shut down all electronics and went to my sewing machine instead. About a year and a half ago, we joined Son 2 and his family in Hawaii for a week of their 2 week vacation. One evening, we went to Polynesian Cultural Center to the various exhibits and later a luau and show. During the afternoon, the two older grands wanted to take a ukulele lesson and even before the lesson, begged for a uke. While they were taking their lesson, hubby and I purchased them one with the Hawaiian Islands etched on the face. We wanted to have a talk with them about sharing and impress on them that it wasn’t a toy prior to giving it to them and presenting us with a dilemma of how to keep it hidden until we could do that, while walking around the park and waiting in line for the luau. The same shop had bags that were made at the center and one that I liked was deep enough to hide the box, so we purchased it for me to use for the remainder of the trip. The bag had a single diagonal twill tape strap and the bag was too deep to be useful for much else other than the purpose for which it was purchased. I have looked at several solutions to make it more useful and recently purchased some prequilted fabric to use to modify it. Today, I cut about 4 inches off of the bottom, made backpack type straps from the black quilted fabric and made it into a useful backpack.

    When that was finished, I took the sample scarf that I wove on my Christmas gift rigid heddle loom to practice various weaving techniques, crocheted a loop and took one of the deer antler toggle button that daughter in law had made for my use and for sale and turned the scarf that wasn’t long enough as a scarf into a cowl/shawlette.

    I was on a roll. I had a woven strip 8″ wide and about 19″ long that I had plans to make into a bag. I had purchased some gray subtle print fabric to use as lining and got to work making the bag. The strip was steam blocked, the lining fabric cut to size, edges pressed, and it was sewn to the woven strip. I am currently knitting I-cord for a strap from some dark gray Shetland hand spun wool and it will be sewn to the sides to close them up as soon as the I-cord is long enough.

    I haven’t decided whether to add a snap closure of just let the twisted tassels on the flap hold it down.

    It has been a productive day.

  • Projects, more project ideas

    While the yarn dries, and some parchment colored Coopworth is being spun, I hope worsted weight this time, I needed a pocket project for today. While looking through my remnants of yarn, I found another small skein of the merlot colored Coopworth that I used for the last mitts, and a partially used skein of the same yarn. A project was started. The Owl hat required Aran weight yarn, the two skeins, held together produced about Aran weight, so I cast on for the hat yesterday afternoon instead of warping the loom.

    I got about halfway through the owl last night and finished the owl and started on the decreases while in the PT waiting room today. First they were 30 minutes late taking him in, plus the 30ish minutes he was in the back. The owl will stand out more when the white buttons for the eyes are added.

    This gave me the idea that maybe instead of random hats, I could do ones with cats, frogs, alpacas, and owls on them. Since hats and mitts are going to be the primary knit items in the shop and for the fall and winter markets, they might sell better than plain or striped ones.

    Larger wraps, cowls, and scarves will be woven.

    It seems that more and more people are doing soap and other body products at events, so other than my B&B contract, I may just return to making soap for family and friends that have a particular one they like or limiting myself to just a few favorites for the markets.

  • Productive Week

    Productive Week

    Today is a glorious break in a gray and wet week. We have had snow flurries, freezing rain, and drizzle this past week and two weeks of similar weather in the forecast. It has been calm wind wise until today, with warmer temperatures and sunshine. With the calm we had a fire scare earlier in the week when the farmer not immediately behind us, an area that is still wooded, but just beyond him in an area that has been logged, graded, and planted for pasture lit off first one, then several more large burn piles creating billowing smoke that looked too close to us that we feared was our nearer neighbor’s woods. We contacted him and after sending him photos, he left work to come check and let us know where the fires were and that they were being monitored with a track hoe.

    There has been smoke down there for 6 days now from various piles, but at least we know the woods below us aren’t on fire.

    Through the gray, drizzle and three waiting rooms days, I have been stitching through several smaller skeins of hand spun yarn that I had, making a hat and three pair of fingerless mitts, and finishing the Tool Box cowl from the mini skeins.

    Can you tell I’m a lefty, always wearing the mitt on my right hand to take the photo? The Merlot colored mitts still need to be washed and blocked, they were finished last night. After trying on the cowl that I had made for me, I decided I’m not a cowl person, so I put a price tag on it and put it in the shop with the other items.

    While perusing patterns, I found a cute hat with an owl on the front. Since there isn’t much yarn left that isn’t designated for weaving, I returned to spinning some gray/brown Coopworth last night. It would be a perfect color for the hat, but the pattern will require me to do some math as it calls for Aran weight yarn, this is likely to be DK weight when plied.

    Since I’m not a Super Bowl watcher, I only know one team that is playing and have no allegiance to them, I think I will warp the loom and start a cowl or scarf with a pattern instead of plain weave and continue spinning the Coopworth so I have a pocket project to work on during waiting room visits this week. Since we try to group our errands and lunch out around hubby’s PT visits, I have a 30-45 minute waiting room session a couple times a week, so I need a new pocket project.

  • What Am I Worth?

    Generally, when I spin and knit, I don’t track my time very carefully, if at all. I know it takes me about an hour to spin an ounce of fingering weight yarn on my wheel. An ounce on drop spindles is much longer.

    I am not a speed knitter, but not a slouch either and the size of the yarn and needles affect how much I can get done in an hour.

    These factors always stop me cold when I am pricing an item of hand spun, hand knit for my shop. A hat of worsted weight yarn might take me about 4 hours to knit if it is a simple pattern, like this one, a slouch hat of stockinette, garter, and ribbing. The yarn was worsted to aran, about 3 ounces, so a couple of hours of spinning and plying. A total of 6 or 7 hours of my time plus the cost of the wool to spin.

    This cowl took me close to 24 hours to knit. The three skeins that were hand spun in the cowl were done on drop spindles. The fiber and the mill spun mini skeins were all gifts or bonuses that came with other purchases, so it was just time involved.

    Total hours on this fingering weight cowl, maybe 35. I doubt that this cowl will go in the shop, but there is one in the shop of silk, drop spindle spun, my own pattern design. Paying myself slave labor wages of a couple of dollars an hour, it would have to be priced at more than $70-75. People will look, comment that it is lovely, that they can’t spend that much money on a gift or on themselves, and walk on, at least in the area that we live.

    The shawl in the header photo is the one I did from the Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em challenge yarns. It has 8 different breeds hand spun on the wheel. Each breed had to be at least 4 ounces, but the white center triangle was 15 ounces and the light gray around the edge and one stripe was 8 ounces. That was countless hours of spinning and then probably near 50-60 hours to knit it. It isn’t for sale, it couldn’t be. How could I ever price it?

    This is my conundrum. My hook is that my items are hand spun, hand knit, or hand woven garments, so I don’t want to work with inexpensive big box store yarn. My body products are handmade with organic ingredients. Because the body products are generally priced under $10, they sell at craft shows and holiday markets but spinning, knitting, and weaving are what I do for pleasure.

    So how do you decide what you are worth? Or how much loss you are willing to take to continue the crafts? And none of this takes into account what the equipment costs are to do these crafts.

  • Organized Disorganization – 1/17/2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Where is Winter? – 1/15/2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • 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!