Like riding a bicycle

 Monday I drove up to Sisters which is about a half hour north of Bend and met up with three other guild members in front of the public library.  From there we caravanned to Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture, which is a 260 acre working ranch.  Ana Varas, the arts projects coordinator of the Roundhouse Foundation gave us a tour with an eye on potential workshop locations.  We were recently a recipient of a grant from the foundation to promote the fiber arts.  The foundation takes its name from his round barn that was built to train and exercise horses.

Ana said that when they began restoration there was no central supporting pole and the structure was on the verge of collapse.  Because it's a working ranch, Oregon law limits groups inside this building to no more than ten.

The property is sprawling but interspersed are buildings in use for an artist-in-residence program.  Because of Covid-19 restrictions there are only two artists now, both potters, but they anticipate returning to their potential of eight after the pandemic.

This is one of the locations we looked at for a painted-warp workshop, but because of the lack of hot water for dissolving the eye powders, we determined it would be more appropriate for a spinning workshop.  it will be shaded by the canopy of cottonwoods this summer and ideal.

Whychus Creek runs through the property and will be the perfect environment for a spinning circle.

Ana really wanted us to take home a bag of fleece.  They're incorporating sheep into the ranch and she said they'd really like to see some of the wool spun and even better, woven.  So the three spinners among us obliged.  They have three Lincoln sheep and when we saw them bedded in straw, I cringed to think what was in the bag that I had accepted.  They're adding another 13 sheep to the flock soon which will also have to be shorn.  More wool!

I don't have a top loading washer any longer so have to wash clumps at a time in the sink.  I did a cursory skirting and am taking off more as I go.  It's one of the dirtiest fleeces I've ever washed, but it has almost none of the dreaded vegetative matter.  Glory be!

I'm flicking the locks and then spinning them which seems the easiest way to spin luster long wool, plus I'd like to preserve the variegations in the locks.  Boy is it hairy.  I can't imagine trying to weave this but I'll cross that bridge when I have a fulled two-ply yarn.  That might, just maybe get dyed with onion skins.  I've been away from spinning for a surprisingly long time and surprisingly my muscle memory can still make yarn.

Staying Home, Staying Safe

I lost interest in hand spinning after we moved here.  The first meeting I attended was a spinning meeting but somewhere along the line weaving took up all my time and I put my folding wheel into it's bag and stashed it in a closet.  The guild's spinning study group is doing such interesting things that I've put my wheel back up and given myself a spinning station. 

I used to have close to a dozen bobbins but now can only find four.  I had to clean off a couple so I chose two that I don't remember what the fiber was and I'm back at it.  I know what's all on three of these and in order to keep it that way, I've slipped a piece of paper in each with the name of the fiber.  We're going to be doing some natural dyeing and I'm making yarn in preparation.

The wheel is upstairs and I'd left the area to get something, don't remember what.  When I came back I found my cat snuggled in the plastic bag of roving - scared me to death.  I left the roving attached to the wheel, feeling the area was safe from Delaney but never stopping to think that it's not safe for Maddie.  It's in a Maddie-safe place now.

A couple of years ago someone in the Linocut Friends Facebook group posted a template for a hand printed Christmas ornament.  I'm sure I have the photocopy somewhere and I know it's in a file somewhere here on my laptop, but it's a good thing I carved the block way back when.  I forgot all about it until yesterday and decided it was time to finally make some prints.

What got me started was finding a some scraps of Hosho paper from an earlier project.  I only bought inks in primary colors so it was easy for me to decide on red.

I printed eight yesterday and let them dry overnight.  I ruined two trying to figure out how to assemble them.  Good thing I have PVA glue because it dries really fast and is made for paper.

I hung the ornaments on the Thanksgiving cactus using sewing thread.  That's how light they are.  I think it looks like the plant is still blooming.

I think they're absolutely charming and wish I had printed more.

I mixed up what I hope looks like Delft blue and printed all the leftover paper.  Tomorrow I'll cut and glue them and hang them on our tree.

Maddie brought a ball of yarn downstairs and when she got bored with it I gave it to Delaney.  She has been entertaining herself with it for the past week, even pretends that she's knitting with it.  And so it begins :-)

 

Trying New Things

I taped a piece of butcher paper to the dining room table and gave Delaney her new set of markers.  She has trouble getting the lids off and on so I removed them for her.

She really went to town.

It held her interest for quite a while.

I decided that maybe giving her a set of markers was premature when this happened.

She even decorated the sweater I just finished for her.  I know they'll wash out but at least she chose harmonious colors.  My first reaction was, 'nuff of that!  We'll try again in six months, but on reflection I decided why not?  They're washable and she's creative.  But I will wait a week, or two.

This is about a quarter of a fleece that I bought last spring.  I am spinning a little but am mostly interested in fiber preparation at this point.  I haven't been able to get small batches clean enough to spin easily and I've heard a lot of good things about a suint bath so on Monday, one week since I put this in, I'm going to check to see how the wool is doing.

 

Another season

I finished the Summer and Winter dish towels and think I should have taken Sarah Jackson's advice and made a simple sampler.  The towel on the left is the last one of five and I used one shuttle and the same weft for the tabby.  It's pretty muted.  The weft in both of these isn't in the warp.  It's interesting but I preferred the wefts from the warp palette.

The instructions in Handwoven called for the order of the wefts. I really like the way summer and winter looks but I'm not in love with two shuttles.  I say that, yet I didn't mind two shuttles in shadow weave.  I'm working on commissioned placemats right now and after that I'm going to make a turned taquete sampler.  I like all the color with just one shuttle - it's much more fun to weave.

Here they are and if I do it again I will pay close attention to values.  I don't want another overpowering color like the purple again.

The program at our guild meeting last Wednesday was given by our spinnners study group on heritage breed sheep.  I've wondered what happened to my passion for spinning but it went away and I don't know why.  I even had stored my wheel in it's bag.  After they concluded their presentation I realized that I know exactly when it stopped - when I was no longer involved with the sheep.  I took this picture about 90 minutes after the meeting.  I got my wheel back up, dug out my Forsythe mini-combs and found some locks that I had washed and slightly felted, rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  I've washed more locks today and am waiting for them to dry.

I'm working on a sweater for Delaney and tried it on her to check the size.  Lookin' good.

And speaking of Delaney, her parents just bought her a Kindle Fire for kids.  Now that we have her more often it makes a lot of time to fill, especially since we're not TV people.  She took to it right away and really likes Sesame Street.  I have no idea why she needed both feet on the table but apparently that makes it work better.

The irrigation canal was turned off the first of the month but there are residual pools that attract water fowl.  I still like to take my morning walks along here but will probably be looking for a new route when the canal turns into an ugly gash in the earth.  The Covid infections have increased and we still have no snow.  That's about it in a nut shell.

 

Staying Close to Home

The pine drops are still growing.  I've never had a plant achieve so much height in one month,  Currently they're about 33" and are developing what appear to be buds.  This is an intriguing plant.  it's growing in sand with no water.

I'm continuing to spin 30 minutes each morning and have finished the rust, green and yellow rovings.   I had finished my spinning but hadn't finished my coffee son this morning o decided to use that time to look up some things that have been on my mind lately, like what colors attract bees.  The answer I got was purple, violet and blue.  And just then a bee landed on my roving.  I guess I have my answer!


We decided to donate our old truck to Oregon Public Broadcasting in exchange for a tax writeoff next year.  They told us they'd need a second donated vehicle before they would send the tow service down from Portland, so we moved it onto the RV pad to wait.

I got a phone call midweek that they finally had a second vehicle and would be down on Saturday to pick it up.  Ian pulled it out into the yard which made it really easy for the tow driver to hookup.


The driver had it ready to go in no time and I felt an inexplicable sadness as I watched it leave our lives.  It was Ian's truck and I rarely drove it, but it was part of our lives for 25 years so perhaps it's not quite silly that I was sad.  We drove it into the Sierras and cut Christmas trees.  He and our dogs had a ritual of driving around the valley and what I think I'll think of the most is their erect pointed Heeler ears visible through the back window.  It was the height of their day.


Now my wilderness is my ornamental gardens.  They're so much work and they give so much back.



And my wildlife is apt to be a cottontail who isn't afraid of me in the least.  Thank goodness I've continued my practice from the high desert of planting things that rabbits aren't attracted to - for the most part.  Bunny and I are in disagreement about a Standard Phlox that he wants and I've put chicken wire around.  I have a feeling I'll cave and remove the wire.  It's ugly. 


And the deer are back.  So far we've only seen one fawn but I'm sure there will be more.  These guys look like they're waiting in line for the porta-potty.



Our granddaughter Alexia is with us for about a month.  Usually we have trip plans but COVID-19 has pretty much put the kabosh on that.  Plus, she has to take pre-calculus as an online summer school class in order to be ready for fall.  It's really intensive.  She's on her laptop from noon until 4:30 and then has several hours of homework.  It's only lasts three weeks but the accumulative hours equal a semester.  Her paper piles grow by the day.  There are 28 kids in the class. 

The last day of class we're going to pile in the car and go to the coast to spend a few days in Yachats, Oregon.  It's the same Air B&B we stayed in two years ago.  We thought about going up to Tacoma to spend time with family but then Washington got spiking occurrences of the virus.  We're playing it safe and staying close to home.


I'll miss Delany while we're gone.  She is getting quite good at "reading" her books so I've moved them to the shelf with her board books and I let her use them unsupervised.  We're not far off from her sitting for a story.  It's fun having two granddaughters in the house.

Summer in June

I drove up to Prineville on Wednesday afternoon for my first meeting with our guild's spin/study group.  The GPS said it would take 51 minutes and that's exactly what it took.  I even stopped to take a couple of pictures.  It's almost Big Sky Country in the big beautiful agricultural valleys.  This is the field across from Catherine's ranch.

I drove a couple hundred yards and stopped again for a photo of a gorgeous blue heron.  He took flight before I could capture him.  Click for big to see his wing span.  That's the best I could do.



Last spring the conference colors were announced for the 2021 ANWG (Association of Northwest Weavers' Guilds) event.  I haven't spun in a couple of years and decided to buy two ounces of each color to see if it wouldn't get me going again.  I paid for the merino roving and forgot about it.  Until a couple of weeks ago when one of the guild members emailed me wondering if I had forgotten to pick up my roving from her.  Why, yes I had.  So I am once again spinning in the morning with my coffee and wondering what took me so long.  I have finished two of the five colors, which in the end will be ten ounces of yarn.  The same colors are available in Brassard cotton in the event I want to weave with them.

I've been keeping my eye on this odd outcropping in our front yard.  I've learned that it's called Pine Drops and is a fungi, not unlike Snow Flowers.  It's already over a foot tall.  I have no idea what to expect.  Interesting, no?


A couple of years ago when our friend Petey was visiting, he brought six iris bulbs from Dan, his cousin's husband, who raises iris for show.  This is the first year these two have bloomed and they're called Golden Panther.  I made a map of how I planted them so I know what each one is called.  Dan had written their names on the dried flags.  I am very impressed.


I don't know how any of our flowers are blooming.  This is what summer has looked like, pretty much every day.  We've also gotten quite a bit of rain and I remind myself that Portland doesn't see much sun and is very green.  I like taking my morning walks along the irrigation canal.


This is where my sunshine comes from.  Poor baby.  She misjudged her step and fell into some rocks, cutting her lip, requiring two stitches.  They would only allow one parent in the treatment room and since no one is allowed to hang around, Julia had to go home.  She said it's the hardest thing she's had to do yet.  The stitches will absorb in about five days so be all gone by the time she comes next week.

I bought these toys yesterday at a garage sale two doors down.  They'll be waiting for her.

The weather is a'changin'

Last Thursday was our first day to watch Delaney.  It was kind of a shake-down cruise, just one day to work out the bugs and for Julia to get used to being back at work..

She's eight weeks old today and we're officially on duty.  Sammie is absolutely thrilled to have a baby in the house.  She has always adored children.  I think it's a Lab thing.  Delaney will be with us tomorrow.  Julia is working two days a week, at least for now.

I've continued spinning each morning for about a half hour.  Michelle asked me if I noticed a therapeutic effect.  I can't definitively say yes, but I think my foot is doing pretty good just eight weeks postop.

Another benefit is I'm going through my significant stash of roving and skeins require less storage space.

My plan is to weave another lap robe like this one,once I'm able to weave again.  I have various leftover skeins of colored wool so it won't be exactly like this.  The interesting thing about this throw is that it's from one sheep.  When Ollie was a yearling he had bright brown fleece which aged to a gray tan over the years.

I'm saving coffee grounds from the Keurig pods.  They're nearly dry when I scoop them out, much tidier than the grounds from my French press.  I know they're great in compost and good for garden soil amendment but I just learned that they change the ph of the soil and turn the hydrangea flowers blue.  I worked in the first batch yesterday along with some granular fertilizer.  

We've had quite a few of the migrating deer in our yard recently.  Some of the these will migrate on up into the Cascades but two for sure were born in our yard and stay with us.  Our yard is completely fenced so I'm free to enjoy them without trying to protect plants.