Odette's Obsessions

Small projects and Big surprises

2009-12-29T12:25:00.007-05:00

The mittens are done! Why does the second of a pair take a gazillion times longer than the first one does? I swear that first mitten took only 3 days of intermittent knitting while the second mitt took until last night at 7:30 when I was sewing in the last tail!

After making a variety of wool scarves and the tencel experience , I decided to wind off a cotton tea towel warp. I hunted through my limited stash and there wasn't enough of any one particular colour to work with. There were lots of partial tubes that I'd picked up along the way and several that I'd purchased but didn't like the results. Nothing really "went" together in a traditional colour sense. So I tossed a bunch in a basket, used the two full tubes as background and randomly wound a third colour, changing whenever I felt like it. Four towels which should be about 36 x 20 before wet finishing.

I hated the warp halfway through winding it! I perservered... Threading the loom - 534 threads took a while because there was this holiday stuff happening in between, but I had planned it so I'd be weaving on Boxing day - as it's usually quiet. Nope.. I was still winding that darned thing on. Without a paddle, I separated the strands while winding with my fingers. Obviously I didn't do a very good job as it twisted around itself horribly.
It was a slow winding job and needed frustration breaks! I thought I'd broken tons of threads while winding, but it was only 5 :) More than I like but at least the warp is on, tensioned and I.... Can... NOW.... WEAVE.........YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what? after grumbling the whole way through about not liking the colours and worried that I'd hate weaving it... I don't! It's maybe not an elegant or pretty project, but it's interesting to weave, with all those colours. I'm glad that I didn't give up and cut it off. Not only does wasting that much thread go against the grain, but I learned much in patience, problem solving and that sometimes the project gets much better as it goes on. Ask me as I'm approaching half way through the last towel though. That is always the fatigue point for me, wanting to get on to a new project! hehehe

You know, none of my weaving books or magazines had a draft and tie up for waffle weave. This project would have been perfect to try it out with! Right now it's a plain twill. With all those colours, I didn't want to get too fussy with a pattern.

Sometimes people surprise you in amazing ways. Without my knowledge and totally nothing that I'd asked for Christmas, my hubby '' tricked" out my Kromski Minstrel spinning wheel! The Distaff is functional. There are extra bobbins! Who doesn't want extra bobbins so you can switch out projects or do a 3 ply wool? There is a very pretty upright lazy kate. Which I might add, I didn't need because he made me one which is plain but works perfectly. His reasoning was that the new one was "pretty". It is, I'm not complaining. And.. he added in something I'd have never in a million years thought about getting myself.... A Jumbo Flyer...... It's huge for making fat or novelty yarns (says she who loves to spin fine and smooth yarn) but also for plying larger amounts. The bobbins are enormous. I say bobbins because it comes with one and he added a second one as well! It's ratios are much slower and will take a while to get used to. It required a 3 second adjustment to the wheel - and a trip to town to get the required drill bit. I plied with it. I filled a regular bobbin overly full- so full that I couldn't actually get my fingers in to change the hooks. I used the jumbo flyer! I only filled the bobbin halfway! I have the biggest skein I've made yet!
For weaving, I can see that larger bobbins mean less waste from not quite long enough ends and less knots. This is a very, very good thing..
For spinning, I can see fatter yarns and more ease in plying. With a shawl project upcoming, which is designed to be woven with fatter yarns, this will make the project so much easier.

Colours of December

2009-12-22T16:28:00.006-05:00

Inspired by Leigh at 5 Acres and a Dream and by Life Looms Large. Sue at Life Looms Large challenged people to post their own set of colours. I'll say that in December, around here we don't have the range of colours that one might see further south. Still, it was interesting too try to capture them. These are from my yard.

The view from my front window - The hay field looks like gold when the sun shines on it.
A small shot of what is firing up the woodstove. It's a small stove but not doing too badly at keeping the rambling cottage comfortable. We'll still have to see how it performs at -20!
Our small barn. It's not very big but apparently housed 40 pigs at one time. I'm guessing they were weaners or something small like that. We're hoping to clean it out and set it up for a few chooks - some meat birds for the freezer and maybe even a few for eggs.

A cranky old blue jay chasing off a downy woodpecker. There are at least 6 blue jays, the woodpecker, a pair of cardinals, a couple of blackcapped chickadees, a gazillion junco's and a bunch of assorted brown wrens and sparrows that we see on a daily basis. They are hungry little beasties.Sunset through the trees. As the days are finally getting longer, it felt good to offer up a prayer of thanks to the sun for coming back once again.

Backwards Brain Day

2009-12-18T08:58:00.005-05:00

When knitting with a particular grist of yarn, generally it can be said that more stitches equates with a larger size. So knowing that I was going to make a pair of mittens for my hubby with the same black lambs wool I made the half mitts from, I reasoned that they should be just slightly larger than the half mitts. Knowing that I cast on 54 stitches for the half mitts, using a ribbing pattern that was 4 stitches (2 knit, 2 purl), I'd need to cast on either 56 or 60 stitches to make a men's size small mitt. Knowing this and thinking about it at the time, I re-did the math, just to make sure I had it correct and then I cast on ....... 52 stitches......... yup... 52... How did I not notice that 52 is not more than 54? Then I started knitting. I was half-way up the cuff and thought to myself, this looks a bit small but a 2, 2 ribbing does squish in more than a 1,1 ribbing. I kept knitting. Half-way through the thumb gusset, I thought, hmmm, this looks a tad small, but figured that I still had lots of stitches to go, not to worry. A thumb gusset has generally about 1/3 the stitches as the rest of the mitten. By the time I got to that 1/3, I had half a mitten that I knew would fit my little hand and not much else.
I wasn't going to waste that much knitting though, so I'm now on the second one.

I've been spinning fatter yarn for some reason and it became perfectly clear when my evil research project enabling friend hooked me into looking up information about knitted Tudor flat caps. Start here from the link she sent me, which led to info on the Mary Rose and then to the Museum of London and the V&A where then have online photos of extant caps. I realized that I was spinning to make one of these caps. However, my fat spinning that I figured was a nice worsted weight yarn - that I measured out - all of it- isn't actually worsted weight - which is what I'd likely need for this project. It's fingering weight - it's not fat at all! All that embroidery thread I've been spinning turned my perceptions upside down and now I get to start again. sigh.. all backwards again. It might be easier to do this project by just buying the yarn but EGADS!... buying yarn? Don't know if I can do it.... giggle

On the other hand, the casing trim is up on most of the windows, the baseboards are starting to be cut and painted. The crown moulding will be last. It's needed to hide hide the large and unfinished seam between the ugly stucco ceiling and the nice, newly painted walls! We've used a semi-gloss durable, scrubbable paint for the trim. It's white and looks clean and pretty. Did I mention that the livingroom is almost done? Yay!

Done, Done and Done!

2009-12-11T17:21:00.007-05:00

The embroidery thread project is finished. I ended up fussing about with a bit of overdyeing and put one of the grey skeins in the madder vat to see what would happen. I also used one of the extra yellow skeins in the madder exhaust and got a really nice soft orangy colour. They will become 2 sets of threads, 5 duplicate skeins and then the rest will have to be divided up somehow. The colours are really pretty. Each skein took forever to spin though.

The rest of the Coopworth rovings are used up. In order to feel productive because honestly, spinning teeny, tiny skeins of embroidery wools, means that after spending a week spinning and plying, you get 2 little skeins of about 30 - 35 yards plied, to show for it, I spun up the the brown coopworth. The slightly fatter yarn spins quickly mainly I think because the drafting technique is much less fussy than for the worsted lace weight stuff. This skein has 342 yards in it! I'm hoping that it is about the same weight as the grey from last week so I can make a hat with it. I managed to put the grey skein in a safe place, so I wasn't really able to compare the two to make sure!

The black shetland half mitts are also done! There is still bits of chaff in them because the beast the fibre came from is a bit of a piggy natured animal. He's adorable though and likes to be petted. The wool was difficult to spin because it really wanted to be something I didn't want at the time. This meant that the knitting was interesting because the skein I'd used was the first I'd spun and it isn't entirely even... yup, badly spun might be one term for it. This was a case of the fleece deciding exactly what it wanted to be and when I reconciled myself to it, all was good. However, regardless of the above, the mitts are exceedingly soft and most likely be very warm. They are also very pretty because of the colour. I hope the recipient likes them :)

The living room furniture is in a jumbled pile in the middle of the room. We have started painting! The poor gal at the store didn't want to sell me satin finish paint because apparently living rooms should have flat paint and not be easily cleaned. Ha I say to that.. Handprints and puppy nose prints begone!

Homemade Vanilla and other stuff

2009-12-06T14:19:00.007-05:00

I love the smell of vanilla. It is the scent of good things, of home, of good baking and general yummyness. It dawned on me that I'd seen several cooking shows way back when we still had t.v. reception, that showed chefs using vanilla from a jar with vanilla beans and a dark brown liquid. It turns out that vanilla extract is easily made, from vanilla beans and vodka or rum, if you want a stronger flavoured vanilla.

I purchased some vodka, well hubby chose it after a long explanation from the gal working at the L.C.B.O and I bought vanilla beans from the the cheapest place I could find, which was 2 beans for $5. I'm sure there is a better place to find them, but for now, I could start. The recipe is split open and chop up vanilla beans, between 3-8 per cup of liquor. Put the beans into clean jars and top with alcohol. Shake once a day for a couple of weeks and then once in a while after that. It should be ready in about 6-8 weeks. You can add more vanilla beans and more alcohol to top it up as needed, when it gets to be 1/2-3/4 empty. After only one day, the vodka is starting to colour.

The silk-wool blend scarves are off the loom and finished. They are nice and soft and I think they are quite pretty. I think the blue one will be for hubby to give away and the grey one will be a present for a family member. Nothing is on the loom right now... egads.... I need to size some singles for the warp of the next project. I should actually do some calculations to make sure I have enough spun first though.

I tried to start the socks at least 4 more times but kept ripping them out 'cause I'd lose a stitch on the first round or some other silly reason like that. Finally I hunted around and found the missing black handspun shetland, the 1 finished half-mitt and the addi stainless needles I'd sure I'd lost. Funny enough, they weren't lost but exactly where I'd left them.. hehehe... Anyway, my intuition must have been telling me something 'cause the second mitt went on perfectly firs time. These mitts are for a friend. I had to get a 3rd friend to try the one on for me to size it as my other friend has slightly larger hands than I. It's hard to judge sometimes to fit things without proper measurements. Since they are supposed to be a Christmas gift, I figured it was a good thing to get them done.

Finally, the wallpaper in the livingroom is almost all gone! Yay. The awful plant shelf which ran around in front of the windows is gone, leaving of course a horrid gold strip of carpet which was underneath and not removed when the recarpeted the room. Hubby took out a rather oddly shaped built in shelf, which was rather delightfully made of very dark, awful fake panelling from about the 70's. I couldn't get it clean; dark, nasty, icky gunk kept coming up each time I'd wipe it down. So it got ripped out, only to find it not sealed in anyway behind the joins of the old house and the addition. You could see right to the outside. No wonder we have had a gazillion and 22 stupid orange ladybugs in the house during the last couple of months. It's been sealed now, insulated and vapour barrier added. The new drywall is up and ready to be mudded!

A Wooly Week

2009-12-01T15:08:00.008-05:00

I've think I've discovered that I'm a bit of a yarn snob! I've been wanting to knit a new pair of socks. I've got one- yes, only one, skein of superwash sock yarn in my possession. I like the colourway - really, I like almost any colour but white, so that isn't much of an issue - but it's a 6 ply instead of a 4 ply! Every time I start to knit it up, I cringe and rip it out. I like fine sock yarn, I cannot tell a lie! This stuff just curdles my blood in a horribly icky way - and it's lovely yarn, in the skein. It would make super boot socks or something, but just not socks for little ol' me because it seems that I love to knit socks with lots of stitches. I can't even pretend to spin some sock yarn because superwash means I can toss it in the washer and I just don't happen to have any superwash rovings kicking around right now. I can't even make socks for one of my boys with it because this skein has an awful lot of pink.

The tencel scarf is off the loom. I made it a tad shorter than my first plans were. I realized that making it as long as I'd thought would make it a little less practical. Then I was left with a little more loom waste than I'd though, so I changed my treadling pattern and started weaving off the rest. Then wham- all of a sudden I had 6 or 7 broken threads in just a few minutes. The broken threads were only purple ones. Did I come across a weak spot in the cone of tencel? Another inch of weaving and another broken purple thread suggests that I did. Not wanting to have tons of little weights and threads hanging off the back, I broke down and cut the loom waste off early. I figured that I'd already completed the project and this was just the end bit, so that made it much easier.

There is a new scarf project on the loom. Hubby asked me to make as a thank you gift to a coworker. The warp is a silk/wool blend in a pale blue and cream heathered look. The weft is grey wool. The weave structure is a broken twill. I'm working on a second scarf, but I used a dark blue wool for the weft and am not sure I like the darker colour. I'm waiting to see what I really think on that one before I continue.

I found out that sometimes I can actually get enough bandwidth to watch an online episode of a program from FoodNetwork.ca. I grabbed my spinning wheel and spun up the rest of the grey wool while watching Chef Michael Smith make chicken and a barley risotto. This is a woolen fatter yarn in contrast to the grey embroidery threads I'd spun before from the same rovings. I just needed to spin something that would be soft and quick. I think maybe this fat skein will become a hat. It might be faster to just knit a new one than try to figure out which box the rest of the hats and mitts are packed in!

There is wallpaper stripping, wall priming and a hole found in the wall, behind a built in bookshelf.. but the camera batteries have died and I can't find the rechargeable ones or the packet of new batteries. I did find the charger though, so I'm halfway there.

A Blue Afternoon

2009-11-24T10:19:00.007-05:00

It was a little frustrating yesterday. I'd gone to town for a few supplies and totally forgotten the most important one, which was Rit Colour Remover so I could do an indigo dye vat. Normally I have an extra packet or two in my mordant box, just for those "gotta dye something blue" emergencies, so I wasn't too worried. I am generally in the practice of replacing the packet before I use it, so as not to ever run out. Of course, I didn't do it last time. What I had in my box was a half packet of clumpy Dye remover and an ancient little box of dye remover from a different company that I've not seen product from in years. I decided to work up a vat anyway, knowing that there was a good chance it would fail. I was desperate for blue yesterday, what can I say? My big jug of lye (sodium hydroxide) was in the garage and I didn't feel like climbing over the old stove, lawnmowers etc to get to the appropriate bin, so I used soda ash (sodium carbonate) for the starter compound. It worked a treat and somewhat less dangerous too boot!
The ancient colour remover box did nothing - no reducing what so ever and after 45 minutes of waiting around, I tossed in the clumpy Rit. The indigo dye vat started to reduce almost immediately, although after the required waiting time, it wasn't fully reduced - obviously not enough colour remover or it was too old - but I used it anyway. It worked acceptably and I was pretty happy. Seeing the green to blue change when the dyed item hits the air is always exciting to watch. It was a very small vat, so I don't imagine that much indigo was wasted in the whole scheme of things, regardless. The greens are the overdyed yellows from Dyer's Greenweed, done a couple of weeks ago. Some are embroidery threads and the rest are for a future weaving project. It is good to dye things blue!

It dawned on me while I was spinning the grey wool for the embroidery thread project, that if I did a bit more, I could use that as a base for the blue as easily as the white, which I inadvertently tossed into the yellow vat. I ended up with 4 skeins of the grey, so 2 went into the indigo vat. It was a good idea which worked exactly as I'd hoped. The blue over grey skeins are the blue threads sandwiched between the green in the photo above. Obligatory dime on grey threads for size comparison.

On Fanny is a new project - a rather pushing the boundaries type project for me. I'm making a simple tencel scarf. A long scarf, using a variation of M's and O's - Primitive Linen - from Marguerite Porter Davidson's A Handweaver's Pattern Book. Tencel is a type of rayon. It's slippery, unlike wool, cotton or linen. It was a bugger to get just tied on the front beam as the knots kept slipping. I've found it way too easy to overbeat it without trying. If I were to redo this project, I might change up the threading abit, but I'm pretty happy with the assymetrical look. I may not have used black for the weft though as it makes the scarf quite dark. Using the red or the purple would have highlighted either of those colours better. Still, it's quite pretty and an interesting project. I'm contemplating getting some undyed tencel and dyeing up a painted warp for a shawl or another scarf. Just contemplating right now though.. there are several wool weaving projects in the wings before another modern tencel one :)

Mushroom Pie

2009-11-18T15:58:00.004-05:00

As requested...

Mushroom Pie
makes 1 9 1/2 in - 10 inch pie

1 single pie crust
700 gms button mushrooms ( about 1 1/2 lbs)
1 tbsn oil
1 cup grated cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
pepper to taste
2 tbsn plain bread crumbs

Parboil the mushrooms. Drain well. Mix in the oil, cheese, spices and bread crumbs. Dump mixture into the pie shell. Bake at 350 F for about 40 minutes or until crust is done.

Notes -
* You can saute the mushrooms but I found they release more liquid requiring more breadcrumbs than when I boiled them. It only takes a minute or so in boiling water.
* Next time I'm going to substitute the ginger with Thyme.
* I used Old Cheddar cheese but I imagine that many other cheeses would work. I'm thinking brie would be awesome.
* My son thinks that spinach would be a good addition as well.

The recipe is based on one from Le Menagier de Paris, found on the Gode Cookery website.

Bits and Pieces

2009-11-16T19:50:00.005-05:00

I totally planned way too much for the weekend. It was the Arts & Science Fair for the local SCA group. I had wanted to do a fibre arts display with some demos and hands on activities. Then one of the food vendors backed out, leaving the Pie Stall empty. It was only a few weeks before the event, so I jumped in. However, it left me working out recipes for medieval pies and experimenting on my family. One night when I served Mushroom and cheese pie, my middle son asked me "why had I been holding out on them and hadn't made this particular pie before"? I figured that one was a good one. In all, I made 8 pies. The tortieres were cut into 8ths but the rest were in 6ths. That was 64 servings, which sold out in much less than 2 hours and meant that half the people attending had pie for lunch!

I did get the borrowed table loom dressed. It was there for display as I was going to let people try it, but I never did get around to it as I had to judge a bunch of things and had a bunch of meetings as well. The weave structure is a simple 2/2 twill. I'm using handspun bits and pieces that I regarded as "junk yarn" as there wasn't really enough of it for any real project and it is some of my much earlier spinning, so a tad uneven. It is dyed with Brazilwood and Cochineal. The Brazilwood will fade as the scarf gets used as it doesn't hold it's colour as well. It was spun pretty much in a woolen technique and I'm pretty sure this was all spindle spun as well. Because the yarn is fairly stretchy, I'm beating quite gently.

I also worked up a bit of bobbin lace. I used to do this a bunch of years ago but it has been packed away for a long while. It took me a few minutes to jog the memories but once I started, it was all good. Unfortunately I found that a) I stupidly used black thread so it's rediculously difficult to see and b) I was getting horrible stiff working away at it. It is a slow and somewhat tedious activity and I have to find a better way to position myself if I'm going to finish it.

Here I am in the new kirtle. I think it looks quite out of a Brughel painting. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to do some redesigning of the pattern. I know it seems horribly picky, but that look is about 30 years later than I was after! It was comfortable though and I had lots of really nice comments about it, which was very flattering. The pattern will need a little bit of tweaking to make it perfect.

Other than that, I repotted a bunch of plants, including potting up a spider plant which was a housewarming gift. Once it roots in the front window, I have the perfect place for it. I unpacked a box of novels not long ago. The whole box was just one series of mainly trilogies. I picked one up last week and I shouldn't have. I'm now currently re-reading the whole series and am on book 7. That is what is really cutting into my time. All in all though, it was a really good week and it felt productive!

Projects, new and old.

2009-11-09T15:50:00.011-05:00

A few days ago I harvested the radishes I'd planted shortly after we moved into this house. It turns out that these radishes are 60 + day radishes and not the 30 day radishes I'd presumed them to be. I'm guessing because of the wet, grey weather, some snow, they never seemed to really start to grow. I did finally get to harvest these few after only 2.5 months in the ground. They tasted fine, but were more than a tad woody in texture. Not really worth eating.

The kirtle is done! Totally finished, except that I can't find a lace to match the dress. Right now I've a dark blue one in there, taken from another dress. I think I might have a yellow lace someplace as well. Any opinions as to which one would look better? The apron took much longer to make than I'd anticipated. That was mainly because there was a lot of handsewing on it. The hemming and the sewing together of the straps, since I really didn't feel like trying to turn a tube on each end of the middle bit. Of course I ended up doing teeny stitches as they looked "right". Do you know that teeny, tiny stitches take forever to do?

I also finished a new coif and flat cap. I looked everywhere and couldn't figure out where I'd packed the old ones. I chose to do a different style this time and it seems to look fine, fitting into the Henrican 1530-40's time period. Hubby thinks it looks funny to put the flat cap on top of the coif, but all the illustrations I could find suggest that they were worn that way. Thankfully though, I did also find the two partlets my girlfriend gave me for a gift a couple of Christmas' ago. They are awesome and so pretty . I get my choice of colours depending on my whim in the morning. I also found my old ratty sleeves. If I have time I'll make a new set, but I'm not counting on it. Right now I'm trying to finish up a new chemise, which I think is more important. I'm pretty happy that I'm back being excited about late period costuming. It's been a while with projects and materials languishing in boxes and bins. Luckily I seem to be on a roll now. Next stop - the gold and yellow brocade for a new court gown. Even better is the fact that the brocade was $3 a metre and the lining - a light blue taffeta was only $1 a metre. Score on both accounts!

I finished spinning up some dark brown Coopworth for the embroidery wool project. The obligatory coin for size reference. These are two plies. The yellow skeins are dry and look fine. I do wonder what was going through my itty bitty brain that day when I tossed the skeins into the pot. I need 4 skeins of yellow - two for yellow and two for green. I not only left no white un-mordanted but I tossed in the skeins to be dyed blue in the yellow pot as well. Now I need to spin up 4 more skeins and of course I'm out of that particular wool roving. Some days...
I am finding that it takes much longer to spin a tightly twisted fine yarn that something even just a little fatter and fluffier. This will be good yarn though. Somedays though you just feel a bit daunted by the fact that you've been spinning wool for an hour and you have to really check the bobbin carefully to see what sort of progress you've made. On the other hand, I don't need to actually fill a bobbin to get the amount of yardage that I need.

Taking Stock of Things...

2009-11-02T10:49:00.006-05:00

It sort of feels like I got nothing done over the past few days, but I think I actually did.

I finished weaving off the towels on Fanny. They came off at 9 pm so I couldn't wet finish them until the next day. I tossed them in the washer and dryer, then divided them up and actually started hemming them. I am notoriously bad at getting the tea towels hemmed - probably why I only have one or two and I end up giving most of them away. If I give them away, I have to hem them first! They washed up nicely, almost too nice and drapey. Enough to make me think that I had a bit of 10/2 cotton in there so that the sett might have been a tad loose. They are nice though. Two have new homes. One I gave away hemmed and the other I gave away unhemmed. I only felt a little bad about that.. no I didn't feel badly about giving her an unhemmed towel 'cause she enjoys hand sewing.

I finished making a Christmas ornament in a Crazy Quilt style. It's been a long while since I'd done any and I'd forgotten how much I'd enjoyed doing that fussy embroidery in the past. This one I kept really simple as I didn't want to overdo it on the first project in over 5 years. It is pretty easy to go overboard with fancy embroidery. I thought about the difference between embroidery with wool and this type of embroidery and figure it must be the Ooooh Shiney! factor. I think perhaps the size and simplicity made it easier to get right to finishing it as well.

I went to Ealdormere Crown Tourney. Thankfully I was able to car pool with friends so it made it a much nicer trip. I had to get to their house early though as it was a 2 hour drive from there. It was dark when I left for the 45 minute drive to their house. It was also Halloween. The backroads are pretty much deserted that time of the morning and did I mention it was still dark? It started to rain and the wind picked up. The leaves spiraled across the road and whipped around. The bare trees and their shadows seemed to loom in my headlights which seemed to be inadequate to cut through the darkness. An animal half the size of a large deer, but which ran more like a dog slunk across the road and into the ditch. My imagination started to run rampant. I put on the radio - CBC - 'cause early morning weekends they have cheerful program hosts with lots of chatter. What was the first thing I heard? "nope, I'm not really into Slasher and Chop 'em up horror movies, I prefer the Paranormal and Psychological Thrillers!" Like that was what I wanted to hear right then. It didn't take me nearly as long to get into town as I thought it would, hehehe.

Sunday we did more leaf collecting. My goal was to have one of the new raised beds ready this fall, but it seems we have far more leaves than I'd estimated. Both raised beds have their compost base beginnings done. The first one will be a tad better as there are layers of green and brown while the second one is mainly brown. I might have to add a bit of soil or purchased hummus in the spring, but still I've just doubled that growing space so I'm pretty happy about that. It's does require some physical labour to get it done though, using a mulching push mower with a bagger. Go Me!... because we have a really big yard!

Dyer's Greenweed is an easy to use and seemingly forgiving dye. I started the dye bath last week by cooking up the leaves and stems that I'd harvested both at Earendel Farm and from the two bushes I transplanted when we moved. I wasn't able to use it so left the leaves in the pot and only managed to heat them up a time or two again until yesterday. I strained out the leaves and then realized I'd not yet mordanted any wool, so out came a second pot and I mordanted spun wool skeins that I had. One for a friend, the embroidery wools which need to be dyed yellow and then some of those in turn green. I forgot to leave some to dye blue, so will have to spin up a few more. Takes forever to spin that thin! I left the ones out to dye red though so at least I don't have to make that many more.

Once I'm finished the dyeing, it will be back to leaf mulching duty. My sunshine just disappeared. I really hope it doesn't rain.

2009-10-28T10:31:00.006-04:00

This year the boys decided we needed to have a carved pumpkin. Nobody has carved one for the past few years here, so it's a nice change. Yesterday when I got up I noticed the carving tools on the counter. Not those cheapo plastic carving tools but his clay sculpting tools! Last night he called me out to the back deck to see what he'd finished up. There was no moon and the cloud cover was fairly thick. There wasn't even enough light to see the deck floor! It was dark, black and a bit spooky out there last night. Sitting on the table was this. This is the reason that I don't carve pumpkins.

On the weekend I went to a friends place for the night. We hung out and stayed up way too late watching Tales of the Green Valley, a series about the explorations of rebuilding a working 17th Century Welsh Farm. I'd only seen the last episode before then so it was very much fun and much geekyness too I'm thinking.

The next day I pulled out my Tudor kirtle project which had been stuck in a box in storage for a year. It got packed away when we had to "declutter" to sell the house and there was so much to do when we got here, though I found the box, it didn't get opened. This was a good excuse to get it out and started. The bodice was almost finished, more so than I remembered. There were two bits of hemming to do on the armceyes. Then I basted up the bottom hem and pleated the skirt fabric to a waist band. While I had the two on, hubby marked where they met. Now I'm wondering if I should have lined the skirt as it doesn't have alot of weight to it or will a petticote or two bump up the skirt.
I will think about it for a bit and decide whether to take apart the basted pleats, line and redo the skirt or not. I was sort of hoping to have the kirtle done for this weekend, but two weeks from now is also fine. That second date would give me time to get a new chemise and cap made and to find my new partlet which was a gift and which I haven't yet been able to wear. I know which bin it's in.. just need to find that bin!

The 3rd towel is woven on Fanny so one more to go. I am enjoying weaving on her so much. I spent a bit more time trying to do a broken diamond twill for the second towel but decided that the more complex weave structure was really obscured by the busyness of the warp, so the last two will be plain herringbone. It was an interesting moment when I looked up from weaving to see out the window, a scene with the exact colours that were on the loom.

I'm almost finished spinning the last bit of roving into embroidery wools. There is some Dyer's Greenweed in a pot on the stove waiting for me to finish up, ply and mordant the wools. I want to double the skeins in yellow so that I can overdye half of them with indigo. Hopefully the spinning and dyeing will be done by the end of the week.

Torrid Affair or is it True Love?

2009-10-23T10:08:00.010-04:00

On Sunday, my friend's Leslie and Sam dropped off a bunch of wooden bits and pieces, an envelope of nuts, bolts and 6 little screws and a 12 dent reed. Yes, I did measure it, just to be certain.

On Monday, I sat down at my little Leclerc Artisat and wove and wove and wove to get the scarf project, off the loom. The green is the apple leaves with iron mordant, the blue is either vatted Woad or Dyer's Knotweed and the grey is natural. I finished it up fairly late in the evening, leaving time to twist the fringes on only one scarf.

Tuesday morning, I twisted fringes and twisted more fringes until all 3 scarves were finished. Thankfully some enterprising soul invented the fringe twister. I swear that handweavers would have no fingertips or fingerprints without those nifty little tools.

I tossed them in the washer, watching like a hawk to wet finish them and then spun them out and blocked them outside on the deck. You couldn't do that today because not only is it raining, but it seems like the trees have devested their finery, dumping it all on the deck. Tuesday though was somewhat sunny here. After blocking the scarves, I folded up the Artisat and immediately, Inspector Helper Kitty decided that I'd done it just for him. After trying to distract him, I let him be and made lunch. He'd wandered off shortly after that so that I could start assembling these wood bits. I totally understand his reluctance to leave the spot on the rug though. As I was on my back tightening the nuts on the carriage bolts, I didn't want to move either. The sun had heated the carpeting to near nap-requiring temperatures! mmmmm By dinner time, Fanny was assembled and I had to head out to a meeting.

On Wednesday morning I dithered about what colours I was going to use as a trial warp. I wanted an 8/2 cotton warp because it is fairly easy to warp, forgiving to weave and becomes functional items. In the end I grabbed a huge cone of yellow cotton something that I was given, a few cones of Lily cotton and some unidentified mystery cottons, the latter all being shades of browns and all seeming to be at least close to 8/2 cotton. I wound the warp. The yellow threads I did singly but the bouts of random threads I wound off 4 at a time. It would have been fine except that afterwards I realized that one of the cones was S twisted, while the rest were Z twisted. It managed to twist itself around the others and made for a tad of straightening later on. If I'd known that there was a cone of S twisted thread in my stash, I'd have saved it for a totally different project - but it has never occurred to me to check twist before.

It took most of the day on Thursday to dress the loom. I took my time as I didn't want to get stopped at some inconvenient moment - like having a handful of ordered threads when the oil man stops by and you have to scramble for bulldog clips to organize it all while he's waiting at the door and you can't pretend you're not home because your loom is in the front windows of the house and are curtainless so the guy has already seen that you're home and you're hurrying as fast as you can go without losing your project so you can get to the door before he glares at you through the window.... 'cause you know that waving a fist full of threads at him will mean nothing unless he's a weaver! Okay so that did really happen and I was waiting now for the second oil guy who was supposed to inspect the furnace and replace a fuel line. He never did get here that day so I just enjoyed my leisurely loom dressing day.

After dinner I finally started weaving. Now I adore my little Artisat. I've been able to all sorts of projects that you're not supposed to be able to do on a fold up, nearly portable loom, which is ancient and rickety. BUT... BUT... I think I have fallen in love with weaving all over again. Fanny is sturdy. She is quiet. Her treadling action is specific and easy. Her shed is fantastic and it only took me few shots to figure out the difference of throwing the shuttle without a shuttle race. Within moments of starting to weave I was thinking of all sorts of projects for this old gal, who is much obviously younger than my other loom. I don't think this will be a short lived but torrid affair with a newcomer, I think this is true love... sigh...

Is there anything to say but

2009-10-16T20:12:00.006-04:00

Ahhhhh I love the feel of wood heat and the look of a fire. The loom is set up and I'm weaving by the fire. The radio is blaring horrible '80's hits and it's good to be home. And... the wood delivery guy can only deliver the rest of our firewood on Sunday - that is 8 face cord as hubby ordered extra - and we're having a Regia meeting in the morning and a housewarming party in the afternoon! Do you supposed that stacking wood is an appropriate party activity?

Pumpkin Cookies ... Yum!

2009-10-15T13:04:00.000-04:00

Two words which you might not think go together, but do in an awesome way.. Pumpkin Cookies. They aren't really cookies, more like muffin tops: big handfuls of soft, moist, yummy goodness. I made a batch yesterday to use up a bit of leftover pumpkin and the boys snarfed them down pretty quickly. Next time I'll add some walnuts and cut back the chocolate chips. Even though I reduced the amount of chips called for, they could do with even a few less. Since the first load of wood for the fireplace arrived last night they got to work off the extra calories helping unload the trailer and stack the wood. 2 cord down, 5 more to go!

I took advantage of the sunny day to do some work on the new garden bed. I'm making raised beds using a layered composting method first described by Ruth Stout. We've tons of leaves and grass clippings which have combined to make the base of the first bed. I've layered it with some compost that's been percolating for the past couple of months. Eventually there will be two beds, both about 4 feet wide by 30 feet long, but my goal for this year has been to get the first raised bed ready to plant this spring. Hubby showed me the merits of the mulching lawnmower with the collection bag. This made fairly short work of the leaf collection duty, at least short as compared to a rake. It was a much longer task than with the lawn tractor, but it doesn't collect the clippings! They are piled over a cardboard base - we've lots of that right now, having just moved. I haven't soaked it down though as we've more rain in the forecast and everything has been pretty wet of late anyway.

Inside time has been spent a) trying to find the wool for the next two scarves and b) spinning some embroidery wools to be dyed for a friend. She sneakily used the ones I gave her before on a project for me, so I'm making more. These one's are turning out better than the first ones, so I'm happy about that. I still need to find some dark rovings that will spin up to a fine worsted thread as the ones I currently have are far too crimpy and want only to be fluffy woolen threads. Obligatory shot of plied wool strand on penny for judging thread size!

I've been having a lovely time researching different veggie varieties for the garden. The problem is that I should be doing this in January, not October! I've been given some Orach seeds by the generous gardener found here, to plant and am looking forward to trying the new salad green. The garlic is planted and I'm starting to plan for next spring, although I do worry that it's just a bit early. There will be lots of time for this in January when the snow is starting to build and the blustery cold winds make you dream of spring. Still, it is fun and just a little bit exciting in anticipating growing a real garden again.

Inspector helper kitty is tired and has found my partially finished wool coat to be an ideal spot for napping. I shall have to wait until he gets up to work on it!

On Scarves, Hearths and Inspector helper kitty

2009-10-10T20:22:00.008-04:00

I decided that I would unpack 2 "sewing room" boxes on Wednesday. Sewingroom really means miscellaneous craft supplies or we don't know how to label it so we'll put sewing room on it and leave it for Mom to deal with later! The first box I found had yarn, yarn and more yarn in it! Well, as it got unpacked and I was distracted. I found the green wool from the Summer Solstice dye pot and a bunch of handspun bits and pieces, all in grey! Of course, I suddenly needed to dress the loom. You know, a small project like scarves really takes little time to wind off the warp and little more to thread the heddles and reed. It really only took a couple of hours to set up! Sometimes it's really nice to have something work up quickly. The grey warp is about 4 or 5 different handspun yarns, in different shades of grey and slightly different thicknesses. One is some of Wellington Fibres mystery rovings which I split to maintain some of the colours, so there is a bit of blue and purple in there as well. There is enough warp for 3 scarves on the loom. The first weft is wool dyed with apple leaves in an iron pot, done back in June. It's a very pretty green and I wish I had more of this colour to work with as it really does remind me of spring! It's woven off and I'm just waiting on finding the skein of handspun black yarn I wanted to use for the second scarf weft. I may have to change my mind if I don't find the box it's packed in soon! While having a project on the loom always looks nice, I hate not getting it woven off as there is always another project waiting in the wings.

It took 2 days more to get that second box unpacked, but I did 2 more to make up for my inattentiveness. If hubby hadn't shifted some boxes, it might have been even more as I'd just found a box with books and binders packed in it. It was like finding an old friend. It was slow to unpack but enjoyable. I got a couple of books put away and found my Tudor costuming binder and then he shifted some boxes and I can't find the half unpacked box of books now!

The fireplace insert has been ordered but we don't yet have an install date. We were hoping the stove would be installed next week sometime, but I'm guessing that it won't be. The weather is getting rather cool and the wood burning insert should be able to heat most of the house. Hubby is starting the hearth repairs and upgrades. There was carpet right up to the fireplace and a hole in the floor with a fan in it as well. Both of these are code violations, so they need to be fixed up before the stove gets installed.

We need to extend the front of the hearth at least 16 inches of a non-combustible material. We're putting in 18 inches of ceramic tile over concrete backer board. It was fun choosing tiles. While the sales guy at the store thought we should co-ordinate our tiles with the carpet, I really wanted it to look like fireplace, not the greyish colour of the rug. The tiles are extending the hearth the whole width of the fireplace.

The first step is for hubby to measure out the tiles so he knows where to cut the carpet out. Then it's fixing the hole by putting in stringers along side the joists - one was cut for the fan hole, sigh.. and then patching it with a piece of wood the same height, in this case 3/4 in plywood. The helper kitty decided to play inspector to make sure the job is getting done correctly. It's pretty ugly right now but will be much prettier when done!

The black wool with all the veg matter in it has turned into a not so bad project after all. While spinning it is a bit of a pain, it knits up really, really soft and yummy. It's rather nice to work with after all in terms of the finished project - which isn't actually finished yet.

Madder and baking and general busyness

2009-10-06T13:56:00.008-04:00

The thing about socks is that they come in pairs. When you get the first one done, you're really only halfway there! There are ways of doing 2 at once, but I'm fine with doing them as singles. Less chance of major mistakes I think :) This pair is done. It would have taken far less time had I actually worked on them regularly. There were lots of other things to get done though, they took a while longer. Do you know how hard it is to take pictures of your own feet?

This black lamb wool is some of the nicest and some of the nastiest that I've ever spun, both at the same time! It's super soft and crimpy, so lovely when worked up. However, that particular sheep is a bit of a pig and his fleece is filthy. It cost double to process this because it had to be sent through the machinery twice! I just didn't have the time or energy to pick and comb the fleece. There is still so much chaff in it, that doesn't want to fall out when spun, nor is it easily picked out in the rovings due to the soft, crimpy nature of the fleece. I can only spin it in between other projects as it is a tad frustrating.. no, alot frustrating, being so nice yet not at the same time.

The second madder pot wasn't what I'd hoped for, although the colours are pretty. It turned out that the madder root had a lot of plant stems in it and really didn't give a lot of good colour. The iron helped bring out some reds and the plain white, with alum mordant turned salmon. The exhuast white skein is a pretty coral colour.

I made a dozen of these square cupcakes today! There is bread rising and lasagna planned for dinner. What do these all have in common? They can't be cooked on a hot plate! Yay... The stove is hooked up and has proven so far to bake evenly and nicely. The boys brought home the fixings for the cake and the lasagna yesterday so that I would be able to make the dishes they've been missing.

3 Bags Full

2009-10-01T13:33:00.007-04:00

The gift bags are done. For not having access to most of my yarn stash and not being able to run out and get any, I think they turned out darned well. They are pretty, are a decent size and the colours are satisfactory as well, considering all I was able to find was crochet cotton.

We were at a camping event last weekend, which while being SCA, was geared towards early period authenticity. It was awesome and I can't believe I didn't bring my camera. The Regia household camped together which was nice.
I worked up a sourdough bread dough which was cooked on a griddle over the open fire for lunch. The culture must be a cool raising one as it tried to overtake the bowl and my tent despite it going down to 5C that night. I started the dye pot with just the liquor from the madder roots. This is the colour we got. I resoaked the roots and am cooking them up right now to over dye and see what happens.

With non-stop rain for the past half week and another half week of rain in the forecast, I took some time to wash up half a fleece. If I'd had another 3 lingerie bags, I could have done the rest as the washer tub is large enough. I'm using the fill the washer with hotwater and soap, stuff the bags in, turn the washer off and let soak method. Takes a bit of time and lots of water, but gets it done faster than small bits by hand in the sink.

All that is left blooming in the garden is this pretty purple mallow. Weed it may be, it's pretty enough to stay.

Comforting Stuff

2009-09-23T11:12:00.007-04:00

I love wool socks! For at least 3 seasons of the year they keep my feet toasty and comfy. Because purchasing commercial wool socks with enough wool to be useful is getting pretty difficult, I am knitting more and more of them myself. I normally do a short row heel and this time I decided to try a flap heel. Well, the pattern I chose was pretty plain, however there were very clear instructions, including photos of various steps. It was an interesting experience because there were a number of errors. I figured out most of the corrections were myself, found some errata listed on line and found one mistake that wasn't yet listed. I emailed the author who got back to me almost immediately which was pretty awesome. It turns out that most of the mistakes have been fixed in the second printing, so if you're going to purchase Teach Yourself Visually Sock Knitting, check to make sure that it is the 2nd printing or later.

I made cookies. Yes, you're laughing thinking it isn't much of an accomplishment but believe me it was more than a trial in patience because I had to use a toaster oven. Currently we still don't have a working stove. We were given one, but it has a downdraft system which, after getting the hook up instructions from the company - very speedy reply on that one as well, we realize we can't use. We'd have to pull down some cabinets and at least part of a wall to figure out a way to vent it, which likely means dealing with lath and plaster. That is just too big a job right now. So while I wait for the electrician to wire a place to put a stove anyway, I made cookies in a toaster oven. It came with a small cookie sheet type pan and having no other tiny bakeware, it was the main deciding point.

It took me nearly 3 hours to bake one batch of cookies! I do believe that there is some sort of time/space distortion making the inside of a toaster oven much smaller than the outside.
Regardless of the time and effort, they were pretty delicious. I used this recipe for Oatmeal Toffee Cookies , omitting the coconut and using 3/4 cup Skor Toffee bits and 3/4 cup chocolate chips.

There is madder soaking for an upcoming dyepot. I haven't yet dyed with madder here so don't know what type of colour can get with the water. I used just tap water from our well, without any additives to see what baseline colours I will get. I soaked about 125 gms of roots in warmish water for about 40 minutes. By this time the water was just starting to turn orangish from the rather bright yellow it was at first. I drained off the first soak, added more water and watched the red colour develop. Within a couple of hours the water was really quite red. I've got some grey sheep fleece spun up to use in this dye pot as well as some white shetland. It won't be ready to use for a few days yet though but I'm quite excited to do some "real" dyeing as it has been a while.

Delusions

2009-09-17T13:48:00.007-04:00

This summer, just before we moved, I was telling my friend Aibhilin what plans I had for projects to do, along with moving house and the wedding. Her comment to me was "Sweetie, you're delusional". Well, I thought she was wrong and set about getting things done. Then life intervened. The move took longer than expected. The unpacking is still being unpacked 'cause with having to do some renovations and repairs, it just can't all be put away until the other projects are done first. While some clutter doesn't bother me, the total disarray is somewhat exhausting.

Slowly projects have been set aside. The embroidered cuffs sit abandoned in the sewing room. I came to the realization that I didn't have time to learn to embroider with wool and get the project done to my satisfaction. Yes, embroidering with wool was enough different than with cotton to make a bit of a learning curve for me.
It's not been a total loss for project completion though. I had to make a pillow cover. I knew that if I didn't do it soon, the bare cushion would end up in use and never be covered. So I dug though piles of remnant bits and settled on some wool scraps. I will admit it was as much because the cat would like it as for design elements. I think it turned out pretty nicely and it came together fairly quickly once I figured out what design I wanted on it. A couple of templates drawn on cereal boxes traced on to the wool worked wonderfully for applique patterns.

The garden is being weeded. It too, is taking longer than I thought. When we first moved in though, the soil was sodden and heavy so it took much longer. We've not had rain in ages, so it's dusty work, but coming along.

The dire "gotta weave something" project of crochet cotton is off the loom. I was able to weave up until about 2-3 inches to the back apron rod. That meant I was able to weave off the loom waste and sample bit to create a 5th project. All I need to do is run the edges by the dividing yarn through the sewing machine or serger, cut and sew up the bottom and side seams. Adding a draw string to the top opening will finish them off.

I transplanted the rosemary to a pot and brought it inside for the winter. I am tired of buying a new plant every year and then it never really growing enough for a good harvest. At least this way I can have fresh Rosemary once in a while during the winter and hopefully it will be larger next spring to go back into the garden. There is also Sage to harvest again. I don't use alot of sage but the stuff I harvest and dry tastes so much nicer than the dried, supermarket sage dust.

The Medieval Weaving program I did for the Oxford County Weaver's and Spinner's was lots of fun. I am amazed at how warm and welcoming the spinners and weavers I have met through this venture. I felt at home with them as I did with all the other groups I've been to. I think I shall enjoy being a part of their guild. It did however take a big bite out of my time this week as I had to figure out where I'd stashed all my demo resources!

While the underdress is finally done, the hem was marked a tad too long so I fear I must take it out and redo it in order not to trip and land flat on my face in some embarrassing context 'cause you know it won't happen when nobody is looking.
Don't ask me about the the new gown 'cause Aibhilin, my friend.. you were right! Maybe just a tad delusional :)

A week which flew by....

2009-09-13T21:10:00.009-04:00

The wallpaper stripping is on hold due to the fact that the drywall underneath was installed backwards. Hubby isn't sure he can skim coat it smoothly enough to paint, so he wants to try a bit first before more time is spent removing wallpaper. I tried Tammy's idea with the hot water but ended up getting an inexpensive home steamer in the end, which works a charm. Still lots of work, but not quite so hard. Hot and sweaty though :)

The chimney inspector guy was here. He tried to check the chimney but when he pulled out the fireplace insert he found over 20 lbs of creosote chunks behind the stove. He ended up cleaning the chimney just so he could see it! So while it is in good shape, we need a liner and a new stove.. yay.. Now the whole house smells like smoke and creosote, just because the fireplace is empty for the moment. I will say though the inspector guy left the house almost soot free which was quite amazing considering he was covered in it.

I'm doing a medieval textile presentation at a local weaver's guild and have been spending some time trying to gather my materials together. None of the resources I use were packed in the same place. Some are finally put away and some are still sealed in cardboard bins of doom. At anyrate, my warp weighted loom came back from a demo in not so good shape, needing to have heddles and weights restrung. Foote the potter made the weights are they are spectacular, working better than I had even hoped for. I really wanted to do a twill this time, but really didn't have time. Instead I settled for a basket weave since it is already the first step towards the twill. Sometime in the future, I will just re-do the patterning for a sample bit of twill.

The crochet cotton project is almost ready to cut off the loom. The first one was a broken twill as found in a Coppergate sample. By changing the treadling it miraculously turns into a broken diamond twill, which is much more fun to weave I will say. I managed to break the clip on my loom lamp, rendering it unusable and making it nigh impossible for me to weave once evening sets in. The bulb is a super intensity "daylight spectrum" compact flourescent bulb which allows me to see easily, even to thread the reed with dark thread. Replacing the clip required a new lamp, meant a trip to Ikea today as there isn't anything else that I've found to fit nicely on the back beam of the loom.

Yesterday was a trip to the K-W Knitter's Fair and the Stratford Garlic Festival. The Knitter's Fair is always fun. I met friends I hadn't seen in a while and the inspiration is always good. I got yarn.. big surprise.. but 2 balls of sock yarn in colourways I wouldn't normally choose just to get some variety in socks and some wool singles in grey and a lovely red. Ostensibly they were for a blanket, but I think they might be too fine. However they were cheap and nice so I dragged them home with me.
Then I got 2 lbs of seed garlic to be planted in October. My cousin dropped by with a housewarming pressie of some of his fabulous wooden cooking tools and a huge braid of garlic. It's the best garlic I've had in ages so when I found the garlic suitable to plant.. not the imported wimpy stuff, but real garlic with Oomph, I had to get some. Of course this means that I need to get the one garden area ready to plant. This afternoon was spent pulling weeds until the mosquitoes started to eat me.

I did take a couple of hours off to drag the Kromski on the deck, ply myself with much tea and spin some more. hehehe actually, I did some plying of wool as well - a bit of roving labeled New Zealand "off white", which we all think is actually grey here. It's pretty though, it spins nicely and effortlessly. I've one skein done and another half bobbin of singles. I don't seem to be able to sneak quite as much time in spinning these days, but I'm hoping to get the rest of the fibre spun up in the next week and a half. I think it will make nice mittens and winter is coming.

On the list for this week.. finish the garden weeding, weave off the yardage, weave a couple of inches of basket weave on the warp weighted loom, spin a bit, hem an under dress and make the over gown, both of which I am hoping to have done for Saturday. Then there is the normal stuff I've been doing and preparing for a guest who told me not to prepare. I think it would be prudent to at least make the guest bed and perhaps clear a pathway to the room so she won't trip over the inkle looms etc, that always seem to be in the way.
Sigh... so much to do.. too few hours in the day ....

To Remind Me

2009-09-05T07:47:00.003-04:00

why I decided to strip the wallpaper in the living room, 'cause this project is going to get old, really quickly. Yesterday working on and off all afternoon and evening, I managed to strip away an area in the living room which was about 3' wide and not quite the full 8 ' high.
There is a layer of vinyl wallpaper of which the topmost layer mainly, but not quite completely peels off. The paper and glue layer must be soaked to remove, revealing another layer of wallpaper. This one has 2 layers and has been so kindly glued down directly onto the drywall. There isn't a drop of primer on the walls nor even the plaster joints.

It is taking forever and I've already gone through over 1/2 bottle of wallpaper remover. It was probably 4 -5 hours of scraping to get that small patch done. Did I mention it's a fair sized room?

However washing the wallpaper couldn't get all the dirt off. A second wash just pulled more out and moved it around the wallpaper. Pulling off the top layer, reveals that the smoke, tar and nicotine had permeated into the under layers. Ick.. When I get frustrated, I'll check back at this photo for renewed incentive.

Stripping, sewing and weaving ....

2009-09-04T11:56:00.007-04:00

I'm taking a break from stripping wallpaper. I went to the large box hardware store and asked for a scoring tool.. and he gave me a scraper, insisting it had the scoring tool in it. It doesn't, so I either have to peel each layer off and curse as I'm fighting the fact that there is a heavily glued on layer of wallpaper under the first that I can't get to easily or I have to go back into town and pick up the correct tool. I really didn't want to have to take a second trip to town today.

I am hoping to make a new dress for an SCA ceremony in September. A friend gave me a lovely length of herringbone linen. It was white, so I dyed it and it came out in a colour I seem to be very good at getting... pink. I finally had time to overdye it and have at least toned down the pink to almost red. Much more satisfactory. Although the pink was nice, I wasn't actually after a pink dress!

In my spare time, I've hacked up a piece of diamond twill yardage I made last fall. It's turning into a coat. Rectangular construction, it is based on the little we know about Anglo-Scandinavian outerwear. Mainly needed 'cause it gets really cold and blustery here in the winter, I also thought that if I didn't get the Elevation ceremony dress done, I could wear the coat. However the coat is lined with wool. The fashion fabric is a wool/silk blend and that sucker is heavy and warm. Definately too warm for September, in Ontario.

I can't find the boxes I packed the weaving threads in. I've found a few cones of wool, but they are slated for projects later this year. I really just wanted to warp up the loom with something I could whip off some simple and fun to weave projects. There are some lovely green dyed wools hiding which are to be scarves for friends, but that box is well hidden. I was also thinking about making a few gift bag type things up. Well, all I could find were 2 balls of #8 crochet cotton, one in red and the other in off white. Since the off white was a double sized ball, I figured I had enough warp for something useful. I started up with the white warp in a width which would have been wide enough for towels, but ran out of thread 3/4 of the way there. So a narrower width should be fine for rather bright gift bags. At least with it being an off white, the colours aren't quite so optically jarring as a pure white would be. It sure is easy to catch treadling errors though!

Dyeing with willow bark.

2009-08-26T18:23:00.005-04:00

At a Regia meeting, the guys were making a wattle fence. Very cool but I forgot the camera of course. It takes a ton of material. They were making it out of Bog Willow (or at least what we all grew up calling Bog Willow) at Earendel Farm. There is a huge stand of it which has part they want to cut back in order to create new straight growth for basket weaving. We noticed that the inner bark was bright yellow, so we stripped a bunch of cut branches and the trunk and I took the bark home.

I half filled the largest dye pot I have with bark and topped it up with warm water. I let it sit until the next afternoon when we started up a fire and I cooked it for several hours. The water was a deep gold. I removed the bark and it was colourless! I popped in 5 grams of alum and then put in 45 grams of Shetland wool. I cooked it for several hours more and let it cool in the pot.
Ick.. this is what I got.

Earlier this spring I put up a huge pot of bog willow leaves for a dye vat and we got a very pale yellowy green. Not enough colour for the huge amount of leaves we had, to bother with in my estimation. So Bog Willow isn't going to be one of my more favoured dye plants, I don't think.

The Wedding

2009-08-21T10:18:00.008-04:00

I don't normally do family pics here but since I was asked about the wedding :)
Here is the bride and the groom. I'm so proud of my little girl!
It was an outdoor wedding, held in the spectacular gardens of a bed and breakfast. After a summer of wet, cool and dreary weather, the day was perfect; warm, sunny and not to humid!

Of course the bride was beautiful. She chose the colours of deep pink, almost fuchia and a lime green as a wedding theme. These have been her favourite colours since she was able to choose!

The wedding party consisted of her best friend, her brothers and the groom's sister was the groom's best person. Here are the boys. My daughter spent a great deal of time making sure they were dressed perfectly. Two of them provided music for the ceremony. The middle lad plays bass guitar which really wasn't needed for the quiet chords and riffs which were played, so he gamely held the flowers and readings.

The boys and the groom all wore black Converse running shoes. What you can't see in these pictures is that my daughter has on custom made Pink, lined with green print high top Converse running shoes. This was a near miss until a dear friend in Seattle made sure we could get them as the company doesn't ship to Canada.

The Elora Mill was a lovely spot for a reception with wonderful ambiance and great food. My daughter told me afterwards that it was better than she even imagined it to be and was a perfect day. It really was.