Cabin Crafted

Tag: Spinning

  • Summer Camp

    The museum where I volunteer as a spinner and occasional teacher holds a history themed week long day camp each summer. This year’s theme is cultures, representing the melting pot of cultures that dwelt in this region and the crafts they brought. Next week, I will spend one afternoon on fiber and will provide each camper with a small drop spindle to take home and a lesson on how to spin on one.

    The spindles are wooden toy wheels on a dowel with a cup hook at the top. Each in a small storage bag that will also have an ounce or so of wool for practice, and each will be given a printed instruction as a reminder when they get home with them.

    The weather is going to be hot as it has been for several weeks, but cloudy, so maybe not too uncomfortable in the Colonial outfit. I am following the bagpiper and he will certainly have on more layers than I will.

    As my favorite thing to do at the museum is working with children, drawing back on my retired educator skills, this is a perfect afternoon.

    The annual scavenger hunt has been fun this week, with easy to find object and encouraging much more spinning time for me. The wool I have been spinning was slightly sidelined as I wanted to spin the gift sample that my friend sent with the spindle she proxy shopped for me. One half was spun Monday, the other half yesterday and the two plyed last evening to create a small 46 yard skein. The pale yellow, I learned from here is caused by a bacteria in the wool in wet or humid conditions and though washing with soap stops the growth and makes the wool safe, the yellow color does not wash out. It will be added to a bag of other small skeins and they will be knit into hats when my current knitting project is complete.

    If the weather ever cools off, a couple days of weeding flower beds, dividing Iris and Day Lilies needs to be done. And a couple skeletons of Nandina that the cold killed off two winters ago, need to be dug out. Other than cucumbers and a handful of green beans, the garden is growing but not producing much right now. There will be tomatoes, a few ears of corn, peppers, and hopefully a second round of green beans later in the summer.

    Right now, we are sitting out a round of thunderstorms. We got our daily walk in prior to them setting in. It was hot and humid, but done anyway.

  • It’s Gone

    For the past several years, our youngest son and his family have kept their RV parked on our farm. It leaves occasionally for them to use as a mobile hotel and was often used for them to stay in when visiting us. The last couple of times they were here, they stayed in the house due to some repair issues on the RV. I would start up the generator every few weeks, keep mouse traps baited and cleared, but otherwise just mowed around it. They now have a mini homestead and have moved it home. It is odd driving down the driveway and not seeing it, or doing a double take out the front window when noticing it isn’t there. In addition to the RV leaving, a pile of roof and vent repair items that have been in our garage left with it.

    Weekend before last was the only fiber festival that the Jenkins, makers of my favorite spindles attend. A distant friend that attends each year has offered and proxy shopped for me several times as the festival is in Oregon and I am in Virginia, so attending in person hasn’t happened. This new plum spindle will soon join the spinning fun.

    The Jenkins spindle group to which I belong on social media holds a fun scavenger hunt each year during Tour de France, called Tour de Fleece. Many groups hold versions of Tour de Fleece, many with challenges on who or what team can spin the most, but our version is more laid back and more fun. Each day, we are given an object to find and photograph with our spindle in progress on a spin. Each day the spindle needs to have more spun or plyed fiber on it than the day before. I have several small Jenkins Turkish spindles that will be used during this period. There are prizes donated by members of the group if you find enough of the items and post your photo within the 24 hour window. This year, I am doing it just for the fun of it and have asked not to be included in the prize drawing if I find enough items and follow through with the daily posting.

    During DH’s broken clavicle healing, my trigger finger surgery healing, and our cruise, I didn’t post much in the group. It is fun to be back involved with them.

    Most of my evenings have been spent knitting on a shawl with a skein of handspun. Last night, I began the Old Shale Lace border using a different skein of handspun alternating with the other skein as there isn’t enough of it to finish without adding the skein of similar colors. One 4 row repeat of the border has been done and the next begun. We will have to see how many repeats I do before I either tire of it or it begins to distort the triangular shape of the shawl. It is difficult to tell with it scrunched up on the needle.

    After days and days of heavy rain that damaged our driveway, filled the ditch above our culvert (again), and damaged the state road that had recently been graded, it is dry. The garden will need to be watered if we don’t get a thunderstorm soon. Yesterday was a mild day in the upper 70’s, today it is nearly 90. That is usually a recipe for a thunderstorm, at least I’m hoping so.

    My current read is a new release called “Reckoning Hour” by Peter O’Mahoney and as I read it, I feel like I have read it before, though it was just released in April. A bit of research and I think it is very reminiscent (almost too much so) of a Grisham book.

  • Colonial History

    The school year is winding down here and so, the class groups at the museum are coming to an end. Today, we had about 40 second graders visit us. Not as many rotations, fewer volunteers, but the kiddos did very well.

    It is a bit more challenge with the younger students as they haven’t had the history in their Social Studies classes in any depth, their attention span is much shorter than the middle school aged students, so my presentation takes a much simplified form.

    I start with asking them, “How many outfits do you think you own?” Answered by 10 to 1,000,000. “Where do you get your clothes?” Answered by Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc. From there, I try to get them to imagine having only 1 or 2 outfits, having to make them, including making the cloth they are made from, and wearing that same outfit until they outgrew it and handed it down to a younger sibling. They have a hard time with that idea or having only a handed down outfit themselves. How no handmade cloth was wasted, that worn garments were taken apart and the cloth reused for bags or quilts.

    Trying to get them to imagine living in a 10′ x 10′ log home with parents and several siblings with no kitchen and no bathroom is also difficult for them to comprehend.

    There are some good questions, some wrinkled noses over how few baths they could take and how that process works. How they had to help shear sheep, skirt and wash fleece, help card the wool, then help spin it on spindles. I have a handful of small spindles I have made for them to try and for them to see how difficult the process is initially, as I have been spinning on a spindle the entire time I have been talking to them.

    There are lots of flax, hemp, and wool samples to pass around. Some woven pieces, box loom tapes, and lucet cords to see what even as kids that young would have helped make.

    It is fun to have the various ages and drawing from my teaching skills with them.

  • Busy Week/Changing Seasons

    There was a lot of living history this week. On Wednesday, we had about 80 fourth graders and 7 rotations with the museum history, slavery in Appalachia, a bit of William Tell fun with suction cup arrows and a plexiglass shield to protect the”victim,” women’s duties on the frontier, blacksmithing, fiber production at home on the frontier, and frontier Militia that includes the presenter firing a flintlock rifle for the students. After we were done, the curator showed them a covered wagon and how it would have been loaded to travel the Wilderness road to the western parts of Virginia (now Kentucky and Ohio).

    Thursday we had over 100 sixth graders with some changes in rotations to match the available volunteers. These groups are fun to do and also have some of the frustrations that teachers deal with daily. Some the the youth are very engaged and have great questions. Some would rather be anywhere else and poke and prod their neighbors, or engage in flirting with another student.

    The door to the loom house is low, about 5’5″ and most kiddos that age walk in without a thought, but there are a few as tall or taller than me at 5’7+” that have to duck to enter. The space inside is tight to put 15 sixth graders, but we make it work.

    Wednesday night threatened cold so the flowers planted in the deck pots were covered for the night, there are no more nights much below 50 f for the next 10 days.

    The first Hummingbird was spotted this morning. The single feeder that is currently out will empty quickly and soon additional feeders will be added.

    The vegetable, sunflower, and herb seed have sprouted under the grow lights. They will begin to get acclimated to the outdoors in a day or two.

    The Amaryllis bud opened with only 2 flowers but is 22″ tall.

    After the museum yesterday it was time to mow the lawn for the first time. The riding mower original battery was so dead there wasn’t even a hint of light from the headlights, much less turning over the engine. I edged around the house and pulled out the gas push mower and it wouldn’t start either. Our once a year pushing the heavy riding mower up on to the trailer and trip two towns over to drop it off wit the repair guy was done. Once it is repaired, the grass will be so tall it will be difficult to mow, but that is all I can do for now.

    We are looking forward to warm days and mild nights. Tomorrow, grandson will come help me get the rest of the garden ready to plant soon.

  • Different types of challenges

    There are fun challenges, physical challenges, financial challenges, personal challenges, mental challenges, and many more.

    We face various challenges daily with different mindsets. Sometimes our challenges require us to buck up and tough it out. Sometimes our challenges overwhelm and send us spiraling downward. Or upward when we overcome them.

    The social media spindle group to which I subscribe offers monthly challenges. Some have definite guidelines, others are to set your own and then strive to fulfill them. This past month, the challenge was to spin color, it could be your favorite, one you don’t like, one that is new to you. I had be given a two samples from a braid of Rambouillet wool. They came with two new spindles, one I won the lottery to be able to purchase, the second, a gift from hubby for our 45th anniversary. One sample was browns, whites, and teal, the second was just the teal. I reached out to the indie dyer from whom the Jenkins (spindle maker and his wife who does all the labelling, marketing, and packaging) had obtained it. She was able to send me a 4 ounce package of just the teal, a color I generally lean toward (my phone case, some accessories, etc).

    All month long I have been spinning this wool, mostly on my smaller Jenkins Finch style Turkish spindles, a little on my Golding drop spindle with a lovely inset of Sunflowers, painted by a Ukranian artist. The month is coming to a close and as of yesterday, there was still about 1/3 of the package of wool to be spun. Several ounces into spinning it, I no longer cared for the color and the wool, a breed I had only sampled before reminded me too much of another breed I don’t care to spin. Basically, wanting to just quit on it.

    Yesterday, the local spinning group to which I below, not just the couple of neighbors that I spin with weekly, held it’s annual front deck spin in hosted by one of the members and her DH. This all afternoon event includes a pot luck lunch and in addition to the regulars that can attend the one afternoon a week meet up, folks from as far away as about 4 hours, who many of us know from retreats, also attend. An opportunity to see some friends only seen a couple of times a year is wonderful. I had been looking for a small travel spinning wheel, and the couple from 4 hours away had one they were willing to part with. They brought it with them yesterday for me to purchase.

    A new challenge, plying the wool spun all month on a wheel I had never previously used, outdoors in the chilly breeze. It took a little while to get the tension and ratio right for the fine, too soft almost threadlike singles of the spindle spun wool, but it was accomplished, hopefully with enough twist to be good yarn.

    And once home after spinning more on the spindles at the event, a bit was set aside to fulfill the last week of the challenge and the remaining wool is being spun on the new wheel to be plied later today or this evening. It is spinning to the same yarn weight on the wheel, so there should be a nice, light weight, large yardage, 4 ounce skein when the two are combined. It may get set aside until the color again appeals to be to made into a project, or the skein may become a door prize or gift exchange item for a later event.

    This project has presented several different types of challenges, some self imposed, some imposed by other reasons, but it almost done.

    Next month, a more preferred fiber for spinning will be chosen as it will be a practice for the Tour de Fleece challenge in July. Our group doesn’t compete in any of the larger Tour de Fleece challenges with other groups, it is just a “for fun” challenge within our group with some prizes at the end. I will definitely pick a wool with some color variation and of a breed that I enjoy spinning. Rambouillet is now added to the list to not spin again in the future. I definitely don’t prefer the very soft, shorter fibered wools. I want a bit of substance in my spin.

  • Planning and family time

    Grandson #2 is still with us for another week, so last night, we had our daughter, her partner, and their three “kids,” 11 to 18 over for dinner. Daughter and I have a team routine to make empanadas and tostones together, plus I had assembled a large salad of goodies obtained at the Farmer’s Market yesterday morning. My spring lettuce, radishes, carrots, etc. are still in barely sprouting stage as the garden was a bit late getting started this year. I love cooking with her and love having the extras over to visit and eat.

    While they were here, granddaughter asked me to again do a garden plan for the 6 four foot square raised beds we added to their yard a few years ago. I have been her garden planner since inception. She has been very dedicated to keeping her garden watered and weeded and her Mom enjoys putting up peppers and tomatoes, dilly beans, and any other extras it produces. After they left, I pulled my binder and realized that I failed to keep a copy of last year’s plan, but her Mom texted me a copy this morning along with the wish list of vegetables to grow. Her plan has been drawn out, scanned, and emailed over so their early veggies can get planted out or seeds sown. Later in the spring, we will likely go together to the local nursery to get her tomato and pepper seedlings, and for me to add a few peppers that I only want one of. The plan to fit on the grid leaves out the paths, but she knows that and has learned my shorthand for filling it in.

    I get a kick out of helping the 11 year old to learn to garden. We have been at it now for 4 years.

    She also plays in a under 12 co-ed soccer team, so we spent an hour after our daily walk out in the sun by the field watching her team, coached by her Mom in their first game of the season. It was a little chilly and breezy, but standing by the field, some spindle spinning was accomplished. That is my daughter/team coach under by hand on the left. One of those speck on the field is granddaughter.

    After having lost 4 hens to the Cooper Hawk this early spring, and having at least 1 who has not resumed laying, the egg supply is providing only enough for daughter’s family, us, and a friend getting a dozen every now and then. There were really too many hens in the coop and 9 seems to be plenty as long as eggs are for personal use and not to sell. The hens are approaching 3 years old and a decision will have to be made come late fall whether to replace them with chicks to be laying by spring. If so, how many. If not, the supply will continue to dwindle as they age out.

    We experienced the east end of the storms that raged across the US this past weekend. It rained very heavily on Friday, all day, washing ruts in our very sloped dirt and gravel driveway again. Yesterday the wind kicked up and the gust were strong, reaching up to 60 mph during the late afternoon and overnight. We were fortunate not to have any tornados, hail, or loss of power like thousands in our region. There are some branches down, but as our south neighbor recently cut down the dead Ash trees along our south property line and on his side to install new fencing, I don’t see any trees down.

    The rest of the week is very spring like with many April showers to help the seedling grow. On toward the last frost date (still a month off) but the weather prognosticators thinking April will be warmer than usual, so maybe this spring will be an anomaly and we won’t see another frost.

  • Just In Time

    This is a part of Virginia that gets at least a couple of several inch snows each winter, once in a while, a foot or foot and a half that prevents us from leaving for a few days as the State 700 roads are the last to be cleared, plus we live downhill about 2/10 of a mile on a dirt and gravel driveway. This winter has been an anomaly. There have been flurries and barely dusting bare surfaces, an inch or two that lasted a mere 6 hours before there wasn’t a trace left. If all the rain we have gotten since September was snow, we would never get out. Each time the forecast says snow possible, weather patterns shift just enough for it to be wintery mix or rain. There is another weather event predicted that could/might unload 2 up to 4 inches late Sunday, but chances are it will just be another cold rain.

    As I was walking back from releasing the hens into the yard, you can see a few inches of Daylily leaves emerging and the daffodils in the back garden have buds. The snow won’t bother the daffodils, the Daylilies won’t be too happy, but will be okay. The Snowdrops on one of our walks are blooming. They will be fine, they often bloom in the snow when it happens.

    In the fall, during hubby’s early months dealing with the health issues, an online friend offered to proxy shop for a spindle for me from the craftsman who makes the best Turkish style spindles available, Ed Jenkins, Jenkins Yarn Tools. They are in Oregon and only do events within a couple hours from home. Linda bought me a lovely Crabapple Finch, a smaller size that I love and wrapped it in some gorgeous black Merino/Alpaca/Silk blend roving, a very generous amount. About a month or so later, she was going to attend another event where Ed and Wanda were set up and offered again, this time getting me a Lilac Finch, and packed it in the same blend in a camel brown color. Those fibers were spun on the spindles they came with and a shawl/scarf was started for me. Last night, I cast off “Linda’s Hug,” soaked it, blocked it, and because it is so delicate, the yarn spun to 20 wraps per inch or lace weight yarn, it dried over night.

    The two yarns were used together and in spite of the light weight (50.94 g or 1.8 ounces) of the shawl, it is very warm with the Alpaca and Silk, just in time for a possible winter blast.

    I am ever grateful to the friends I have met through my Jenkins group and also my two local friends who I taught to spindle spin and hooked on the Jenkins spindles. They have been very generous in their time and support first through the Covid lockdowns and then through the early days of hubby’s issues. Each time I wear this shawl, I am reminded of love and concern.

  • Morning Song

    Last evening as the night chores were being done, the sky had this gorgeous pink swathe in the sky.

    As I was planning last evening’s meal, the frozen green vegetables in the freezer did not appeal. I knew I had among the last of this spring’s harvest of asparagus, which I love, but are not favorites of hubby, I remembered that 4 of the plants in the row of spinach I had planted survived the chicken onslaught a few weeks ago. A quick pop over to the garden and the two smaller heads, a handful of pea shoots, and a couple of asparagus that had emerged were harvested and a salad plan was made. Fresh raw spinach with pea shoots and shavings of the most delicious vintage aged cheddar cheese and a mild vinegarette. A nice fresh from the garden addition to dinner.

    The morning chores were greeted by the song of the cicadas that have emerged up the hill in the woods. I stopped during my walk yesterday and recorded their sound. In our south woods or in the tall hay, a gobbler was sounding his call. No traffic sounds, no jets like I grew up with, just natures calls and bird songs.

    Soon there will be fresh peas, the two beds are full of white blossoms.

    The potatoes look like they need topping again. I am excited to have potatoes in the garden again this year, though they aren’t a long keeping variety, they will be enjoyed fresh, maybe a few small ones will be able to be dug from the edges when the bush beans are ready, that is a delightful combination.

    On summer mornings, when I go out to turn the hens out, I carry a hoe with me and in the cool of the morning, the weeding is done. More mint was dug and pulled this morning and I realized that I had not put down cardboard around the potato bed and covered it, so that task needs to be undertaken. Though I don’t like plastic in the garden, that feed sack is tucked under the edge of that bed and will have to remain there until the potatoes are dug unless I can tug it out before putting down cardboard and spoiled hay.

    More spring flowers were cut last night for the dining table. The Dutch Iris are blooming now that the Bearded Iris are fading, the Coreopsis is blooming and lots of Comfrey flowers.

    I am a failure at flower arranging, but love a bouquet of fresh cut flowers on the table during the season.

    After chores last night, I finished spinning the second bobbin of the gray Shetland and plied a very full 4 ounce bobbin. There is still about 6 more ounces of the wool, some on the two bobbins that didn’t fit on the plying bobbin, so I will weigh them, subtract the bobbin weight, divide the remaining Shetland so that each of those bobbins end up with 2 ounces and spin and ply another 4 ounces. I think there is plenty now to knit the sweater for me for next winter.

    It was spun with a pattern in mind, then I bought this Peacock gradient braid and I think a yoke style sweater with the Peacock at the yoke and the gray below would be stunning, so now I am in a quandry.

    This morning is cool enough for a light hoodie, too cool to enjoy my coffee on the deck, so maybe I should take advantage and though I have already spent some time in the garden this morning, I should put down the two paths of cardboard and hay and put a layer of mulch on the asparagus bed that will now be allowed to send up it’s pencil thin ferny shoots to feed the crowns for next year’s harvest. The cycle of life.

    “When the power of love, overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendricks

  • Rainy Day Activity

    Bertha has been providing us with rain all day long. Another front has stalled over our area and we are looking at 3 or 4 more days of rain on our saturated soil and full creeks. Another flash flood warning is in place. We are high above the creeks and sloped, but flat enough hopefully to not have mud slide activity, though there has been a lot of that including destroying a property and making a home uninhabitable in our tiny village.

    With my spindle spinning, I am participating in a spin along using only the Jenkins spindles. Since I had filled them all a couple of days ago, I elected to report my results for the month and wait until June 1 to work with them again. I have a new to me spindle due in the mail tomorrow or Friday and received a gorgeous braid of wool a few days ago that I am anxious to begin spinning. To occupy my time, I have been using my wheel to try to make a bigger dent in the pound of gray Shetland that I have been spinning on spindles for two months. And knitting on the shawl that has been on the needles about that long. The first Shetland bobbin is nearly full and I will fill another before plying. The shawl was finished tonight, soaked and is pinned out to dry. I played a bit of yarn chicken with it and finished with only about a yard left, not enough for another row.

    I have enough yarn spun to begin my sweater, but knitting a sweater when the weather is hot is not something I want to begin. With the current pandemic cancelling events daily, knitting more items for my shop seems futile, there won’t be craft shows and holiday markets this year. Most people don’t want to buy knitted or woven garments online without being able to handle them, try them on. I have a knitting request from a family member, but it will need to be superwash wool, which I haven’t purchased yet, and it is another sweater. Maybe I will just work on the Shetland, perhaps even one spindle that I can clear before the first of the month. We are going to be indoors for a couple more days, but I did get a bit of weeding done in the walled garden between rain showers today.

    When the rain ends, I plan to make a compost bin to put in one corner of the garden. If I can make it sufficiently large, I will gather the composting material from where I moved the chicken run and use it as a base to finish composting along with kitchen scraps to have it ready to supplement beds as they get harvested and replanted. I really hope to fill the freezer and the canning shelves with homegrown produce for the winter season.

  • I might be nuts . . .

    . . . or at least a bit stir crazy. For the stay at home order, I decided to do most of my spinning on spindles, rather than the wheel and to strive to spin enough yarn for a particular sweater pattern for me.

    The rainbow was partly spun on spindles, finished and plied on the wheel and it is not part of the sweater plan. It is 130.5 yards with no plan in sight.

    Whenever the weather is not conducive to walks, hikes, or garden. When I’m not cooking, baking, or cleaning, I am knitting on a shawl, slowly, or spindle spinning. The pile below is the result of a couple of months of being stuck at home. It is about 1200 yards of 2 ply light fingering to fingering weight yarn.

    There is still several ounces of the gray Shetland and the shiny blue BFL/Silk. A small amount of the maroon wools, and 4 ounces of White Shetland. The skeins to the right of the lower row are various small skeins, some will be used, some will be held out.

    We each have our means to keep busy, to settle anxiety, this has been mine. I spin on 3 Turkish spindles, I have a request for another Jenkins Turkish spindle, but so far I haven’t found one.

    As a sidenote, the sun just peeked out after three days of heavy rain, flooded creeks, threatened dams. Maybe it is going to quit before we float down to the valley.