Cabin Crafted

Category: family

  • The Stockings

    This started a long, long time ago. I grew up with a felt stocking with glued on decorations that exactly matched my siblings stockings except for the name on it. By the time I had my firstborn, it was faded, tattered, and discolored. I wanted my son to have a special stocking, and I hadn’t taken up knitting again (not for another 24 years). I found a crewel work stocking kit and made it for his first Christmas, but I also needed stockings for us, so hubby got a crocheted one from a kit I found and I then used that pattern and modified it to make one for me too.

    When daughter was born, a second crewel work kit was found and another stocking made for her first Christmas. Son two is a February baby and you would think I had plenty of time to plan and make his, but it didn’t get done for his first Christmas, but a third crewel work kit was made into his stocking for his second Christmas, each one of them different from each other.

    You can see part of daughter’s behind her son’s left shoulder. I thought I was done. When grandson 1 was born, it never occurred to me to make him one, his parents weren’t really into celebrating holidays at that point, then daughter had a January baby and close to Christmas, she asked me if I was going to make his stocking. I still hadn’t begun making the intarsia knitted stockings yet and his is the quilted on far left in the photo.

    Son 2 adopted his wife’s firstborn and they had a little girl the same year daughter had a little girl and I started knitting the intarsia stockings. That year I made 4, one each for the two little girls, 1 for Son 2’s son, and one for grandson 1.

    Each one is different, each one has a cross stitched tag inside as seen above with the message and the year. Each one is lined to preserve the stitching and the shape. Every grandchild has a stocking.

    Last year for Christmas, we learned that Son2 and his wife were expecting a baby boy in January, just days after Christmas, so the most recent stocking is in the works.

    I have made 3 crewel work ones, 2 crocheted ones, 1 quilted one, and this is my 9th intarsia one. I have run out of vintage patterns. If Son 2 and his wife have another, I may have to duplicate a stocking that went to a grand not in his brood. In addition to these, three years ago at the New Year’s Eve party at Mountain Lake, I was knitting a shawl in the lounge before dinner and a woman asked me if I would knit up a Christmas stocking kit she bought for her grandson. I agreed and gave her a price which was way too low. She mailed it to me and asked if I would use the same pattern to make a second one for her other grandson which meant going out to purchase the yarn for it. I made those two also and mailed them back to her. I will make them for family, but never again for a contract. So those two were two of the 9. I hope they are all treasured.

  • A new month

    September is usually winding down month on canning, but there are so many green tomatoes on the vines, that tomatoes will still be canned; the grapes are finally ripening, so grape jelly is still to be made; the ground cherries are just beginning to bloom so jam from them will be prepared; there are so many Tomatillos forming and blooms still developing that some will be made into green salsa, some frozen or canned in halves. Usually September is Asian Pear marmalade and applesauce time. I went out Sunday afternoon to check the ripeness of the Asian Pears, and they are gone, every last one of them from the top to the bottom. There are few apples, maybe one small batch of sauce. Because of a later frost, there weren’t a lot of pears or apples, but certainly enough to make a few batches. I don’t know what happened, I have gotten so many pears in the past that I have shared them, pressed them into cider, made the marmalade and pear sauce. Not this year. I will buy enough at the Farmer’s Market to make one batch of marmalade, that is my favorite jam, and enough apples to make a canner full of applesauce jars. This wasn’t a fruit year in our gardens.

    It was fall like temperatures and very rainy yesterday. I had submitted orders to Eat’s Natural Foods and to Tractor supply for curbside pick up of some groceries for us and feed for all the critters. On Sunday, I sold the monster Stihl line trimmer on Craigslist after wearing myself out trying to start it and then daughter who brought her kiddos over for a masked socially distanced visit also tried. It started once and cut out. I was tired of fighting with the Herculean task of using the professional sized monster, so we had ordered a mid sized Stihl battery powered one and the larger battery, that was to be picked up too. When daughter and grands came over, granddaughter presented me with a pair of new socks that she insisted her Mom get for me because they were definitely ones that according to her “Mommom will love.” They are adorned with gourds and down the side is written, “Oh my gourd ness.” For you NP. As I dressed to go out in the cool rain, I donned my new socks.

    Yesterday I posted my start photo for the Jenkins monthly spinning challenge, I had started knitting mittens with some of the yarn spun last month. I will be spinning the same fibers, to finish the Shetland/silk braid and work on through the blue Tunis.

    About 3 inches into the mitten cuffs, I decided the yarn was just too fine for mitten weight fabric, so I “frogged” them and rewound the yarn, began again holding two strands together to get a better weight. That meant I was going to need at least that much more yarn to make them, so last night I challenged myself to spin heavier yarn on my heaviest spindle. It won’t be counted in the challenge, but will be knit into the mittens. I think it may be heavy enough, I hope.

    I will finish this spindle full and another and ply them to see. I am not usually very successful with this spindle except to ply finer yarns as it is heavier than I prefer and my yarn singles tend to break if I get any yarn weight on it. So far I am doing okay with a heavier spin. Time will tell.

    I made a difficult decision about Cabin Crafted Etsy Shop. I am paying personal property tax on equipment and stock and with no craft shows upcoming due to Covid, paying relisting fees on Etsy, as I have a fair size stock that is just sitting with no income. All yarn, knits, and weaves in my shop were drastically marked down to materials cost with no markup for labor. I need to move the stock I have made and then decide whether Cabin Crafted as a cottage business is going to continue on or close up and just knit and make soap for my family and me, or for friends that make specific requests. I enjoy the process and even setting up for events, but the times are tough right now.

    Stay safe everyone. with the University in town opening two weeks ago, cases of Covid had soared, from 5 to nearly 200 cases just on campus in those two weeks. They are even on the rise in our very rural county as folks work and shop in the town. We are back in full isolation with only curbside pick up of necessary goods.

  • Another disappointment

    Though this one was somewhat expected. Since his retirement, with our children grown, hubby decided he wanted to take up motorcycle riding. He scheduled the state required safety class. The day before the class, we were on a bicycle ride after having had his bicycle serviced at the local bike shop and on the Huckleberry Trail where we often walk, there is a hill with a turn at the bottom. On the way back to the car, so going downhill, he had an accident that later appeared to have been the result of a serious miss adjustment of his brakes. He ended up breaking his left humerus very close to his shoulder. We were able, under the circumstances to cancel the class and they even gave him a refund. About a year later, two months after his 70th birthday, he signed up for the class again, stayed off the bicycle and successfully completed the class on a small Honda motorcycle. After the class, he located a similar used Honda and we bought it.

    Now you need to understand that we live in the mountains, two miles up a macadam road, two tenths of a mile down a gravel road, and another two tenths of a mile down a gravel driveway, so not the flat parking lot that he took the class on. The motorcycle was picked up on a rented trailer and unloaded at home. He learned to deal with the gravel, and the twisty mountain roads and would disappear for hours, Zen riding as he put it, no destination in mind, sometimes, not even knowing where he was. His exploration lead him to places that we later visited in the car, sometimes looking for new adventures for him.

    After about 6 months, he sold the Honda and got the Harley Davidson he really wanted and rode it over a very mountainous rural road the hour plus home. Going out Zen riding was his pleasure. Though I didn’t like to be a passenger, it was something I supported as it made him very happy. He even rode it to Florida one summer to visit our daughter when she lived there, with Grandson 1 and me as his support vehicle.

    Two years ago, riding became uncomfortable, causing neck and back pain and he was only able to ride for very short periods of time, then mostly not at all. Last week, the Harley was past due on state inspection and in need of annual servicing as well as having a mirror repaired, so he rode it to the city. The mirror held up the return until a call yesterday that it was ready, but it was raining. This morning, we rode to the city to either pick it up, or sadly for him, to sell it to the dealer, a decision he had a hard time coming to. The dealer bought his bike, the end of an era for him. He is understandably sad this afternoon.

    Leading a ride at the local rally.

  • Disappointments and Silver Linings

    Each year in the late summer, early fall, I attend a fiber retreat. One of the ladies I met at the one I had attended for several years decided to organize one that some of her fiber friends nearer to their home might attend and I started going to that one. The first one I attended was at Roan Mountain, TN and went there for several years. Last year the event moved to a better overall venue at Black Mountain, NC. This event is a highlight of my year, usually the first event of the season at which I also vend in addition to being a participant. I had decided that this would probably be the swan song of me vending at events. This year the event was going to return to Black Mountain and was moved a bit earlier to try to avoid some of the school and church groups that attend events at the same facility. That meant that I would have left home yesterday for the event, yesterday was hubby’s birthday. He was okay with that. The plan was for me to make his favorite meal, a homemade Mexican feast the evening before, kiss him goodbye around lunchtime yesterday and head southwest for the weekend. Like so many other events, this one was wisely cancelled. It was a disappointment, but it meant I would be home for hubby’s birthday.

    Because of very limited being in public, I didn’t get him a card, but I had ordered a new T shirt on the internet and it came in time to hide away until yesterday morning. We went and got carry out lunch at his favorite burger place and the Mexican feast was prepared last night instead. We are at an age where the years are ripping by and are pretty indifferent to celebrating, but it was nice that he got messages from all three kids and several grandkids yesterday in the form of texts and calls.

    The repairs are completed on the Big Bad Harley, but it is too rainy today to drive to the city and have him ride it home. But since I’m not away after all, we can drive over tomorrow.

    To each disappointment there is a silver lining. I am grateful we have each other and have stayed healthy so far.

  • Keeping Busy

    As event after event have been cancelled for this year, I must keep busy.

    All of the fiber festivals have been cancelled, some are trying virtual; the Agricultural Fair in our Village, the huge street fair in Blacksburg, the retreat that I love to attend, the trips to visit our kids and to the vacation spot of my youth, have all had to not be held this year for the health and safety of the proprietors, vendors, and the participants.

    Added to this, the weather has not be typical. I am generally not mowing grass this time of year, or only doing so rarely, but it has rained and rained some more and in a week’s time the grass gets so tall and so thick that the riding mower has trouble getting through it. Last evening, after a dry day, the front and part of the east side yard were mowed and it was as tall as if I hadn’t mowed just a week ago. I will try to finish today once the dew and fog burn off. The rain has made this a cucumber, pepper, and basil year, but the tomatoes are not doing very well. My single leader up a tall pole idea was good, but they are too close together, shading each other and being shaded by the asparagus ferny tops. We will get enough for pizza sauce, maybe one more big pot of tomato sauce, but not the quantity of years past. The refrigerator and shelves are full of pickles. Two more baskets of basil are drying, one already dry and jarred for winter.

    The oregano was pruned and put in a basket to dry and the plant moved from the half barrel to the herb bed in the new walled garden while the soil was still damp.

    Enough tomatillos were picked today to give me the quantity needed to make a batch of simmer sauce and since about a half dozen more jalapenos were clipped, it will be the spicy version. That will be made later today as dinner prep is easy tonight.

    The summer reading has been mostly Appalachian fiction, some of it historical fiction, and a book recommended on the spindle group in a conversation.

    When not cooking, gardening, or reading, I continue to spin on the Jenkins Turkish spindles. I find the process soothing and calming and can spin anywhere; in my stressless chair, on a porch, in the car, in the kitchen while waiting for the next step in the cooking process.

    I guess I will have to find a use for all the yarn I have created since I won’t have Holiday markets to vend in this year. Many of the yarns are in my Etsy shop, but it isn’t seeing much activity during this time either.

    At times I stay busy, at times I get low and cry over the losses, especially not being able to visit with our children and grandchildren. We are ever so grateful to Son 2 and his family for reaching out and making a stop near enough for us to meet our youngest grandson, even though it was masked and socially distanced. I know we aren’t alone in this, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

  • Rememberances

    Today would have been my Dad’s 97th birthday. A man who believed our world could address peace, he would be horrified at our current world state. As a young cadet at the University that is now Virginia Tech, a cadet by requirement then, he was called from school with his classmates to serve in Europe in WWII. Upon his return to college after the war, as a veteran, not having to be in the Cadet Corp, he met and married my Mom, lived on campus in an Airstream trailer park set up for returning vets who married. It was there that I came into their lives a month before he was to graduate. Class of 1943, actual graduation date, December 1947.

    As an adolescent, my family joined my uncle and his family at an Conference Center in the mountains off the Shenandoah Valley and it started an annual pilgrimage to Shrine Mont until the year he passed from our lives at the age of 92. That trip often fell on the week of his birthday or the week following as it was always the first full week of August. Many birthday parties were held there with family and friends that gathered for a week each year. The August after his death, we as a family gathered again, toasted his life and the lives of the other’s from his generation that had gathered with us, all gone by then and we left his ashes in those mountains that he loved to hike.

    The remaining children of that generation, when possible, continued the tradition and our children joining us at times. Baptisms, weddings, and memorials have been held in the outdoor stone chapel.

    Not this year. The facility is operating on a limited scale, using only cottages with kitchens, families who can’t travel or visit for fear of passing or catching the pandemic virus are not able to join together this year. The 8 bedroom log cottage we shared not used because it doesn’t have a kitchen.

    He stood proudly on those steps with his children, children in law, grandchildren, grandchildren in law, nieces and nephews. The last patriarch of that crew. We are much older now, but that is the last group photo I have from there and try as I might, I can’t place the year, maybe his 80th birthday so 17 years ago. A few of those people are gone, a lot more added. My stepmom is the Matriarch by marriage, I guess I am by birth, now only 7 years younger than he was in that picture.

    I miss his wisdom, his wit, his corny jokes, his gentle, loving spirit. May he live on in all who loved him and all he loved.

  • Finally

    Because of the dreaded virus ravaging our country, we had been unable to meet our newest grandson, born in January. Initially we didn’t want to add any stress to their lives with their household of 5 children, 3 under the age of 4, so we decided to give them a month or so to settle in, then COVID came to visit and as we are in the at risk age and health group, we determined it was not in anyone’s best interest for us to drive across the state and stay in a hotel in an area of the state that was a hot spot. Yesterday, they headed west to a family wedding and had to pass by a nearby town on the interstate. Last night after dark, we drove to a fast food restaurant just off that interstate and met them, masked and socially distanced and finally got to meet our newest grandson, see the two little girls that were an infant and a 2 year old when we last saw them, and the two older grands as well. The only two that really know us are the older two. All of the children are beautiful, healthy children and it was so good to see them even if we couldn’t hold the littles and hug the bigs. We did take pictures, but I don’t post pictures of my grandchildren without permission and didn’t think to ask last night.

    It continues to be hot and humid with occasional thunder storms, so haying still hasn’t begun on our farm and garden work is limited to early morning or late evening. Today I will harvest and freeze more green beans, I’m sure that the last two days storms have caused the small ones to thrive and swell.

    I continue to spin on my spindles, adding a few grams of fiber each day, most of the spinning done on the front porch under the ceiling fan, in the car on the way to two dentist appointments for hubby in a week, neither of which have resolved the problem, or sitting in my stressless chair in the evenings. I have spun about 100 grams of fiber in the first 12 days of the Tour de Fleece/Jenkins Team, some has been plied. The darker fiber on the smaller spindles is the weft on the sample scrap scarf I am weaving on my rigid heddle loom. Hubby bought me the stand for it recently which makes weaving on it so much easier that I actually pull it over to my chair and weave a few rows several times a day. The hand spun warp is sticky and one of them must not have been tightly enough spun as it keeps breaking requiring me to tie in a piece. I’m hoping I am past the fragile area and it will hold together for the remainder of the project. It is going to be entirely spun on Jenkins Turkish spindles.

    Stay safe everyone. Be cautious, wear a mask, wash your hands.

  • Of Things Old

    Old is a number. By number, I am old, but still active, healthy in habit, and fairly strong. I am older than my Mom was when she died by almost a decade. Old here in the mountains seems to be a lower age than I have reached, but I’m from a long lived arm of the family paternally. My great grandmother lived to 94, my grandmother to 88, my father to 92.

    I love old things, but I’m not an antique collector. My parent’s home had many antiques when I was small, but most of them were replaced during the two years my mother worked outside of the home when I was in 7th and 8th grades. A few pieces were saved and a couple of those pieces have come to me. Two simple tables, hand built by past generations and kept in the family. One is a small table with three drawers that was in a kitchen long ago. When the top right drawer isn’t pushed tight shut, there is evidence of a mouse gnawing it’s way into the drawer, a small oblong hole and a keyhole with no lock.

    My Dad cleaned this beautiful little table of paint and put a wax coat on it, it is repurposed as a side table in our living room.

    I don’t know the history of this one, except hearing the story that my parents felt it was too tall, the legs had the same flattened ball shape turning at the bottoms of the legs and Dad cut them off. When it was given to me, the top was loose with nail holes in it, the finish damaged. It too had evidence of having been painted and the paint removed. I stripped the table, put L brackets under the top hidden by the drawer to tighten it and refinished it. It is the table between our chairs in the loft, where we put our beverages and my spinning bowl. It too is from my mother’s family home.

    This cedar chest was in the hall at the top of the stairs of my in-laws home. When my Mother -in-law passed and their house was sold, we got the brass accented cedar chest. It smelled of mothballs and is full of old family photos and home movies from hubby’s side of the family. It serves as our living room coffee table.

    When I was pregnant with our first child and we were moving from the duplex that I co owned with my parents into a larger home in which to raise our family, we bought me a Boston rocking chair for the nursery. It was used in the nursery for the older two children, but when we moved to a larger home in a nicer neighborhood prior to child three, I found this 1700’s pressed wood rocking chair in a shop where I bought the reed I used to make baskets. The gentleman caned chair bottoms and had begun making the pressed leather pieces that adorned some chairs from that period. This rocker came home to be in the nursery for the youngest.

    Because of it’s age, it was used, but used gently. When youngest was about 3 or 4 years old, we elected to down size to a townhouse that we could afford on my salary as a school counselor so that hubby could open his own Law Office, knowing that it would be a while before his fledgling business would be solvent. Since the boys had to share a bedroom, the chair was put in the living room. Our children knew that if they used that chair, it was to be used gently. One Thanksgiving while we were living there, I hosted the meal for some of the extended family. One member, a large man sat in that chair. Son 1 suggested to him that maybe it wasn’t an appropriate choice just prior to him leaning back and snapping the back right off the chair. There was an antique repair shop that put dowels in the broken spindles and re glued the chair so that it looks okay, but it is now just a decorative piece. The seat is sound, and it is probably safe for gentle use.

    Somewhere in our life history, a good friend purchased this antique treadle sewing machine at an auction. My husband purchased it from her for me as a gift. It has been in several locations in our homes, but fits nicely in this corner of our hallway and holds a landline phone that we must keep to have internet. The brown rectangular box basket on top is my great grandmother’s sewing basket. The machine has a leather drive band and still works, though I think it needs a good cleaning and oiling.

    There are a few other small items, a child’s chair that is from my Dad’s childhood, another child’s chair that belongs to one of our Daughters in law, a bentwood doll’s chair made for my mother, and a small pottery jug that came from my mother’s family home. And in our loft, the large Walking Wheel seen in the header photo. That wheel, a gift from hubby a few years ago, purchased in an antique shop in Front Royal, Virginia on a visit to Son 1’s family. It is a functional wheel and knowing now what I didn’t know then, we paid about twice what it is worth, but it is beautiful and I love it.

    Whether these pieces stay with our children when we are gone or not, this is so they know some history. I have thought about putting the history of each on a card and tucking the card in a drawer or under the lid. They haven’t all “fit” in some of our homes, but they are all perfect for this log home in the middle of a farm.

  • A Break from Isolation

    With a socially distanced, outdoor adventure with daughter and her two youngs, and hubby. She owns two tandem kayaks and wanted to take her kiddos out for a fun afternoon. She asked us earlier in the week if we wanted to join them for a socially distanced outing. My car has the kayak rack that can be easily attached and she had borrowed it to see if it could be adapted to her car, but to do so would have cost her as much as a new rack and she wants to be sure of what to get, so we drove over and wrestled the two monsters up on the racks, tied them down securely and took off for the river. We were in my car, she and her kids in her car, and all 5 with masks for the loading and unloading. The river is still very full and muddy from the heavy rains.

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    We had a grand time. It has been years since we were out on kayaks, we loaned ours to Son1 as they live near the Shenandoah River and enjoy going out. The local lakes here have too many power boats to feel safe in a kayak and if you do the river, you need two cars for put in and take out and that is too difficult for us as seniors so this was delightful.

    As we came out of the river while I waited with kayaks and kids and daughter and hubby went to get the car from the put in point, I found out I had been one of 14 people who won the chance to purchase a new design spindle from my favorite craftsman.

    After we arrived home, I treated hubby to his favorite meal of homemade tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole.

    Dinner is enjoyed and cleaned up, we have both showered and laundry started, and the spindle email has been sent. I am now awaiting my invoice to pay for it.

  • A bit sad

    We were supposed to take a weekend trip this weekend, across the state to meet our newest grandson. Out of precaution for them and us, our hotel reservation was cancelled and they were called to tell them we love them, want pictures of all of their children, and we would reschedule when it is safe to do so.

    This is the second event we have had to cancel reservations on and postpone, the first an event with our other 3 grandchildren.

    As we stay at home avoiding other people, cancelling opportunities to see our children and grandchildren, people with nationally known names are posting “that this is a ploy to disrupt capitalism,” “if you are healthy, go to your local pub,” “it’s just the flu,” and other statements and tweets to try to diminish the severity of the situation.

    My extended family has many folks with underlying health conditions, compromised immune systems. My sibs, cousins, hubby, hubby’s sister, and I are over 60, several over 70. We are the folks that the CDC is most worried about.

    We can hope for a vaccine, but if like the flu vaccine, they aren’t fully effective for several weeks after it is given. We can hope for coming to spring will cause it to die out. But what we can do, is stay apart, whether you are healthy or not so that you don’t spread it unknowingly. Stay apart if you have any illness symptoms whether they are COVID-19 or not. Check on each other by phone, text, or other media.

    We are on a track that mirrors Italy and that is frightening. Be safe, practice safe habits. I want hugs from everyone when it is over. In the meantime, I love you children, grandchildren, sibs, cousins, BE SAFE.

    I hope this nation learns from this the importance of vaccines for communicable illness where there is a vaccine; the importance of self distancing when you are ill with a cold, flu, chicken pox, measles, or whatever; the realization that it isn’t about you.