On gardens, and spinning and some bits and pieces

DH has been in his happy place lately.   Finally his wood supplier, dropped off 2 small dump truck loads of logs.   The loads were definitely smaller than normal, but were maple and a size which was easy to slice up.  Then he got a call that they were in the area, and did he want a 3rd load of Locust wood.   He said sure.  Locust wood is very hard, but slices and splits easily.  Because it's so hard, it takes longer to dry.  However it burns really well and for a long time when it's mixed with other hardwoods.    It took him only a couple of days to have it all sliced and ready to be split.   He does enjoy doing the wood, which is nice since we use it for heat.   

I've been seeing this little guy in the garden for weeks now.   He was just barely a handful when I first saw him.   He's still around.   We had a couple of larger rabbits around for a couple of years now, but I haven't seen a large bunny since last autumn.    This guy though is all over our garden.   He's in the front, the back, and this picture is from in the fenced off garden. The last time I had bunnies in there, I was planting on the ground and my whole crop of kohlrabi had bites out of them.  Not a single one was harvestable.  However with the beds now being so high, my veggies are safe from bunnies at least.  I put in some of the solar lights, some sticks,  some really tacky dollar store spinning decorations, and a lot of straw mulch to try to protect the plants from other hungry garden pests.   So far it's kept the robins and grackles away from my young, just sprouted seedlings.   

We finally had some rain too, so I've not had to water the garden for days.  It's been cool though, so many of the plants have just stalled.   Nothing has grown much over the past couple of weeks except the lettuce and kale.   They love this weather.   I've been harvesting fresh salad every 3 days.   I planted a green leaf lettuce, red romaine, buttercrunch lettuce and kale.   It makes for a lovely salad.  In other garden news, something ate my pumpkin seeds before they sprouted, so they've been replanted.  It's been so cold though, that they haven't sprouted yet either.  

I wish I could say I've woven lots of things.   I've done a bit of spinning.   I thought I was spinning superwash for a pair of socks, but nope, just regular Blue Faced Leicester, so while it's nice yarn, not what I was looking for.  I do have some superwash merino that I can card up for socks though.   I have been weaving off the project on my table loom.  It's a bit sucky because it's a 1/3 twill and the sett is such that I need to use a stick shuttle because the boat shuttle falls though.   Since I'm alternating the twill, there are always 3 shots in a row that I can't used the boat shuttle.   The stick shuttle is slow.   I'm a lot faster with it because I usually use a stick shuttle with the rigid heddle loom, but I'd planned to use the boat shuttle, so it's taking a lot longer than I'd anticipated.

I started dressing the rigid heddle loom with a scarf.  I'm not sure why but I definitely chose the wrong reed, so will have to pull out the yarn from the reed, change it out and rethread the whole thing. Maybe this is why I don't weave nearly so much during the nice weather.

I've been doing lots of research on Circular Sock Machines.   They are expensive.   I don't want to make a mistake.   I may have a line on a functional antique one, but I'm getting impatient waiting, although it's really not that long a wait.  It would still be faster than waiting for a new one and at least I could afford it  more or less, and have a larger fund for yarn available.  New csms cost thousands of dollars, plus they are either coming from the other side of the world, so take weeks to get here, or come from closer, but have months long wait lists.   I'm still hoping for the antique one though.   Hubby thinks the antique one would be best, or if I need to get a new one, to get one from the US, with a long wait list, but more accessible parts.  Plus there is the whole political issues locally with people having had bad experiences with the ones from the other side of the world.   I don't want to get involved in that stuff. 

I was at the Marr shop at Westfield Heritage Village.  Because the day started off very slow, I didn't bother to untie the great wheel.   That was a bad decision though as it turned out really busy.  As well, a lady from Maryland I think, came by.   They were visiting for a few days.  She brought her drop spindle and some flax that she'd grown in her garden.  It was lovely stuff.

I had to make Dion kitty some kitty kickers so he'd leave my baby wombat stuffy alone.   We're both happy now.   I did make baked donuts, filled with jam.  They were delicious.  We ate half of them before I found some ants on them.   I thought they'd be safe in the glass cake stand.  It has a domed cover and keeps baked goods fresh for days.   Obviously not safe from marauding ants though.   I'll also have to replace the sugar as they're in the bin too.   Everything at risk will now go into the cupboards for the summer and not on the counters.    They don't seem to find the ant traps inviting so I'm not sure what options I have other than putting things out of reach and wiping down the counters every time I see an ant.

 

 

More Day Tripping

We spent a day at Upper Canada Village.  Even so, we didn't get to see all of it.  It's huge and the costumed staff is knowledgeable and willing to discuss the history of the various buildings and depictions of the homes, businesses and trades.  

The Wool Mill was situated right near the entrance to the park.  The front part of the downstairs had a huge fibre washing facility.

 After washing, the fibre was spread outside on these racks to dry.   A storm had rolled through the night before so the fibre was really quite wet.  It was very clean and enticing.

Upstairs housed the carding and spinning machinery.   The fibre is  starts in the first carder and automatically is fed to the second carder.  It's pretty messy as large piles of vm and short cuts fall out the bottom of the carders.   

There is spinning machinery as well as bobbin winders.   It wasn't running when we were there but all the spinning equipment is functional.  I don't remember the all the details about the commercial spinning machines,  the speed was quite impressive.

After seeing the carding and spinning facility, the tour leads to the weaving room.  Here you can see the huge belts which connect the machinery to the water driven gears.   There were looms, a warping mill, brushing and fulling machines.  It was all fascinating but I was particularly taken with the brushing machine.  It uses Teasels!    The sample showed that the Teasels do a really good job of raising the nap.

The weaving and spinning house has a large number of wheels, including production wheels, one with an original distaff, and an absolutely lovely walking wheel.  It did invoke a small amount of lust, seeing that wheel in the corner.   It is a beauty for sure!   They have a 4 shaft barn loom in really good shape as well.  They were weaving a blanket with a cotton warp and handspun weft which was really nicely done.

 This very old castle wheel was in a roped off bedroom.   After asking a few questions about it, they brought it out into the main room so I could photograph it properly.  It's from the late 1700's.  it's in amazing shape.  The 3 legged design is so it will fit easily into a corner and be out of the way in a small cabin.    I was thrilled that they took the time to bring it out and show it off.  You don't see a wheel like this too often, at least in our area.

Spinning Experiments

Today I got to play on a Great Wheel or Walking Wheel and a Canadian Production Wheel.  Wow!  What fun that was!  I spent about 4 hours on the Great Wheel, spinning up a quill full of Blue Faced Leicester fibre which was dyed with Dyer's Knotweed.  Blue, Blue Faced Leicester?  giggle   There's a bit of a learning curve there and I'll have to practice a few times to become proficient.  It's a lovely way to spin though, somewhat rhythmic and dance-like and very relaxing.   The blue skein weighs 27 grams for my efforts.  I'm sure with practice, my longdraw will become more proficient and I'll become more productive.  The Great Wheel was in fabulous shape for it's age.  I was told it was from about 1850.  It was nicely balanced, with a huge wheel and very, very pretty with it's dark wood and detailed turnings.

Then I switched to the Canadian Production Wheel.  The closest I'd ever been to a CPW is to be within droolable distance.  This was a much lighter coloured wood, with a bit more obvious wear.  If I thought the Great Wheel had a learning curve, I was wrong.  The CPW was totally different.  We had to back off the drive band to allow for a bit of drive band slippage to slow it down a tad, so I could draft fast enough to keep up with it.  Despite that, I had to do a long draw, nope, a very sloppy long draw in order to even try to match it's speed.  But fun!  Oh yeah baby.. a CPW can come home with me any time.   It's not a beginner's wheel by any means, but with some practice, it could be a dream to spin up quantities of fine yarn.  In the hour that I spun on the CPW, I spun 31 grams of brown Romney yarn.   That's a huge difference in time for the same quantity of fibre spun.
Next weekend, I get to do it all over again.. oh how sweet it that?  Maybe I'll remember my camera too!