More Staycation

This is the 30-year-old stove that was in the house we bought five years ago.  Before then I didn't know that some stoves in open floor plans have to vent down under the house.  They also cost a whole lot more than updraft stoves with range hoods.  The control panel part of the oven died last year and while the oven was probably still working just fine, we couldn't control it.  We decided to order a replacement last August.  Due to supply line interruptions production has been at a snail's pace and our replacement didn't come until last Thursday,

This is the brand we were replacing.  Ever hear of it?  Us neither.  Apparently Whirlpool bought them out.  There are no replacement parts.  Our installers had visited the house a couple of months ago to scope out the job and called a couple of weeks ago, wondering if we had gone with another crew.  Nope.  No stove, still waiting.  

When Ian called them last week to set up an installation date, Damian put us at the top of his list, said we had waited altogether too long.  He and Zach are the crew and worked three hours yesterday getting as much of the installation completed as possible.  The unpleasant reality is that the old stove was a 30 amp without a ground wire, the new one is a 40 amp and we were going to need an electrician in order to finish the job.  

Ian found a journeyman electrician on the Next Door app and darned if he didn't show up this morning and rolled up sleeves.  He said he has an overload of work, like all of construction in Bend, but he felt bad that we were left hanging.  That's a phone number we'll hold onto.  Damian will too; he was excited to have a reliable electrician to call on. 

Our installers put the stove box back in the hole because we told them we had a baby coming in the morning.  Delaney was absolutely fascinated by this new thing.  They left the door off to make it easier for the electrician.

This is the new stove.  It's unlike anything I've cooked on before.  The burners are instantly hot, just like gas.  Ian and I falling over each other planning meals and baking.  It even has a steam rack for bread.  With the installation expenses, it was a hefty price tag but I know it will be worth every penny.  I think it's part of Covid thinking - since I'm stuck at home, why not make home a little better.

I am still trying to weave summer and winter without having loops on the backside.  I know now that they're from not advancing the warp as often as I should.  There was one more cobalt towel which I kept for myself.

I had a couple cones of pale yellow so I decided to weave that same draft but with three colors instead of two.  The yellow saddened everything.  I should have known.

So I decided to stick to yellow companion colors, bright yellow and lime green.  Same thing.  I have more warp so guess I'll see how the light yellow can butcher orange.

I'm trying to keep pace with the Aran knit-along and have now divided for the sleeves.  The instructions for saddle shoulders were a week ago so I am falling behind.  Ian told me that if I were to knit him an Aran sweater that he would wear it.  I love these crazy cables and am happy to have another sweater in the wings.  I told him it won't be ready until next winter.

 

Saying goodbye to summer

 The Color Confidence workshop with Sarah Jackson ended last Friday and my head is stuffed with information.  She is my favorite designer in Handwoven and I hope to put what I learned to good use.  Our summer and winter sampler had a section of colors we chose from a inspiration photo and wrapped yarn on a cardboard strip to help us plan placement and value.  Another time I'd choose something less vigorous than zinnias, maybe.

I finished Sarah Jackson's prayer shawl weave-along, my first time to weave with the shadow weave structure.  I've warped my loom and am weaving another one to help cement what I learned on this one.

I think is going to become a gift as I'm just not a shawl person.  Maybe I can weave this as cloth?

Our kitty is seven years old now and has always eaten Iams dry cat food but lately her coat has looked ragged and her vomiting more frequent.  At the suggestion of a friend we switched her to grain free food, the logic being that cats are carnivores and wouldn't eat grains if left on their own.  The improvement is remarkable.

Ian also read that raising their dish helps to eliminate vomiting and promote digestion.  I can't tell how helpful it is since we've also changed her food, but she's a less messy eater now.

The same friend who suggested the change in our cat's diet also got me turned onto making my own kimchi.  My first batch was cabbage and chard from our garden.  I'm soaking the greens in saltwater in this photo.

It turned out so good that I made a second batch today.  If you're interested, the author says the recipe is from her mother-in-law and you can find it here.  

The earwigs were ferocious this year.  I want to plant cabbage again next year but set out soysauce/oil traps right at the beginning.  One of my friends insists she killed thousands with the traps.  I find that hard to believe but any would be better than this.  I'll figure out a way to avoid the raccoons next years - maybe just cottage cheese lids.  If you're wondering why the cabbage head is in water, I'm drowning earwigs.

The geese are gone, much to my relief.  They're pretty to look at but miserable to share a trail with.  The canal is still flowing, but I noticed this morning on my walk that there's a drop in water level.  It's been a rough water year for farmers so no doubt they're filling their stock ponds anticipating the end of the irrigation canal for 2020.

We've had the first killer frost and said goodbye to the garden.  Our maple tree is an early harbinger of autumn and October arrives this Thursday, my favorite month of the year.

Home Again

Thursday morning over coffee, Sue and I got onto the subject of kitchen knives and then realized that we had both heard the NPR American's Test Kitchen episode where they tested chef's knives.  We were both astonished that Swiss Army Knife had been their hands down winner - again.  It's been their winner for several years in a row and comes in at under $30.  Sue remembered that the model is Victorinox so I went upstairs and ordered it on my iPad.  I was astonished when I arrived home Friday to find an Amazon box on the counter - it was my knife.  The blade isn't better than my Henckel but the handle is what seals the deal.  In case you're looking to upgrade~

Pam and I got together after church on Sunday and went to work on Kelly's wedding-favor soaps. We spent the first hour trying to get the little cards printed with their names and the wedding date.  I had done the cards in advance and had them on my laptop but Pam struggled to find her WiFi password - a little setback.  We finally got that resolved and printed the cards and Pam sent Kelly a picture for approval.  We had misspelled the groom's name, after printing and cutting apart half the cards - on special limited paper. 

We had a wing-ding of a mess on our hands, tearing the seed-impregnated paper into strips,  cutting the little cards into precise 1.5 x 1.25 squares to slip in the back and then there was the rafia.  We had left off Kelly's requested line - Hand-in-Hand Soap.  It was supposed to be a pun and bypassed both of us.  Kelly was so upset that she said that she and Steve would print the cards and slip them into the soaps themselves.  I told Pam - no.  They're on overload, leaving for his family in San Diego in the morning and back to their hospital shifts when they get home.

Pam and I have been friends for over half our lives, from before Kelly, and we have absolutely nothing in common, other than the experiences we have shared.  She is one of the most artistic and creative people I know, but these soaps were her Waterloo.  I was counting as we went, stacking in piles of five.  Finally I said - okay.  I have forty here, what do you have?  She looked around her and counted the various bars - nine?  We both laughed.  That's my Pam.

The final step is to hot-glue the flowers onto each soap.  I wish I could help Pam with this step as school starts this week and I know she'll be be swamped.  Steven and Kelly have purchased little clay pots and will place a seed ball and a bar of soap into each one.  They have done this entire wedding on a tiny budget.  The actual ceremony is on a peak in Yosemite and the reception is in her dad's backyard. I haven't seen her dad in years.  I'm looking forward to the reception. 

I picked up this roll of corrugated cardboard when I was at Ingrid's last week - her with a non-functioning well and me with an overheating car.  Cindie Kitchens asked me how I was going to cut it.  Well now, that thought had never crossed my mind.  I got the end of a roll from someone who was very willing to share.  Cindie suggested a box cutter on a concrete floor.  I can see that this isn't going to be a simple task.

I've finished the Knitting Pure and Simple shell from Knit Picks CotLin.  It turned out great, fits well and I can see is going to be easy to maintain.  I don't know how to work in ends on a fiber like this so they're pretty unsightly.  I guess as long as they're out of sight, they're out of my mind - anyway, I'll knit this again. 

I finally finished my scarf.  This is from handspun BlueFace Leicester and dyed with indigo.  The warp was a light blue that I dipped back into the pot on one end to get two colors of blue in the skein.  I used a darker blue for the weft.  My struggle has been with gently pulling the beater back.  Imagine a bug and don't squish it, was the advice from one weaver.  When I left Ingrid's, she said - remember.  And she gestured a tiny pull back.

I learned a lot on this project.  I think it looks great but handspun wool doesn't make a great neck warmer.  I'll still wear this with my winter coat because I like it.  I sampled at the end of the project - next time I'll do it at the start.  This would probably have been better in plain weave.  Cindie sent me samples and I can see their value.  I used a flashlight and periodically shown it back up to see if my beat was even.  It's necessary to have a space between each weft beat so that the cloth isn't rug-like and keeping it even is a challenge.  I have a sample from this project and I'll continue to collect them.  It's the best way to learn.  I'm sorry I've been so slow to catch onto the value of samples.

I wanted to read this morning in the area we created a while ago but this gorgeous caryopteris has asserted itself and alas there's no room for legs.

I had Ian help me relocate the furniture to this spot.  It's on the east side of the fruit trees and I just checked - it's totally in shade.  When we moved here there was nothing but sagebrush.  We've grown our own shade over the past 11 years and it means that we have to adapt each year as the shade changes.  I'm not complaining.  Shade is good.

More Tea Towels

The rabbitbrush dyed yarn is ready to weave and I simply cannot get an accurate photo of the color which I think of as gentle gold. You can probably only tell that it's no longer gray. It'll be several more weeks before I get started weaving with it, but I did want to show my results.

The dye bath is brassy gold and another dye bath later in a few months with green plants will be a brighter gold, and then when they're in bloom in September, it will be National Geographic yellow. I'll do it again.
I really need to place an order for more yarns but for now I need inspiration for the colors I do have, which are a lot of purples, yellows and greens. When I was trying to decide how to use them together, I thought of hyacinths, which are blooming now. I found this through Google images.


I was trying to use wefts that were in the warp, but after playing with Weave-Design for a couple hours to plan the next colors, I realized that there's no reason I should be limited to wefts that are in the stripes on my warp. I made that up!

For the last towel, I threw on Prussian blue and got a really interesting teal effect, but then after all, yellow and blue make green. The purples all but disappear. I sold all the Desert Pond towels on the same day I posted them on Facebook. I just put the last three in the mail today.
I finished the Hyacinth series towels today and have started winding more "desert pond" colors - can't argue with success. Kerry made me realize that these are great gifts for Mothers Day so I wanted to get a couple sets in the Artists Co-op for the May show. I had planned to call Cherilyn, the gallery manager, and ask to show them to her, when she called me yesterday. She is taking some sheets to the Goodwill, do I want them to weave with? Yes!!! She's thrilled to have my towels in the show, sight unseen, so in they go on Monday.
Everything has to have a label and be priced to be in the gallery, so I made up these in Publisher today, using the "label's template. I have to increase my price to compensate for the gallery's commission. Ian says tea towels have a nice ring than dish towels, so now they're tea towels.

I have another craft fair May 12th and then again June 2nd. I need to get a few more sets under my belt to feel like I have something to sell, and selling is just an excuse to make more.
I picked up our first CSA box, which stands for commun-
ity supported agricul-
ture, on Tuesday afternoon, which means I'm back to swimming every Tuesday - double win for me. The pool and the pickup are at the same facility.

I am astounded and thrilled at the bounty in our first box, double that of last year, and since we split with another family (Harry, Carol and Kerry), it's fantastic. The carrots were wintered in hoop houses so they could treat us with a surprise in our first box. They were like candy. Carol thought it was last week and was so disappointed. We have been counting the days. Our half of the subscription is $417 and for that Ian and I will get organic produce every week for the next six months. The high desert is such a hostile growing environment and our Fallon farmers are wizards at coaxing this wealth from unwilling earth. We love them!!!!

I Know What I'm Doing - Who Said That?!

I woke up Wednes-
day morning and started to knit on the baby sweater with my cuppa when the light went on. This is Plymouth Encore and at 70% acrylic, this is the size the sweater will be when blocked. I looked up the yarn online and realized that the yarn is 20 stitches to four inches, and the pattern called for 18 stitches to four inches. It was an in-town day so I eliminated two stops and added one to Jimmy Beans Wool. It's over 50 miles from here, but when I'm in town already, it doesn't feel so bad.
My trip to town started with making a date to have lunch with my DD Chris. It was the day after her final exam and so we decided to eat on campus and then shop at the bookstore. She was telling me about the video that Kiernan and Alexia had made the night before about zombies as we walked through the building. In the back, I could hear something and then something again. Finally I heard - Sharon! It was Amy! We haven't seen each other for months and were passing through space and time at that moment - an unexpected treat.
I walked into the JBW store, which was surpris-
ingly busy for its remote location, and a clerk who was clearly helping someone else asked if she could help me. I said - I need to buy some yarn. Have I come to the right place?? Sometimes I crack myself up. The lady she was helping was holding some mohair in the exact color I was looking for. The clerk looked at my pattern and directed me to the same color in Lorna's Laces.

Then I wasn't sure about the second color. I asked if she could Google school colors for UNC, Chapel Hill, just at the same time a staff person came out from the back to see if she could help. She spun around and said, I graduated from there. Can I help you? This is what I came home with and even if I only have a week to make it, I'm really excited. I want to make an "NC" patch but won't know what size until the sweater is blocked. I've never made a patch before, but it can't be too hard, right? Benita included some white cotton in the box of fabric. I figure I'll iron it to some fusible interfacing, zigzag the outline and then cut it out, right?
This is a Knitting Pure and Simple pattern. I always photocopy patterns so I can write on them. When I got home, I realized I had left my copy at the store. No problem. I'd work off the original, only I couldn't find it. No problem. I'm using the copy that Diane emailed in 2003! The other one will show up some day, but it's obvious I need another studio cleaning. If you look closely on the bottom right you will see where Charlie has nibbled on the page.
Given the baby sweater deadline, I spent way too much time yesterday on the rug but I got it done. I've hemmed all my rugs - not a fan of fringe - but decided to hemstitch this time to eliminate the rug unraveling as I'm trying to zigzag the edge.

Again, I ran out of warp and was fighting for the last inches of string. Math and I are not friends, though we have worked out a tenable relationship. This time I was just wasn't listening, or something.
I pulled it off the loom last evening and laid it on the balcony. I couldn't wait to see it.
And here it is on the floor. This is an area just inside the French doors and heavily trafficked by our three large dogs. They have battered the wood terribly. I hate to cover our beautiful floors but I hate what the dogs are doing to them. I cleaned and oiled two areas today and really appreciate the protection my rugs provide. The subcontractor who laid the floors used an inferior sealant. The rugs are a necessary patch job for now.
I washed all the rugs today, getting ready for our Christmas Eve open house tomorrow. This is an earlier rug and I have to say that I like darker colors and more reds.

Hard Boiled Eggs: I bought a dozen eggs, planning to make Deviled Eggs for tomorrow. I read several places how to make perfect hard boiled eggs and printed an AllRecipes one that include the recipe and the technique. I could not get the egg shells off. My eggs look like they had teenage acne. I had a half dozen left so went back to the internet for how to make hard boiled eggs that you can peel, I boiled the other half dozen with 1/2 tsp of baking soda, chilled them for a couple of hours in ice water, and they peeled effortlessly. Apparently it has something to do with the Ph balance of fresh eggs. If you change the Ph balance with the baking soda, you don't have to think in advance and use older eggs.

"The trick to peeling hard-boiled eggs easily is to ensure that the eggs are several days old. Hard-boiling eggs that are farm fresh will yield to eggs which are virtually impossible to peel. Buy eggs and store them for 5-10 days before hard-boiling farm fresh eggs. This is because as the eggs age, the carbon dioxide present in the albumin seeps out, thereby reducing its acidity. Research reveals that reduced acidity assists in easier peeling." I got that information here. All I know is - the eggs are peeled.

Ho Ho Ho Countdown

I swore off handmade Christmas presents a number of years ago, but now we've got babies in the family and I can't resist. Believe it or not, this is a hat drying on our sugar canister. When it's dry I'll attach the tassel on top. The hat was much harder than it looked in the picture.
I'm a late starter on this present, but neither one gets delivered until New Years when Ian and I got to SoCal to celebrate the holiday with his family. I know I can get this cardi done in time, but I need to make an athletic patch to attach. That's the part that worries me.

I started a handmade Christmas from the year I was married. We lived in Pensacola Florida on Mike's corporal's pay and we were broke. I saw a Sunset magazine article where you could form thin rolls of cookie dough into the shapes of ornaments, a faux lead glass technique. You baked the dough briefly on a cookie sheet, cracked hard candies into the spaces and returned it to the oven to finish baking the dough and melt the candy into a glass-like sheet. When finished, I hung my beautiful ornaments on the tree, where the lights slowly melted the candy onto our few presents and the floor.

I continued to make handmade presents for everyone later when Mike was a student and we had no money. I remember the look on my father-in-law's face when he opened his present to find a special macrame wine bottle. Those were the materials I owned. I know he loved me because it was still around years later.
I took this picture earlier this week as I was working on my warp. I love being right here and stealing from Melissa, I'm calling it a loom with a view.
I finished up the last load of laundry and rousted Charlie from his favorite place in the sun. I got it tied on and hemstitched this morning. If I only use the leftover fabric strips, I might get it done by Christmas Eve.
It looks like a fabric bomb went off. I have strips and fabrics strewn around. I have a lot of strips cut from earlier projects so I've tried to spread the strips into intensity and hues. Other than that, there's no plan or forethought. I'm a quarter of the way done but have to be in town tomorrow. I'm not ruling out a new rug for our Christmas Eve open house - yet.
We keep our tree up a full month and I spend time looking at it every day. The chili pepper reminds me of Carol and Harry- from our shared CSA basket. The Campbell kids ornament to the right is from the Sorrentinos, the amazing couple who adopted my pregnant 15-year-old daughter's baby 25 years ago and came into our lives three years ago. The orange glass pumpkin is from Amy, a sneak buy from her on our vacation trip near Santa Cruz and the needlepoint ornament next to it was one of the last my mother-in-law was able to do.
I could take you on a tour, any quadrant of the tree. I see here the crocheted snowflake from my mother, who passed away 11 years ago. There's a little golden rooster lurking just to the right of it from Laura. This is what I do with the tree throughout this month. It's the richest tree around - rich in memories. I completely understand how this time of year is hard on people who have suffered loss.

And so, yesterday I cooked my first leg of lamb, with much help from Ian, the retired butcher. It was beyond fabulous. Tonight we had lamb pie. It was beyond fabulous. I chilled the Crisco before making the crust. I read about that in Cook's Illustrated. I nearly fainted, it was so flaky. It was beyond fabulous, or did I say that already?