Pretty colours and chooks

 It has been a very odd few weeks.   Weatherwise, we've had nothing but variable weather.  From the ridiculously mild, to cold and blustery, with rain, snow and winds inbetween.   What we've had little of is sunshine.   Day after day of grey weather.   Just so difficult to get motivated when it's getting dark at 4:30 pm and isn't light until after 7 am.   Then the wind storms, wifi outages and power failures just topped it off.   On the plus side, I did finally force myself to figure out how to use my phone to make a hot spot for my computer.  It wasn't difficult.  I just hadn't really been in a situation where I needed to do it.

In between, I did some fibre blending.  I made up a bunch of packets of rolags from some bits and pieces of fibre that needed to be used up.   These are merino, corriedale, silk, with a bit of angelina or sparkle, which is a local shops nylon, sparkly stuff, similar to firestar. I didn't use a lot of sparkly stuff, just a tad to make it interesting.

Then I blended up some rolags for a new hooked rug.  I didn't want to go out and buy wool yardage for this rug.  It's not an original design and is a guild challenge project.   The photo to the right shows the start of the rug yarn project.   I had to do a bit of concentrating for the first few yards to make sure that I had the grist suitable.   I need a bulky yarn for this project.  It's better if it's a bit uneven in grist (sigh, not my favourite) and has a nice mix of colours.   It spun up quickly because I used a long draw and forced myself to not pay a lot of attention while spinning   It worked though, I got the results I was looking for.

first skeins of rug hooking yarn

I swapped a couple of bags of the first rolags, for a similar amount of roving from a friend.   One bag was a super dark blue shetland/blue faced leicester crossbred fibre and the other was undyed shetland/bfl, and alpaca.    I wasn't too thrilled with the shetland/bfl cross.   From what I could tell, it didn't result in a better fibre.   BFL is long, and quite soft.   This was more shetland-like, in that had a medium crimp, wasn't quite as long, nor as soft.   However, I blended the two fibres together, hand-carded it into rolags and spun it up into a 2 ply worsted.   It's nice enough, mainly I think because it's 25% alpaca.    It's about to become mittens.  No photo right now because it's too dark for a decent photo right now.

Because of the rather scary rise in Covid numbers, my whole family opted to have a stay at home Christmas again.    In the end, I was okay with that, although I missed my kids, I'd just gotten my booster shot, and spent half of Christmas day sleeping!    I did manage to sand all these pieces of a rigid heddle loom though.

 Today, hubby set up a work station in the mud room and I taped up the rigid heddles and stained it all.   Tomorrow, I can put the first coat of finish on it.   Luckily, I still have enough tung oil on hand to put two coats on, which will hopefully be enough.  I can't get more, because I just found out that it was discontinued.  It's the finish I used for my spinning wheels.  I haven't needed to buy any in a while, which is a good thing since it was discontinued in 2010!  

Loom details - 32 in Ashford rigid heddle loom.  It's light weight - 10 lbs,  Available rigid heddle reeds from 5 dpi, 7.5 dpi, 10 dpi, 12.5 dpi, 15 dpi.   It can use 2 reeds at a time, too.  The 7.5 comes with it.  I added the 10 because it would fit in the box and no extra shipping.   At some point I'd like to add another 10, a 12.5 and 15.

I realized that lots of people use rigid heddle looms as a starting point to jump into weaving.  However, I figured that as more than a couple of people have asked me about them, I should learn how to use them.  Also, on days when arthritis means it hurts to weave on the floor loom, table looms work just fine.  They are fast to dress and weave off too, so good for demos!   32in gives a lot of leeway for project possiblities.

There were still some not snowy parts on the lawn, so I let the chooks out that day.   They are pretty wimpy and don't like to wander out of the barn when it snows.   The wild birds had picked through the food in the feeders and scattered a lot on the ground, so the girls headed out to clean it up.   I had leftovers for them too that day.   Later in the afternoon, I heard some insistent knocking at the back door.   This is what I saw!   They either wanted in or wanted me to go out, prolly with treats for them.  There were a couple of the chooks, pecking away at the door.  The rest were just in cahoots!

Interesting Hiking

We've been hiking a trail which is about a 25 minute drive from home.  It's not horribly long, but it has lots of things which make it interesting.   It's a circle trail, it has educational spots to explain the local wildlife, pollinator plants, the local lime industry etc.   It has a dog park, several look out points, picnic spots and sie trails so you can wander around on a new trail every time you go.  It runs alongside the river part way, which has been most interesting.   

Lately, we've been seeing a lot of chewed and knocked down trees.  These aren't saplings but trees which are at least 30 cm in diameter and bigger.

As there are no wildlife signs for beavers posted, I wondered if muskrats could do this sort of damage.   There is was a lovely little grove poplar or aspen trees just when you enter the trail.   All the big trees were either chewed down, or in the process of being chewed.

We were there on the weekend and we saw this!  It seems to be a beaver dam under construction.   Since it's in the Thames river, I can't imagine the beaver having the ability to dam the whole river up, but he could have a nice sheltered home for the winter.

I wonder if the people who take care of the trail, will let the beaver stay?  It's made for a lot of curiosity, and interesting conversation over the past few weeks.

We've been having picnics at this spot, overlooking a man-made lake for  water/run off control.  It's spectacularly beautiful and makes you feel you are in some sort of wilderness area.   I spent a fair time watching, what I thought was a muskrat, playing in the water.   I wonder if it was the above beaver instead?   I didn't have a camera with a strong enough lens, to capture it from where I was and my phone would only show little ripples.    I didn't think I needed a 300mm lens or bigger, but I've found a number of situations where it would have been nice to have.

Here is the lake and lookout from a different vantage point, the last time we visited it.  The snow has all melted now, fallen a second time and melted once again.  Except on our deck, which gets no sunshine during the winter months.  

Yarn Chicken for the Win!

 Sometimes you lose, and sometimes you win!  Yes!  The grey and self-patterning socks I just finished, I lost and and ran out of the grey, a few rows before I switched colours.   This time, I won, with about 60 cm, or 2 ft. to spare.   Happy me!

  I dyed this yarn several years ago and it sat in the bin.  The yarn base was a tad thicker than I prefer, and thus a bit less yardage.   I used a waffle weave pattern for a change from my usual 3/1 ribbing for every day socks.  I wasn't sure if I liked the colour when skeined, but once knitted, it's quite nice.  A very pumpkin sort of colour, with a bit of orange, a bit of copper and a bit of green.

Scarves off the loom

 We don't have a local yarn or fabric store here.  There is however, a large mill ends warehouse, where they have a large stock of regular yarns, quilting fabrics, sewing fabrics, as well as the over stock and over run items.   It's the one place where you can buy last year's hockey logo t-shirt for $5 and full price yarn.   Their sales though, are often really good.   I got 10 yards of brocade there last year for $6.   I was after some tapestry for a pseudo carpet bag project, which I didn't find, but got the brocade instead.  They put fabrics and yarns on sale regularly, with bright yellow tags.   Once in a while they then put those on for half price.   I found a bunch of gradient shawl skeins at one of those sales.  These are knitting yarns and can be a tad delicate to weave with.  I tried one, which was peach to deep burgundy or dark red.  The contrast was too much and the scarf which got the lighter weft, just looked wrong. 

  Next time they had the sale, they still had some of those gradient skeins.   I found 3 different colourways with much less contrast.   This is my favourite so far, in browns, greys and yellows.   Not colours I might normally wear, but very pretty when woven up.   I just got these off the loom this morning!  These ones are cotton and acrylic.    They are a tad longer, running between 74 and 79 inches in length and they are 6 inches in width.   

These are the mauve ones, although I'd call them purple.  They colours run from white, grey and a variety of purples.   They are quite nice, even though there is a bit more contrast with these.   

I have one more set of scarves like this to put on the loom.   They run from grey, green to purple.  I just noticed the grey in the skeins today, so my fingers are crossed, it's not too bright with the other colours.   The nice thing about these is that they appeal to people who are afraid of wearing wool, or can't afford the really soft commercial wools, silks, alpaca, etc.    I can sell these for less money because the materials are far less.  The downside is that the skeins are not easily replaceable, so all of this is single, unrepeatable runs.    It would be too expensive to purchase this yarn at full price though, and make the selling price too high to be worth it, as I don't think they'd sell at a similar price point to a silk blend or wool scarf.

Once these scarves are done, I will have a bag full of the leftover yardage from a run of different colours and yarn brands, all in a similar weight.  I'm thinking of running a few scarves off with a mixed warp and maybe a black weft.   But that goes on the project list and who knows which one will get woven off next.

Sometimes it just doesn't work -

I made a steamed pudding today.   I used a recipe from the 1832 edition of Cooks Own Book.  I've had great results with every recipe I've tried from this book, so had high hopes for this one.  I had suet in the freezer and all the ingredients on hand.   I did have to make the bread crumbs myself this morning, but the rest were simple.

Fruit Suet Pudding

250g flour

125g bread crumbs

125g minced suet

6g ground ginger

 100g dried currents

4g salt

3/4c milk

The recipe was pretty straight forward.   Mix everything together, pop into a pudding bag and boil for 2 hours.   I used a pudding mould, as I didn't have a pudding bag or cloth, or even any muslin on hand.

 After steaming, the pudding popped out of the mould beautifully.  I was thrilled until the puddles of melted suet also poured out.  Ick.

The whole pudding was saturated with fat.  Touching it left a greasy mess on my fingers.  The small bite that I ate, tasted heavily of fat and currents.  The fat overwhelmed even the flavour of the ginger.   It left my lips soft though, not needing lip balm, despite today's cool windy weather.

A simple slice was as unappetizing to look at as it was to eat.  The fat glistened on it.  It literally dripped.  I was amazed it held together too.

I don't have enough experience with steamed puddings to know what I did wrong.   I'm wondering if maybe my bread crumbs were not dry enough, as I did make them that morning.  I'd not had time to leave them to get completely stale, so partially dried them in the oven before grinding.  I weighed everything for accuracy, but I may have done something wrong there.  At any rate, the pudding was inedible by humans.  

 The chooks loved it though!

  

Dyed superwash merino.  I got the white roving on sale ages ago and just found the partial packet hidden behind something.  I did a quick dye pot earlier this summer and just started spinning it a couple of weeks ago.   This was the prettiest part.  The rest of the roving is spinning up green.   It makes sense since it is mainly yellow and blue.   I sort of missed that one.

I had one 50 g skein of the self striping sock yarn and one 50 g skein of the grey.     I didn't have quite enough to match the toes. I thought I had some scraps left from another pair of socks, but they weren't in the sock yarn bin.    I knit to the very end of the grey and had to make the one sock toe a few rows bigger than the first one.

I bought a bulk package of this sock yarn ages ago at an outlet tent sale.   It is pretty when worked up.  Our water though, is iron heavy, so they tend to dull quickly, with an orange cast to them.   I had to re-knit the toe on the first sock, not one, but three times because I kept making it just a bit too big.   I chalk it up to a learning experience as it's been a while since I've knit socks for myself.   

I just took 2 of these scarves off the table loom.  They are made with knitting yarn that was on sale and then half price of the sale price.   It's a gradient yarn for those one skein shawls.   By using the table loom, I can keep the tension from abrading the yarn.  This is because it has a new and yummy stainless steel reed and texsolve heddles.  Plus it's easier for me to control the tension since I can't ratchet the tension up like on the floor loom.  It makes a nice, soft, drapey scarf and I can sell them for a bit less than the wool, or wool/silk blends.  This one is cotton and acrylic. Some of the other yarns I've tried have mylar or shiny threads in them.   They work although you have to be a bit more careful.  I've found twill works better than plain weave.   You need to keep the beat light as the yarn does stretch a bit.   Also, the one I made which ran from pale peach to burgundy had too much contrast.  The purple is nice as is the one on the loom now, which is browns and other sandy colours.

RIP Cat

 So yes, we had a cat named Cat.  His name was actually Mu, as in the Greek letter, but when he was young,  he was the only cat we had, and whenever anyone commented on him, or his whereabouts, it was always something like "Where is the cat? or Has anyone fed the cat?".  One day we realized that he responded to the word cat.  He'd look up. Sometimes he'd come when he was called and so his name changed to Cat.

He was almost 20 years old.  He was really my daughter's cat.   She was a good cat mom, but suddenly found herself in a situation where she had to work 2 jobs and I think she was still taking classes at uni, and Cat was still quite young.  He wanted attention, but she was really only home to sleep.   She came home for Christmas, and asked to leave him with us for a couple of months, while she got back to a normal situation.   Of course we said yes, but when she left to go back, we couldn't find Cat.  He was in hiding and had determined he was staying where he was.   As soon as she headed out, he popped out of hiding.  For years afterwards, she come home and he'd hide.  It was kind of funny.

He was a good cat.  He was playful for many years.  He loved playing with a hand under a blanket.  When we lived in a home which had a gap under the bathroom door, he would play for ages just chasing a finger back and forth in the gap.   He had no idea how to play fight or wrestle, but he'd chase a guitar string around the house if you pulled it along.

 When I had my hip replacement, he parked himself on my new hip and stayed on top of the incision until the staples were removed, when he moved to my feet.  Two days later, when the little staple marks had healed, off he went back to his normal routine.   He regularly looked after me like that.

He didn't like strangers, thunderstorms or mice.  He'd run and hide.  Except for when the farmer next
door was combining.  He'd sit on the table, looking out the patio doors, watching that combine go back and forth, with no fear at all!   

He crossed the rainbow bridge on Sunday night. He will be missed.  He was handsome, caring and a very good pet.  

Supporting Our Local Fall Fair!

 A friend asked me if I'd enter some items in the local fair.   It was cancelled last year and was scaled back this year, still due to Covid restrictions.    There were far fewer classes than other years, to help keep contact risks down.    However there were weaving classes!  I do like to support local events, so of course I'd enter something.    I entered 3 items.   I had a couple of others in mind, but they were for jams, preserves and such.  I wasn't sure I had the time to get them ready, so I went with just the crafty ones.  I really wasn't expecting too much because I've seen the entries in other years and there is an amazing array of talent shown at the local fairs.

I think I did okay though.   I didn't feel right about taking any prize money, especially when times are lean for the local Ag societies, so I asked for my winnings to be donated back.   

This is my rug hooked with hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn.   I really didn't expect this to win at all because in past years there have been some pretty amazing rugs shown.   The second place rug was technically perfect and had absolutely gorgeous colour choices.   The gal who hooked it said she was happy the judge took into account the hand dyed and spun yarn.
 

This wasn't the scarf I was going to originally enter.  I had one with a lovely hand painted warp, but I'd taken it to a meeting to show off and left it in the tote bag.  Of course I hunted high and low and couldn't find it.  I entered this scarf, wool and silk blend, in a bumbaret weave structure.   It's interesting but not quite as striking as the hand painted warp.  Still, I'm happy with it.   

And yes, I found the missing scarf almost as soon as I got home from dropping off my entries.

These placemats were a last minute decision.   It wasn't in the weaving section, but the general crafts.   They are made with a commercial yarn.   I thought they'd go in my kitchen, but the colours don't match.   But they are machine washable and durable, every day sort of placemats and it must have meant something to the judges.   There were some cute appliqued Santa placemats in second place.

So hubby also had the winning bid on a silent auction item and we took home a dry wall lifter for doing ceilings, for the grand total of $35.   He was pretty happy about that!

I was happy to get to hear one of the John Denver impersonator's sets.  He was really good!

I will have to say that local fairs are becoming fewer and fewer.  There are a few big ones which are well supported, but many others struggle to survive!   Next year, please go out and enjoy the fall fair events in your area, even if they are sometimes a little old fashioned.  The livestock competitions are fun.  There are often lots of activities for kids, fair food and more.  You can ohhh and aww and sometimes giggle over the entries in the homecraft divsion and see farm crops, veggies and giant sunflowers.   Sometimes they get the 4H clubs to do educational displays, which can be awe inspiring, when you realize that these are kids showing off some amazing skills and knowledge.  

How Time Flies!

I wanted to knit a new winter toque.   The pattern called for a heavy worsted weight yarn.    I tried with a commercial yarn but it wasn't heavy enough, plus the colour didn't rock my world.   The pattern has a wide, cabled band.  I hunted through my stash and found some merino which I thought was an appropriate grist, which I'd spun worsted.  A worsted spun yarn would give really nice definition to the cables.   First, I dyed the white yarn to a mottled ecru colour.    It was nice and I liked it.   I started knitting and the cables looked wonderful.  By the time I was at the final 10 rows, I was questioning my choice.  The yarn was obviously just a tad bigger than needed, so even with my choosing a smaller size, the hat was too big.   Plus, this was a robust yarn.   My hat was really heavy!   So it's been frogged, with nary a photo for remembering it.

I made and canned salsa.  The recipe said it should thicken up with about 10 minutes of boiling.   It took over an hour.   Next time, I'll just run all the veggies through my food processor to rough chop as hand chopping took forever.  I have enough for half our winter needs though.

Apricot jam made from an 1832 recipe for Apricot Marmalade.   It's very delicious.   Apricots were crazy expensive at the market this year so it's also the most expensive jam I've ever made.   It's a good thing it's so tasty!  Just to mention that I've no problem using grocery store fruit, but I only found imported apricots this year and no little baskets or containers of local apricots.   I was happy to find them at the market.

This bowl of garden fresh tomatoes and basil became a really good marinara sauce.  I didn't peel the tomatoes though.  I just chopped them up, added some onion, garlic, parsley, carrot, zucchini, and a bit of dried italian spice.  I tossed everything in the slow cooker and set it on low.  I stirred it twice, otherwise ignoring it.   About an hour before it was done, I shredded and added the basil leaves.   I liked it as is, although hubby added some chopped leftover hamburger patty to it.  It was good day one, but it was spectacular on day two.   There are several meals of pasta sauce in the freezer too!

This is a bad photo of this year's bounty of canned tomatoes.   I ended up with 38 pints.   I actually ran out of clear jars and had to use a green glass jar, so one of the jars looks like it has ugly brownish tomatoes in it.  I'm aiming to using that one first.

Hubby has been chopping and splitting wood.  Not only did we get several loads of logs delivered, but a huge willow tree dropped a couple of branches on the neighbour's field, so he was out there cleaning up that as well.   The neighbour is in his 90's.  It really seems like there are not a lot of young independent farmers out there.

 

Garden happenings

 I harvested this handful of cotton a few days ago, from the two cotton plants I over wintered.   There have been a few bolls ready to harvest over the past few months, but these all popped at the same time!  I now have a sandwich baggie full of home grown cotton and two very straggly, ugly cotton plants.   I'm not sure if I'm going to over winter them again.   Our climate really doesn't support the growth of cotton and it's not like I'm getting a superb harvest from my potted plants.

There are a couple of milkweed plants growing in the garden, hidden in with the madder plants.   This year I saw a monarch butterfly caterpillar.     Oddly enough, this is the first time I've seen one in the wild, on a milkweed, where they're supposed to be.  I was pretty happy and hopefully it survived to make a cocoon.

I was in the garden, picking a tomato and realized that the whole top part of one of the plants was missing.   It was like it had been snipped off.  There were several other branches lower down that were stripped off all their leaves. 

After careful checking I found this tomato hornworm, another caterpillar I'd never seen before.  This thing was huge.  It must have been almost 4 inches long!  My sweetie snipped the branch it was on and tried to feed it to the chooks, but they wanted nothing to do with it. 

I looked them up and apparently they eat pepper plants as well.  I wonder if they were responsible for a couple of my pepper plants just disappearing over night?   I was definitely not as happy about seeing this beast as I was the monarch caterpillar.

I made english muffins from scratch.   I used a recipe from 1859.  It was quite easy with delicious results.

Filling the Pantry

 More flax has been spun and more is being spun.   I'm still spinning it as singles.  It's still enjoyable spinning.  I'm almost done another 100g bag of long flax.   It's going fairly quickly, but as I'm wet spinning it, I need to take breaks to let my fingers dry out or they get all wrinkly and uncomfortable.     I checked my container of hand spun linen skeins and I'm pretty sure I have enough to weave something.  I just need to decide what to weave.

A friend called up and asked if I wanted her excess garden produce as they were heading out on holidays, and didn't want to leave the veggies to grow too large to use.    I ended up with a ton of cucumbers, zucchini and some beans.

First, I found apricots at the market, so ended up making an 1832 jam recipe for Apricot Marmalade.  It's very yummy.  Then I made cucumber relish.   I'm still trying to decide whether to make a second batch or not.   It's a bit time consuming though.   

After the cucumber relish, I made bread and butter pickles and finally zucchini relish.  We should be set for a while.

dyes and flax loooove!

 I totally can't believe that almost a month has passed since my last post.    I've been busy but still feel like I haven't accomplished much.   As well, we've had a lot of rainy and stormy weather which tends to knock our wifi connection out until the weather clears again, making blog updates difficult.    The weather has been really odd.  Flowers are blooming early and our trees look like they do at the end of the summer.   

The garden has been a partial success.   The green beans and salad greens have loved the straw bales.   I've had issues getting cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, beets and carrots started, not because of the bales, but because something was eating all the young plants down the night after they sprouted.   Next year I'll have to work out some way to protect all the seedlings; maybe cloches pinned down or something.

After an extra week of delays due to backorders, the new dishwasher has arrived.   It also arrived while my sweetie was working from home, so while I had an afternoon with the hookers (rug hookers) in the park, he installed it on his break.   He told me that there was an issue with it though as it was so quiet that he couldn't tell if it was running!

I did some spinning.  I finished up the superwash merino.    Then  I did a sample dye vat of Japanese Indigo, to  see what sort of colour it had.  Just a bit early maybe, and I was using up old Thiox, so it was a bit of an iffy experiment.    But there was colour, lots of colour.    

I dyed 2 skeins of the superwash merino.   It is a lovely soft blue.  I'm happy with this colour.   My indigo vat wasn't fully reduced.   I'm thinking it was the old Thiox, but it could have been that I jumped the gun a bit on timing as well, so it may not have had the extra time needed to be fully useable.   Still, it's the sort of blue one would expect from a woad or indigo vat, so yay for that.    

Then I shoved a handful of merino/cashmere/silk in the vat to see how much dye was left.  The photo is actually a bit lighter blue that in reality.   It's super soft of course, but the colour is lovely.   After this came out of the vat, there was more colour, however after a late start, the light was fading, so I ended it there.

A day trip to the Fibre Garden , my favourite spinning supply store was my birthday present.   I got some extra heddles for the 8 shaft table loom and some lovely Finn sliver.   Best though, was some long line flax.    Flax strick is really difficult to find here, but sometimes the shop has some long flax sliver.  It's processed, but with 12 inch lengths of flax.  It's super slick to spin and really it feels like it spins itself.    

I absolutely love spinning this stuff.   It feels like flax. It spins somewhat close to spinning strick spins like.  And it smells like flax.    This skein is 76g of long line flax sliver.   There were 3 packets in the shop.  I came home with all 3 of them.   

Hiking, jam making and other things have happened.   I'll try to post things more frequently.

One of those weeks...

 Gooseberries and a few black currants are topped and tailed.  I've popped them in the freezer for now.   I didn't weigh them yet.   However, I'm fairly certain that with what I have from last year, combined with this haul, there will be enough for a batch of gooseberry jam.  

There are more berries on the bush and I might get around to getting them.   I pick the berries just before they are ripe.   The first couple of years here I waited until they were ready to pick and they were eaten before I could get to them.  It seemed like there was a full bush one afternoon and by the next morning the bush was fully stripped of berries.    So vexing!

This year I've left the red currants for the birds.  I got the first harvest of the white currants, but today I realized that the birds had eaten the rest of them.  So much for that.  The black currants are just ripening.   There are raspberries beginning to turn red.  The blackberries flowered a bit early and some of them already have fruit, albeit very green fruit yet.  There should be blueberries in a week or two.   If I get around to picking them, the wild black raspberries may give a good harvest too as there are a lot of volunteer brambles this year.

My sweeties truck spent a bit of time in the shop getting fixed.   Then my car needed a routine

servicing.   I didn't want to wait at the dealership while it was getting an oil change.  They do manage to fit simple tasks like an oil change in, but I've waited 2 hours for it to get done and really didn't want to risk that happening.   As well, they are a bit laissez-faire about sanitizing.  The iffy mask wearing and the wiping down of things with a few squirts of cleaner on a dirty rag icked me out. So I had my sweetie pick me up and while I waited, we went for a walk along the river.   It was so nice.  The weather was perfect.  There was enough breeze to keep the mosquitos away too. 

 I'm switching the servicing of my car to my sweeties mechanic, as the rather rude call after I got home, demanding that I fill out a survey and give them the score they wanted, before I knew the questions that would be asked, really turned me off.   

The dishwasher died.   It's been faultless for over 10 years but the electronics have gone screwy.   Sadly, we don't think it's worth fixing.   I've discovered it's a joyless task looking for new appliances.   Half of them have delivery dates for the fall.  A bunch more just aren't in stock, with no timeline as to when they'll be back in stock.     I can't seem to get curbside pick up set up.  Nope, I don't want you to install it for some stupidly outrageous price when I have people who can do that living here.  Argh.   I want to just stash my dishes, press a button and come back later when they're clean.   I don't want to wait until September or October to be able to do this!

The the clothes washer started making weird squealing noises.    It's never ending...

 

Just playing around with colour

I found a ziplock baggie with 89g of white merino stashed away.   It wasn't in a place where I expected it to be.   I pulled out the slow cooker which never got hot enough to actually finish cooking whatever food was in it, and put in a couple of inches of water, and a few glugs of white vinegar.  I put the merino roving in to the slow cooker to soak for a bit, then turned it on and added some red and yellow dye.

I'm happy to say that while I never actually was able to finish cooking a meal in this slow cooker as it never seemed to get hot enough, it did an admirable job with dyeing.   I did keep a check on it now and again, but I was pretty much worry free.   After a few hours in the pot and the dye was exhausted, I turned off the crock pot and let it cool down overnight.   The next morning I pulled out this lovely flame coloured roving.    Yay for colour!

Then in the same box, of odds and ends, I found a bag of purple and pink mill ends which I'd dyed a while ago.  I didn't feel like dragging out the drum carder, so I just pre-drafted the bits that I could and hand carded the rest.  

Once I'd finished spinning the second bobbin of cotton, and plying the two for 318 yards of white 2 ply  cotton,  I started spinning the purple/pink.   I'm on the second bobbin so will hopefully get to start plying soon.   There isn't a lot of it but it's pretty and after spinning all sorts of white fibres over the past few months, it has been a joy to play with colour.

Playing with colour and paints.   The top row is trying out a new set of watercolours in pans.  The bottom row of cards is using the old gouache paints I've had for ages.  So much fun!

Spinning

This is 298 yards of 2 ply merino.   It's lace weight and I haven't yet spun enough of it to use it for any real project.  Maybe a scarf could be made from this, but I really, really don't like knitting scarves.  I'd want much more yardage in order to weave scarves.  If I'm going to dress the loom for a scarf, I'd better have enough supplies for 2, 3 or better yet, 4 scarves.  Same amount of work to dress the loom,  for more woven items!   

It's super soft, bouncy and I've no idea what to use it for.    

I was a bit tired of spinning fine white yarn though, so I dug through some of the bits and pieces looking for some dyed wool.   I found absolutely nothing in the way of dyed wool roving in my stash.   How did I let that happen?   Next I thought that I'd spin some flax. Spinning flax and cotton are both fibres I need to practice periodically.   Since I spin neither of these fibres as much as I do wool, I like to keep my spinning muscle memory active.  I can always tell when it's been too long as it takes me a few yards to get warmed up and spinning them comfortably.

I had this idea to spin some flax.  I set up my wheel for flax spinning.  I filled my lovely little pottery flax water pot and hung it on the wheel.   Then I routed through my stash for some flax, but instead grabbed a bag of Egyptian cotton sliver.   Why I changed my mind, I don't know.   It's not like I don't like spinning cotton.  I love it.  It's a fairly fast spinning fibre, using a point of contact long draw.   I spin it relatively well.  What I don't really love is this particular cotton sliver.  It's white.  It's commercially prepared, so while it's relatively long staple, about 1 1/4 inch, it's super slick and slippery.   It takes a bit more effort to get it to spin nicely than the coloured cotton rovings which are processed with a bit of crimp left in, making them easy to spin.

I started off spinning this years ago, by making punis from sliver, to give it that little bit of tension which made it easier to spin.   A puni is a very tight, small rolag.   You roll the fibre off the handcarders, using a thin dowel as a puni core to get the cotton fibres rolled tightly.    Then you slide the dowel out and the puni is ready to spin.     It's been a while  since I've spun this particular cotton sliver, so I'd totally forgotten that I needed to make punis.   After spinning a few yards though, I realized that I didn't actually have to make punis and I was spinning it just fine.   I guess practice does make perfect.

I emptied 3 bobbins with flax singles on them.   It took a while, which was why I'd kept putting this
chore off.  It's done and they are stashed with the rest of my spun flax/linen yarn, for a future project.  I also dug through the bin and noticed that I'd been tossing in the bags of flax fibre.  I'd thought I was out of flax, but nope, I have some left.  I'd just hidden it.

Yes, the flax is pretty much the same colour as the weathered board.   Maybe a little browner, but washed out because at the particular moment I snapped the shutter, the sun came out!

 

Finished the Socks!

 A while back, before the latest Covid lock down, my daughter gave me 7 balls of sock yarn, suggesting that we trade.  She'd give me the yarn and I'd give her back socks.   I don't think I'd have made this trade with anyone else, but since she's my daughter, I didn't mind.

It had been several years since I'd knit socks, so I had to relearn the steps.  It wasn't difficult, but I did have to restart several socks, a couple of times because I'd forgotten how the yarns worked.   Kroy is a sturdy and easy to knit yarn, but it's not as fine as most sock yarns, and I needed to change my stitches and gauge.

The bright unicorn fart yarn wasn't in the original back of yarns.   Instead there was a bright red yarn, but it was wool, rayon and nylon.   I didn't really like the rayon aspect, so I switched it out for the stripey yarn.  At first, I was going to make them for me, but the more I thought about the rayon sock yarn, the more I said nope...just not happening.   So my daughter got the fun striped socks.

I also used this project to experiment with different heels.   I did the German Short Row heel.  Ick.  It didn't fit me at all when I tried it on.   I also had to use markers to keep track of my stitches, which became a royal pain in the butt.   My next heel type was the square heel.   That was one sweet heel to knit.  It was easy to knit, looked fine but also didn't fit me at all.   I ended up doing the round heel that I normally use on the final pair of socks.   It fit me just fine.     Nice to note though, that they all fit my daughter just fine.   

I was doing some rug hooking but having a wool rug on your lap when it's 30C outside and no AC inside, just isn't doable.   If I had a gripper strip hooking frame on a stand, or a Cheticamp style frame,  then hooking could happen.   However I use a small, plastic hoop.  It isn't big enough to be supported and ends up flopping the whole rug on my lap.   It's just too warm right now, with this unseasonably early heat wave!

I have spun and plied some lovely Merino.  It's another skein of white yarn, so I haven't yet photographed it.   I'm beginning to wish I had some dyed roving to play with, just for a change. 

 

Woad plants are happy.   Japanese Indigo is very happy.   I have Weld plants again this year which makes me happy!  Yay!

Missing month of May

 It's been a busy month.   The weather has been up and down.   We had a stretch of milder temperatures with no frost for several weeks.  I took the opportunity to get much of my garden in.   According to the Canada Natural Resources we are in hardiness zone 6a.    Our last frost date is supposed to be May 11 according to OMAFRA.   I lost two pepper plants last night because it got really cold and this evening I just covered all my tender plants and put feed sacks and straw around the tomatoes.    Sadly, I don't have enough sheets and covers for all the planters on the deck, so hopefully the patchy frost which is forecast for tonight, will not get to the deck.   There are two tomatoes at the back which don't have cages to support them yet, so they are just buried in the straw which I'm using as extra mulch over the cardboard.

The straw bale garden experiment is doing quite well.   The lettuce has loved it so much that I've already harvested our first salad.    The cucumbers are doing okay and beans are already coming up.  Again though, the tender new leaves are being snipped off just as they come up.   I've had to put a ratty whirly gig, faded but still spins, and some hoops over the bean seedlings to hopefully keep whatever is eating them away.   

I've seen some pretty spectacular photos and reports of straw bale gardening success, and an occasional report that it doesn't work.   I've heard of issues with bad straw, or people using hay and getting lots of weed growth.  Also, you really have to condition the bales to jump start the internal composting in order to actually have them sustain the plants.  It also requires keeping on top of watering.   Since I don't have a drip system for my bales, it means I have to go out and give them a bit of water once a day, or twice on really hot days.  It's totally not a no work garden this way.   But way less weeding, is what I'm finding.   I've been weeding the raised beds multiple times and it seems the weeds pop back the next day.  I've the Japanese Indigo bed covered, so my fingers are crossed that they'll be okay with tonight's weather.   I usually put them under cloches, but with the early May weather being mild, I didn't bother this year.    Next year for sure, as I won't risk it again.

We've been walking the local trails.   Once thing I've noticed is that some of them look so different in the spring.   This trail was unbelievably different looking with the heavy hardwood tree canopy and lush fern covered forest floor.   It's a joy to traverse the trail while we still have few mosquitoes.

Canadian geese seen yesterday.   They are huge birds!   These didn't have babies with them, which I'd normally expect to see in the spring.   Still they were a joy to watch while they paddled along until they spread their wings and headed off with a lot of honking and fanfare.