1860's Bonnet Making

Despite having 6 young chooks, only 1 or 2 were laying over the winter.   Of those eggs, I was leaving 1 in the nesting boxes overnight to feed whatever predator was wintering over in the barn.  It worked and we lost no more hens over the winter.   Finally the past few weeks I had to actually purchase eggs as there were so few of them.   Then when the unseasonable thaw happened and the barn flooded, I found a 'possum hunkering down in the nesting box.  He or she seems to have moved on now and with the longer days, we have gone from virtually no eggs to 5 a day!    I happily made this lovely angel food cake with my girls daily contributions.  It was delicious and such a nice treat.

double buckram cut, wired and bound

Westfield is open again for the year and I'm happy to be back as a volunteer interpreter.  Hats are a costume piece that I've often needed to borrow from the costume department.   But I had double buckram, the proper millinery wire and a pattern, so I attempted to make my own.

It wasn't one of my neatest projects, at least on the buckram frame.  Luckily it's completely covered, so none of the stitching mess will show.   I had to play around with threads as some of them just wouldn't hold tight enough.  In the end, I raided my husbands leather working tool kit and got some of the heavy waxed leather working thread and a ginormous needle, which seemed to help a great deal.

The lining was some yellow and red shot taffeta which shows as orange mainly, but when it hits the light in the correct way, the red flashes.   The effect will mainly be lost on this hat lining but it was in my stash, so one less thing to purchase.   I had to baste the lining by hand in order to get it to fit the inside of the hat.  This is the 3rd time I redid the basting and finally got it right.

What a pain to put in the hat though.  The instructions said to glue it but not what kind of glues work best.  I had a spray adhesive but it was a different brand from my usual basting adhesive.   Ick - the tin leaked, leaving a mess when sprayed and it didn't stick at all.  So much for the "permanent" part of the glue name.

I used some brown wool for the fashion fabric.  Here I was a bit torn about what to use.  I had some black velvet, which would have made a lovely hat, with the taffeta, but I only saw a few black bonnets and most of them were mourning bonnets, which I didn't want to have.   I had a darker brown, which would have also been nice, but there was just enough to use for something like a coat or a skirt, but not enough for both that and the hat.  In the end, this lighter brown wool was lurking in with some t-shirt knits, and had already been cut, so useful for a project like this.  I do like the less dramatic effect though, so that is a happy outcome.

The hat isn't finished yet.  I'm not sure about the ties but they are tacked in on the inside in an odd place, but the only place that kept the hat on my head.   I haven't finished decorating it.   There will eventually be some bows or a flower spray on the outside and some shirred lace or something on the inside.   My fingers and hands are sore from all the hand sewing though, so the prettying up of the hat will have to wait.

Yarn disaster, lovely days and Pysanky

While it snowed again and was blustery last night, earlier in the week it was warm enough to hang laundry outside, two days in a row no less!   It was gloriously warm and sunny, with a bit of a breeze so all the laundry actually dried completely as well.  I like hanging the laundry out, so when we get a couple of bonus days like we just had, I always try to take advantage of them.

I finished plying the first skein of the Merino/Alpaca blend I've been spinning.   Last night I washed it and hung it to dry.  I even paid attention to where I was hanging the skein, to try to keep it out of reach from kitty paws and jaws.   However this morning, despite my efforts, the skein was messed up and chewed to pieces.  Nobody knows which kitty it was though and not a single kitty it looking at it as if it were prey today.    So is yarn only a toy at night?   It seems that all the cats will ignore it during the day but it is fair game in the dark.   Now I need to find a safer place to dry skeins! 

I'm calling these my warm up Pysanky.   I'm doing a demo at the end of the month and need some samples.  Knowing how long it takes to write each egg, I thought that I'd start early.  I'm pretty happy with these two eggs, though the contast on the blue and turquoise one could be a bit better.

  I'm hoping to have not only a selection of different designs to show, but eggs in different stages of decoration to work on during the demo.  I think it would be easier to show to process that way, rather than just explain it while working on eggs as it takes even longer to decorate an egg while talking.     I will definitely try to keep them a bit safer from little hands this year.  I'm getting my daughter to do a supply run to the Ukrainian store in the city for me.   I'm trading her maple syrup and maybe some pie ;)

A busy week

 I've started spinning the 60% Merino/40% Alpaca batts.   I am spinning to get somewhere around the knitting worsted or a bit finer.   We'll see how much bloom this yarn has.  It is very white, so if I'm going to make something for me to wear, I'll have to dye it.  

The guild has a green challenge for the March meeting; to make something green or with green in it.   I'm weaving what I hope will be a guitar strap, however I put it on the floor loom instead of the inkle loom which has both good and bad points.   First, it's easier to treadle than to keep lifting and pushing down the threads,  especially since this thread is fairly sticky and because I still haven't made heddles for the inkle loom which are the correct size.   It's hard to keep it from pulling in too much.   I have it set at 40 threads per inch, but it should likely be a bit wider sett.    The contrast isn't quite enough, but since I was working with a green theme, the only other colour I had which would have worked was pink.  I was fairly certain that the recipient wouldn't have wanted a pink and green guitar strap.   There is a threading error, but the backside is correct, so I left it.  

I found sausage casings in the grocery store of all places.   They are salted and in a little plastic salad takeout type container.  I wanted to only soak half of them, but they were actually knotted up in the container.  I was worried both about ripping them, and how to store the ones I had separated but was not using.  I ended up soaking all of them.   I know now that since the sausage casings are heavily salted, I can just pack them and the salt back into the container and store in the fridge for several months more.  Luckily, they still had some this week, so I purchased another packet of them for future use.  These things are fairly difficult to source in this area.

I was soaking them because I'd found pork loin on sale and turned one of those huge slabs of meat into sausages.   Next time I'd use more fat, but although a bit dry they are tasty.   I was playing around with fat content because I really am not fond of those really fatty, drippy 50% fat sausages.  I'd read you could go as low as 20% fat, but I don't think I had quite that much in this batch.  They were awfully good with gravy though.    I'd purchased a sausage stuffer attachment for the stand mixer at a ridiculous price, but there were only 2 of them in the store and I'd never seen them before.   It was worth every penny of that ridiculous price as I was able to grind, mix and stuff the sausage casings by myself.   It was a bit fussy and for sure, would have been easier to do with 2 people, but wasn't necessary. 

The weather has been warm enough that the maple tree sap is running.   We've only got 6 buckets up right now as it is still early in the season.   We've already got about 80 litres of sap collected so we're doing the first boil today.  We would have done it last night, but it was raining.   The only good thing about rain this time of year is that it has been warm enough that it isn't snow.  I shudder to think of how much snow would have fallen if it had been just a few degrees colder.   Then we wouldn't have that flooding which has been causing horrendous damage  in the area, but no more snow right now-  yay!

Spinning and Knitting

Usually, when I have to wait around for appointments, I bring a sock project to fill in the endless minutes.   However, I didn't have a sock project either on the go or ready to go, so I substituted a pair of mitts.  A gal once described this sort of mindless, patternless project as a potato chip project - which does sort of fit since you just keep knitting without a lot of thought.   I had a lady say to me that she would never have the time to knit as she was sitting in the waiting room doing absolutely nothing, not even reading a magazine.   The lady with her large novel looked at me and grinned.   I told her how many socks I'd knit when I was just sitting around waiting for appointments.   She apparently reads through appointment waiting as well.  The lady doing nothing, still had nothing to show for her time, but I hope she was at least relaxed and refreshed.

One of the guild members is an Alpaca breeder.  She spoke about Alpaca fibres last meeting and commented that any lock 2 inches or less was considered trash and unprocessable.   That is by machine though.   Hand processing those shorter lengths works adequately.  

I dug up a pattern for a sontag from Peterson's magazine - 1861, spring issue I think.  It is different that most of the one's I've seen which are from a Godey's Ladies book pattern.   I'd popped out to get the yarn for the Peterson's pattern but it wasn't on sale and was $8 a skein, and I'd need about 4 or 5 of them.  I decided to spin the yarn instead, which will mean that the project won't be done when I wanted it to, but I'll use up stash fibre.   As this sontag will likely brush my neck, I decided on some Merino Top and Alpaca locks.  I have some lovely brown Alpaca in the same staple length of the Merino, but I didn't have enough brown Merino to be certain of having adequate yardage once spun.   The white Alpaca locks are short.  They are about 2 - 2 1/2 inches long.   They hand card nicely enough but I ran both through the drum carder, sandwiching the Alpaca between layers of Merino.    This worked a treat and I have been carding up lovely, fluffy batts.   I'm using a ratio of 60% Merino to 40% Alpaca.

I got Alpaca from a fundraiser held for a member of the Edmonton Guild who had lost all her fibre equipment during the massive floods a few years ago.  They had Alpaca fleeces, mostly shorter length fibres for a $20 donation.  I was happy to donate and now I'm happy that I'm actually using the fleece.    I'll have to wash the yarn after it's spun as the Alpaca is definitely not clean.

The superwash merino rolags are spun and plied.  It's a pretty yarn, soft, squishy and colourful.   I've no idea what I'll do with it but at least it's done.

 So I was told I had to do practically nothing for a week.  No spinning, no weaving, no banjo, nothing repetitive or requiring strength.   In between reading, and more reading, and reading some more, I made handkerchiefs from scraps of quilting cotton.   My daughter had made me one for Christmas and it is lovely to use, so I whipped up a couple more.   Of course hers was a panel square with a chicken on it.   I decided not to spend anything on these, so they are just plain fabric bits that I had on hand.

 I found these chicken tea towels at the local box store.   I purchased two of them, and cut them in half.   I put a heading at the top and hemmed the two needing hems about the same size as the bottoms of the towels.   When I added the header, I made sure they were all the same size.  I think they make a cute valance for the kitchen.   I had a curtain rod but it had decorative ends which stuck out farther than the space between the window and the cupboard, so I had to get a new curtain rod.   It cost more than the curtains did.

 I was finally able to spin a bit.   This is superwash merino, blended into rolags on a blending board.   Whenever I use the board, I recall my introduction on how to use one, when a gal was doing a demo in one of the spinning classes.   She took all sorts of fibres and slapped them on the board, packing them in until it was overly full.   She pulled off one single huge batt, which looked wonky and horrible to spin.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would do that or want to spin something like that.   Then I found a video showing how to pull rolags from the blending board.  This makes smooth, easy to spin and very pretty rolags,which I enjoy spinning.  So many different ways of doing things in spinning for sure!

We have a second chimney in our basement.  It was slightly damaged and needed some repair but I haden't been able to find anyone to do it since we first moved here.  That is until a couple of weeks ago when I noticed an ad in a small advertising booklet which came in the mail.   The repair quote was reasonable, but it turned out that we couldn't use the old woodstove that we already had.   Nor could he hook up the cookstove that I had.   Options were a second hand stove from a big box store - cheap but would need replacing in a year or two by his estimation, or a middle of the road stove which would last for years.   Because the price was just within our budget, we went for it.   All was good until they went to install the stove and they had made a mistake and there wasn't enough clearance for those options.  The only alternative stove which fit the clearance specs, was to jump up in quality, doubling the price.  Yikes -  however, it's super low emissions, has two air flow controllers and pumps heat like you wouldn't believe.   It's the stove I wish we had upstairs!   The downside is that when all was said and done, we could have practically paid for furnace for the same price.    The cats love to sleep in front of it and I'm happy it has a pedestal base as I have a friend who had a cat which got burnt from trying to bask in the heat under the stove.

Banjo strap details and hoar frost

With the inkle strap off the loom, I've been playing around with ways to turn it into a banjo strap.  The ends need to clip or tie onto the brackets around the outside edge.  With the commercial strap I have for the resonator banjo, I'd noticed the snap clips were starting to scratch and dent the wood and finish where the two met.  I switched them out for boot laces, which are quiet, hold the banjo securely and look okay.

I'd decided on leather ends as we have some veg. tanned leather sitting around from a previous project.   I could get Chicago screws locally but only in silver/chrome and I couldn't find the slider or strap end loops in silver.  I tried them anyway, but they look wrong, one went in crooked and I put them in backward,so the screw end was on the outside.   If I didn't need the hardware for the strap, the colour would be fine but I didn't like the look of them.   I found a packet of snap rivets in the leather tool box, which looked great but were too long.   I ended up ordering some from a eather supply place, in two colours, both a little bit too long, but workable.    I installed one on a scrap and it worked perfectly.   I got the holes slightly uneven on the second try, but the third was a charm.  I have two strap ends which look pretty much the same.  Yay me!
I wish I had some brown leather dye, but these will work just fine. I still need to get or make laces and decide where the lace holes need to be punched.

I finished spinning and plying the pink and blue superwash roving which I'd found in my stash.   The colours ranged from dark blue to a fairly light pink.  I rather like the colour progression in this.   I just split the strip of roving down the centre to spin two singles and hoped they'd sort of match while plying.   I knew that with the random placement of colours, it might not happen, but it happened enough to not muddy up the colours too much.


Our weather has been so variable lately.  We've had record highs and record lows within days of each other.  Then one morning, I looked outside a little too early, and there was hoar frost.  The whole world sparkled as the sun rose.   I grabbed my camera and started taking random shots, first while the early morning was still foggy and then as the fog lifted.   It only lasted a short while before the skies became grey again, but it was lovely while we had the glorious sunshine and blue skies.  Usually our winter skies, even when it's sunny are pale, watery colours in various shades of grey.

Off and on the looms...

The overshot fabric is finally off the loom.   I'm certain that it must have some sort of cat attractant woven into the fabric as there always seems to be at least 1 cat perched on it at any time.  The piece is 5 yards long, with a width of 16 inches, with a pattern width of 14 inches.   It's very pretty fabric and I don't know whether I like the front or the back better.   It's a bit on the heavy side, like an upholstery fabric.

I actually considered putting the inkle project on the big loom, but decided against it for 2 reasons.  First, the amount of loom waste which I'd not accounted for when I was dyeing the yarns and second, I really wanted to try to figure out this inkle loom.  It's so pretty and it looks exactly like it should be fully functional, so I was wondering what I was doing wrong.   I changed up the heddles a bit, but the string, while better than the last attempt,  isn't quite as sturdy and slippery as I'd like.   They are a bit sticky.   I still think the heddles are just a bit too long.  This means they migrate down towards the front peg, making for a very small working shed and small weaving area.  Still, it's weaving a fairly nice band.   My selvedges are awful, because not only was I trying a few different ways of sitting/standing/holding the loom etc, but the cats (mainly Dion) decided that it was a "purrrfect" toy, with all those strings.  So I was also combating little paws and curious noses much of the time. 

I broke a shuttle.   I actually liked using this one as the thread didn't slide off quite as automatically as the one I am using now.   But the depression in the centre is just too thin and the wood feels light, like cedar, so while pretty, also not very strong.  It broke when it was about 1/2 loaded with thread and what a mess that was.   I'm not certain if gluing it together would make it useful again, or just lead to another tangle of threads when it broke again.

Well, listening to a little Trampled by Turtles should cheer things up!