Cabin Crafted

Category: Fiber Arts and Equipment

  • Another year is closing

    Today marked the last Farmer’s Market of the year, as the next two Saturday’s are holidays. It also means that some of the vendors are finished until spring and I will miss being able to do the bulk of our weekly groceries locally sourced, regeneratively and/or organically grown. There will be a few vendors through the winter when travel from their farms allow and some products still available, but it is always sad knowing this marks the beginning of real winter.

    Today was also the last Holiday Market as well and this year I didn’t participate for several reasons. There are more and more vendors selling similar products, and competition is good unless your handspun, handknit hat is competing with bulky knit acrylic one. And the uncertainty of Covid sent me in a different direction last year, slowly spinning on spindles and knitting a blanket for us instead of product for sale, so my stock was low. And the cost of participating was too great for my stock availability. I limited my events to three at Wilderness Road Regional Museum, and one outdoor event at Montgomery Museum this past year and not until I was fully vaccinated. At times, I wonder if that adventure should cease and just donate my time spinning at the Museum or heritage craft events without vending. With this in mind, some of my equipment is being sold off and keeping only that which I love and use. Now with the new variant spreading like the wild fires of the midwest and western states, we are again wearing masks even in crowded outdoor venue, and I guess will stop going in restaurants again for a while, though that had only resumed occasionally.

    This week hasn’t felt much like winter, with warm daytime temperatures and mild nights, but tomorrow is supposed to be more seasonable. Today it is raining, yesterday too, but we squeezed in a walk only getting a light shower during part of it. I don’t think we will get one today. We won’t have a white Christmas this year, but it may be cold enough for a fire in the fireplace. We won’t be totally isolated from our family this year either, but still only a tiny gathering. We were so fortunate to be able to meet up with Son 2 and his family week before last and enjoy their children.

    One of my hydroponic gardens has not been doing well, so this morning, I broke it down, totally cleaned it, reset the plants that were growing and started some new salad greens. The other one has gotten off schedule with maintenance power outage by the power company and power flickers due to wind. I may put both of them on an easy to control power bar with a timer as the internal timers on the units can only be reset by getting up very early and restarting them and they don’t run for the same number of hours.

    I will end this not very positive missive with a holiday photo.

  • What a ride

    It is done. What a joyous ride this past year has been on this delightful project. I spun 26 breeds, used 25 of them, knit 43 squares but one was too small so finished it is 42 squares. It is spun entirely with my Jenkins Turks, plied entirely with them also, and put together with Jenkins spun yarn. It was a stress free goal, let me try wools I had never heard of or handled along with many I already loved. One huge thank you goes out to Lisa who started following my progress after I bought a Jenkins Finch spindle from her destash. She is in Sweden and sent me the spindle packed in Helsinge wool. When I posted about it in my blog, she sent me enough more to make two more squares with it, then when I mentioned in my blog I needed darker squares for the last two months, she sent me Jamtland and Gotland lamb. There are two Jamtland squares and one Gotland lamb square in the blanket with more to spin for another project, so she provided 1/7 of the fiber for the blanket. Now I need to find a new project. There are lots of small balls of left over yarn from this project that can be used.

    As I knit the squares, I pinned tags of the breed on the squares. Tonight, hubby helped me make a chart in order by row and I removed the tags. A larger chart, perhaps a photo of the blanket with each square labelled on the picture will be made and taken with the blanket when I go to do demonstration spinning.

    The last two squares were knit on Wednesday and Thursday in the car as we travelled part of the way across the state to meet up with Son 2 and most of his family for an evening at Busch Gardens Williamsburg Winter Wonderland. This gave us the opportunity to chat with the adults and their oldest daughter and get to know the younger ones better while also meeting the newest granddaughter. They have a beautiful family. The oldest wasn’t with them because he was near where we live at a multi day swim meet. Today we went by the aquatic center hoping to run into him, but there are 1000 swimmers so only the ones scheduled for time blocks are there. His mom sent us approximate times he will swim tomorrow and Sunday, so we will go back and watch him compete.

  • Results

    I found a cookie recipe for a shortbread cookie with chopped cranberries and orange zest and in the picture, they baked to 1 cm thick rounds, lightly browned on the bottom. I followed the recipe exactly, the dough seemed a good consistence, it was rolled into the log in parchment paper and chilled for several hours before slicing and placing on the parchment paper lined cold baking tray and put in the oven at the proper temperature. They took about 3 minutes longer than the recipe called for and they spread out to very thin shapes that had to be cut apart.

    Shortbread is one of my go to cookie varieties that I make plain, topped with dark chocolate and toffee cumbles, and I thought this. Usually, I press the dough into a lined 8″ square pan and I wish I had this time as well. They are tasty, but so soft they don’t hold together well and may not be appropriate for my planned use. There are still cranberries, I will need another orange, I have the butter, sugar, and flour, so maybe I will try again and press them in the 8″ square pan to be cut into squares after fully cooled. I need a sturdier cookie that can be put in a tin or covered and kept overnight for an event.

    My December breed, Charollais for my blanket is spun and almost all plied so I can knit it into a square. The rest of that wool will be used in Gnomes, a cowl or hat stripe. The second wool for the month is a repeat, but is a very dark gray, much darker than the two samples spun before and it is a lamb fleece. This wool is Gotland and I found the lighter gray samples rather coarse, but this lamb is so soft, it will make a pretty last square.

    This was taken last night before plying began and before the smaller spindle of Gotland lamb filled up. I need to start a second spindle of it and get it spun and plied as well.

    Though I am unhappy with the cookie results, I have thoroughly enjoyed the year long project of sampling breeds, spun on my Jenkins Turkish spindles, and knitting them into squares for the blanket. Soon the 42 squares representing 25 breeds will be fully assembled and shown off here. It seemed so strange to spend Saturday spinning on my wheel after a year almost solely using spindles.

  • Last Vending Event

    Today, I had the opportunity to set up my shop at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum Noel Nights Heritage Barn Bazaar. Dressed in my period outfit, with a spinning wheel for demonstrating spinning. The Bazaar was from 3 to 7 and I arrived about 2:15 to set up and was able to choose my spot. Outside the barn where we were set up was a trio of fiddle, banjo, and guitar, and inside the museum were other musical performers.

    You never know what is going to be popular at an event. In the fall it was yarn and knits. I was sure the holiday soaps and Gnomes were going to be the popular items tonight but it was guest soaps and salves. Only two holiday soaps and 1 gnome, but also a scarf and fingerless mitts sold. It was a fun afternoon and other than holiday soaps and yarn, not too much stock left and I love setting up in this old barn. If Cabin Crafted is going to continue, some of that yarn will have to be woven or knit for next year and more wool spun.

    Over the past week, Christmas gifts were wrapped except for a couple that have yet to arrive and a few small items for stockings. When I arrived home tonight and unloaded the car, the closet in which all of my stock and display items are stored was cleaned up and organized as most of the items were out giving me a clean start. Over the years, my set up has morphed and some early items no longer are used and removed. Some of them had already been sold.

    Tomorrow, we will go with daughter and two grands to the Christmas tree farm. I guess our tree will go up a week or so earlier than most years. Later this week, we get to meet our newest granddaughter and see her siblings and their parents.

    The holidays are coming. The house is decorated (except for the tree). I hope this will be a no stress holiday.

  • Another Sunday on the farm

    This week’s 24 seconds from the front door is gray, gloomy, bare trees. The weather prognosticators are warning of snow flurries and wind tonight and tomorrow morning. I guess it is that time of year. I’ll lay the two fires in case we lose power.

    It has been a fairly productive week getting ready for the Heritage Craft Barn Bazaar on December 4th and finishing this month’s official square for the Breed Blanket Project. A cowl was knit, soaps and salves finished, photographed and put on the website, a square of Jamtland wool from Sweden was combed, spun, and knit into a beautiful, soft, dark chocolate colored square. More of that fiber is being combed for another square and while I am prepping it, I am spinning Zwartbles, a Norwegian wool that is also dark chocolate to become a single square.

    A very Christmasy skein of wool was plied yesterday and wound off this morning. It is BFL, an extremely soft wool, spun to fingering weight and about 267 yards of yarn.

    With the onset of “winter” here this weekend, I will lay low, spin, try to finish a knitted gift, cook a nice hot meal for dinner and perhaps sit by a fire with a cup of tea.

  • Holiday’s approach

    November is birthday month in our family, two grands, stepmom, nephew, daughter, and me, plus Thanksgiving. November and early December are the months that various Holiday Craft Markets occur, ones I participate in and ones I visit looking for gifts. I hate to shop, maybe abhor is a better word and some years I have a genius idea for the grands, not this year. They range in age now from 16 to less than a month. I have done fleece blankets in favored themes with books, hoodies and books, hand knit hats and books, but I’m out of ideas. I don’t know interests of them all and I’m trying to match age to known interests and still keep a reasonable budget. I am at an age where I don’t want more stuff in the house and have been making regular donation runs, and a shared yard sale with daughter, so I’m no help in answering the “what do you want” question to me. I want my family around me. I want visits to and from them, I want to know they are all healthy and successful, that they are achieving to their abilities.

    In the spirit of the holidays, I will have two of our children and two of our grands for Thanksgiving dinner, right in the middle of the birthday week. And I am preparing for the only Holiday Market in which I am participating this year. My soap supply was basically depleted and to make some more holiday festive, I made three batches this week, actually 4, but one was a nightmare failure that set up too quickly and the colorant did weird things to the round bars. There are squares of goat milk, oatmeal, and honey soap with a “frosting” layer of finely ground roasted cacao blended in to a little, round bars of rosemary scented soap with a bit of green colorant blended unevenly (on purpose), and traditional shaped bars of peppermint scented soap with red colorant marbled in. I am working on a buttoned cowl in light mint green Merino handspun wool, and over the past week infused comfrey I grew into Avocado oil and made tins of salve to add to the other salves available. There will be hats, fingerless mitts, a couple cowls, some mittens, and a couple shawls and scarves available for people to purchase as gifts.

    Along with these efforts, I am knitting a little stuffed frog to go with a book, spinning wool for my Breed Blanket Challenge, and actually cooking and prepping in the kitchen, not just making products. At Farmer’s Market last week, I purchased 3 good sized Daikon radishes, a white, a red, and a purple and they are fermenting on the counter for kimchi, my favorite kind of kimchi.

    The peppers tented with heavy plastic did not survive the three nights in the mid 20’s, the greens are hanging in there, maybe they should be tented later this week when the temps are again going to plunge. It is nice to be able to pick some fresh goods still from the garden and salad and herbs from the hydroponics. Some of the lettuce is beginning to get bitter, so I should restart those cells with a new batch of seed. Winter is coming, life moves on, I am glad to be able to still preorder some produce from the Farmer’s Market at least until the middle of December, and get meats, breads, some cheese year round. Projects need to be done, so back to work.

  • Autumn left, winter arrived

    For a few days anyway. Yesterday we got our walk in right after lunch, just in time for the front to roar in with wind, falling temperatures, and rain, much rain. We missed the tornado threats, thunder, and lightening that happened a couple counties to the east. Fortunately, we recently got the garage cleaned up and organized enough to put both cars in, so we didn’t worry about blowing branches or the threatened hail that never occurred. Today is 22 degrees (F) colder than yesterday, the wind is howling, it has alternately been thick and gray with light rain and partly sunny, but not long enough to plan anything outdoors. To go out for a few minutes, a jacket and wool hat were added to the wool tshirt and wool sweater I already had on. It is going to stay very cool and mostly wet for the rest of the week. We have seen our high today, 49 f (9.4c) and we may see our first frost before next week ends. It is well past the average for here and the garden is done except for a few winter greens that can be covered easily.

    The cooler weather has me knitting and spinning. A new very soft cabled Merino hat was added to the shop, an ear warmer cabled headband is being knit from the remainder of the skein. Most of a braid of Ruby Red soft BFL wool has been spun and it will probably become a scarf.

    Another 4 ounces of an alpaca/ coopworth blend is also being spun, but I don’t know what it will become.

    I did update the photos of the fingerless mitts and the “sideways” gray hat in the shop photos, see the link at the top of the blog. I still haven’t warped the loom to weave the wide scarf/shawl with the Calypso colorway skein I spun on the wheel to figure out how long it takes to spin 4 ounces.

    It should weave into a gorgeous garment with the navy flax warp.

    There are more squares to add to the breed blanket, but I think I want to do one more before I add another row. That will leave only one row of 6 squares to get done in November and December. I wish it was easier to crochet them on the blanket as it would be nice to have it in my lap with the chill of the current weather.

    We are seeing some color change in the leaves, but the wind is ripping them down like rainfall. Another two or three weeks and the trees will be bare until spring. Such is the progression of the year.

  • How did you get started?

    When I am doing an event where I am spinning and selling my yarn, knits, soaps, and salves, there are certain questions that I can be assured will be asked at least once during the course of the event. One of the questions is the title of this blog. Cabin Crafted, the cottage business begun out of a desire to share the soaps, herbal salves, yarns and knit wear that I was creating faster than we were using them up. The we, includes family members that want and wear the knits and use the soaps and salves, not just hubby and me.

    Another question is, “How long have you been doing that (spinning)?” That question goes back to shortly after I relocated to this area to work and be near the retirement home we were building. I began “helping out” at the local yarn shop, unpaid in cash but for credit to buy yarn, patterns, and needles. I would assist with craft shows or when the regular staff was unavailable. About a year of so into this, the shop held a weekend retreat at a local hotel with a few vendors and several classes that could be taken for a fee. Though I couldn’t stay for the whole weekend, I did take a couple of classes and one of them was learning to spin with a drop spindle. We had to to furnish our own spindle, but the various wools were provided by the instructor. I ordered a basic top whorl spindle online, a heavy simple tool. We were taught the basics, offered several different samples of wool to see the different characteristics, which I didnt appreciate at the time. That first skein of yarn is still in my possession, though the spindle is long gone. The skein is thick and thin, not well plied, but my first yarn and will be with me forever.

    In the following more than a dozen years, my spinning has progressed through many different tools and I have even taught a few spinning classes and have made a few handsful of simple spindles from dowels and craft shop wooden toy wheels.

    Another question that is often asked is, “How long does it take you to spin that yarn?” That is a difficult question to answer. The length of time it takes to spin a skein depends on so many factors, such as how heavy the weight of the yarn you are trying to spin, how many ounces of fiber you began with, the amount of twist you are putting in the singles and the plies, and what type of tool you are using. Yarn can be spun on spindles or spinning wheels. Spinning wheels are also varied, from antique quill wheels, single and double treadle wheels, wheels with large and small drive wheels, and various spinning ratios. Fairly new to the offerings are e-spinners. These are small electric spinning tools that are basically a mother of all and bobbin driven by a motor. The last time I was asked at the Fall Festival, I hesitated, unsure how to answer. Shortly after the festival, I decided to to spin a 4 ounce braid of Polwarth wool on my single treadle, small diameter manual wheel and to try to keep track of how long it took me. I didn’t track it exactly, but spun during TV time, so I have a fair idea that the 4.2 ounces took about 16 hours to spin and ply.

    This skein is even and consistent, fairly tightly spun and plied and spun to 18 wraps per inch, a method of determining weight of the yarn. Eighteen WPI is fine or lace weight yarn and it ended up 355.5 yards of yarn.

    That brings me to the other comment that is often made, which is to question the price of hand spun yarn and hand spun, hand knit items. I don’t even try to make any money on my craft, if I were to price the skein above, taking in the price of the fiber at $28, plus 16 hours at minimum wage in our state of $9.50, that skein of yarn would have to be marked at $180. Assuming I calculated my time at only $2 per hour, it would still be $60 and that is just for the yarn, not the time to knit or weave it into a garment. The local market wouldn’t support that. If I sell the skein, it will be marked at $.10 per yard, so $.50/hour for my time. If it is made into a woven shawl, I have to take into consideration, the price of the skein of linen yarn that I bought to warp the loom plus about 10 more hours. If I knit it into a shawl, it would add another 25 or more hours of time to the skein.

    As the holidays are approaching, support your local craftsmen at the various shows in your region and know that your purchase is supporting a local business, getting a craftsmen’s design, time, skill, and a piece of their heart. They aren’t your local discount store.

  • A Break, or is it.

    The past weekend Newbern Fall Festival was a success on all levels, except soap sales. The town, museum, and I all felt good about the traffic and sales. I took soap, stain sticks, salves, yarn, and some knit and woven items and spent two day behind the old quill wheel talking about the history and process of spinning. I added a quill full of finely spun Jacob to my bobbin and left about a half a quill full on the wheel. Of the yarn I took, about half of it was sold. Also a hat and woven scarf/shawl of the same yarn.

    It is always a mystery as to what will sell at an event. Sometimes the soap sells as fast as I can reshelve it, this time, not a single bar (but my soap and salves are also in the museum giftshop, so some may have sold there). Often hats and fingerless mitts are the item, rarely yarn, but I sold 7 skeins this time. It allowed me to make a generous donation to the museum fund.

    At any rate, my breed for the spindle blanket challenge is spun, plied, and knit into it’s square and a second breed is spun, plied, and 1 of two squares almost complete. I’m not really stressing over the October/November challenge, so I put my spindles aside, except for the one I carry all the time, and pulled out my wheel that has been so idle for many, many months. I have a 4 ounce braid of pretty Pohlworth wool and I am spinning it on the wheel. I purchased a skein of linen yarn in a compatible color and I am going to weave a lindsey woolsey shawl from them. I don’t have a plan for it; personal use, gift, sale, who knows, but I wanted to weave and had nothing but cotton available for the loom. Perhaps I should warp the loom with some cotton and weave a dishtowel or two to knock off the rust from my skills before I use the linen and handspun wool.

    If I like the outcome of the shawl/scarf, I have another 4 ounces of sapphire colored wool that could be handled the same way, spun on the wheel, woven with linen or a tightly spun mill spun wool as the warp and made into another scarf or some cowls for the Christmas markets.

    Yesterday, I received my personal property tax bill for my craft equipment and inventory and it was the most I have ever been billed. I look at my sales for the past two years and the expenses and question the wisdom of maintaining the cottage business. I do enjoy the demonstration and lessons I can provide at the events, and vending can be rewarding when someone really seems to like something I made, but most people don’t realize the time that goes into spinning the wool, knitting or weaving the garment, and thus my prices end up being only my cost without labor, so I am doing it for the pleasure rather than the profit. I guess there is nothing wrong with that, it does keep me in supplies.

    Now to figure out how to market more than 50 bars of soap.

    After the weekend, both hubby and I were able to get both our flu shots and a Covid booster. We are hoping for a healthy winter ahead.

  • Cabin Crafted

    At times during the worst of the pandemic here, I considered ending the shop as sales on the internet don’t really happen and there were no events. We live in a county of deniers, by statistics, it is the worst in the state as far as cases per capita, though not at the bottom of the pile for vaccinations. Masks have been a non item even during the absolute worst periods. With both of us vaccinated and hoping for boosters, I have recently done a couple of events outdoors, keeping my distance from others by the arrangement of my booth and keeping a spinning wheel between me and visitors. This weekend, I will be both vending and functioning as the Revolutionary War working woman/spinner at Wilderness Road Regional Museum where I volunteer, less now than before Covid. I will be set up on a roofed, open sided porch, which feels fairly safe and will probably be masked most of the time. Before Covid, I would often allow children, with their parent’s permission to sit on my lap and help me spin, then giving them the bit of yarn they spun. I won’t do that now and may never return to that level of comfort. When I participate at the Museum events, I always donate an item to the raffle and/or a percentage of my proceeds to the museum fund to keep them open to the public.

    For the past year and a half of so, my wheels have gotten little use unless I am doing a public event. My interest returned to my spinning roots and the use of spindles. My favorites are the Turkish spindles, all but one of mine, beautifully crafted by Ed Jenkins in Oregon. They vary from the gorgeous Black and White Ebony tiny spindle to a couple larger ones that I use mostly to ply yarn spun on the others. The non Jenkins spindle is a tiny one not pictured.

    Depending on the event and my mood, there are other spindles in my collection. The only one I use with any regularity is the Bosworth top whorl spindle on the left in the next photo. The center spindle is a Dealgan, a Scottish whorless spindle that I use for demonstration purposes and the Mayan spinner that I can barely make function, but kids love to see it. There are also two tiny spindles that are more decoration than functional, I have considered making ornaments from them.

    In preparation for the weekend event, I have finally updated my online shop and the link at the top of the blog now reflects my current stock, though I noticed that some of the pictures are sideways. I guess I should try to figure out how to repair that.

    I have been using up the bits of leftover yarn from making the breed blanket. My first project to use them was a wool hat.

    And I spun another breed for the blanket, but must say, it wasn’t one I enjoyed. It was gray Norwegian wool, a quite coarse longwool with lots of guard hairs that shed while I was spinning it. It was plied as I spun and is ready to knit, but I haven’t brought myself to the point of picking up the needle to start it as it isn’t soft at all and will have to go on an edge of the blanket because of what I have already assembled.

    We will see how this weekend and the Museum Holiday Markets turn out before I decide whether to get serious about restocking the shop for the future. I’m hoping the Saturday rain finds a different location to fall upon. We have gone from drought to soaked.