Sampling

I put on a three-yard warp of 8/2 unmercerized cotton in two colors.  I've never sampled before and I decided that it was time, before I wasted any more yarn.  A friend who teaches weaving recently told me that is how she starts her beginning weaving students.  I learned a lot by using a light and dark blue. 

I also discovered that I'm not all that crazy about art yarn as weft.  It's really not all that interesting.

I also learned that you need a contrast warp or you lose the yarn entirely.  It's been suggested that plain weave works well - let's the yarn be the star instead of the weave, but I like the point twill on the left too.

I also learned that if you use a warp that's the exact same color as part of a variegated yarn, that color, in this case, royal blue, just becomes a solid color and the pattern disappears.  Same for the baby blue in the hand spun yarn.

I learned that the wrong color of warp is a complete waste of a beautiful handspun yarn.  This was a variegated silk that I plied with black wool.  I also can see that the color changes aren't going to be any more attractive in a scarf than they are in this sample.  I'm still going to use it for a scarf but as the warp , with either an apple green or black Tencel for weft.  I also twisted the cotton to see if it would be okay in a fringe and it's not bad.

This is the yarn but it has long runs of color that looked weird in the weft.  I also learned that fewer picks per inch make a much more drapey fabric.  None of the samples were stiff - finally.   It was like a study group of one - I learned a ton!

Our last CSA box was huge and I'm glad we have two weeks to eat of of this.  It's Christmas in July!

A Hot Time

I finally finished another warp of towels, only my fourth this year.  Again I congratulate myself for recognizing that the craft fair deadline was a burden and I've settled down to enjoy weaving.  I had an email a while back from another CERT volunteer, requesting some towels from a neutral palette.  I finished these on the eve of our volunteer fire department fundraiser and barbecue so I emailed Norma to say I'd bring them in case she was still interested.  She bought two.

The Red Rock Rattlers CERTs (community emergency response team) are volunteers who feel our first line of duty is to support our VFD and we always work the picnic.  Alexia once again volunteered to help with the childrens games.  Saturday morning she woke up with an extreme case of bed head so the first line of business was a bath.

Her chief responsibility was to staff the face painting booth and the theme seemed to be vampire.

Care Flight arrived as part of their public outreach.  Several of us haven't been certified in helicopter landing protocol, so the crew agreed to provide onsite training.  I was fascinated by what they do and can do, and while I'm glad to receive the certification, I'm not sure how relevant it is.  I mean, they come out here and land without help securing a site all the time. They did it the very next day.

They welcomed the kids to check it out and Lu jumped at it.  The crew is the pilot and two nurses and they can do everything except x-ray and lab.  They go everywhere and were onsite at the Hawthorne Depot disaster earlier this year.  It's nice to know.

Ultimately Lulu succumbed to the temptation and painted her own face.  This was not her best work.  It was a 100 degree day and by the time we left, we were both exhausted.

There is a farmers market of locals out here in our valley.  It's every other week and residents volunteer their yards.  Currently the site is Steve and Sunny's - announcements are by the massive group email by which we valleyites are connected.  I set up a table the next day, Sunday, and in spite of the extreme heat and minimal attendance, I had good sales.  This might be the venue I was looking for.

Today was my trip to town.  It was CSA (community supported agriculture) pick-up day.  Delivery comes from Fallon, about an hour east of Reno in the most improbable place to grow anything.  At the turn of the last century, the Newlands Water Project was approved in Congress and water was diverted from the Truckee River and piped to the high desert in Fallon.  It shows the complete lack of regard for the Indians who lived at the end of the river at Pyramid Lake and thanks to an endangered fish, they were able to reclaim their water in court.  This has led to a perpetual tug-of-war between the farmers in Fallon and the Indians in Nixon.  It has also made the farmers shrewd about water use.  I visited Lattin Farms last year, where our box comes from, and they have developed an impressive system of giant hoop houses and drip watering. 

It continues to be a friction point, and I know people on both sides of this conflict.  My contemporaries in Fallon are trying to make a living on their farms, and small farms are always marginal.  On the other hand, I want so much to preserve the natural beauty that is unique to the high desert.  Pyramid Lake would be a wetlands, had our native tribes not won their case in court. 

This is what the delivery looks like.  It's accomplished by a huge network of volunteers at multiple locations.  St. Mary's Hospital has been onboard since the start and that's my pickup point.   I'm sure this is different from other CSA programs as this is the only game in town.  Nothing grows here and we who subscribe are grateful.  Actually, that top box is mine, now that I think about it.  Mike is always our delivery guy from Fallon and this summer he's enjoying the company of two of his grandsons. 

Every box is like Christmas in summer.  I'm in awe of what the Lattins are able to produce.  Each box comes with a page, listing the produce, suggested recipes and a note.  Today for the first time, the note was from Rich Lattin, thanking us in all humility for supporting them and for helping them move into this new generation of food.  It was a risk they took when they accepted the CSA challenge.  They had to step forward to organic food.  I have no doubt they did it with trepidation but I'm so thankful they did.  The remarkable thing is that they have actually dropped prices.  You should see us all cluster around the delivery truck.  It's like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in daylight.

Spindle Camp or Bust

I've been trying to get ready for Spindle Camp ever since I got home from the conference on Sunday.  I prepared these bats yesterday.  I have a feeling that I'm going to run out of spinning before Sunday, so I'm taking a basket of knitting too.

And I finished these towels yesterday.  We have a little market of sorts and I wanted to have these ready for sale.

I always take soap for our little market, but this is all I have ready for sale, so when I went into town today to pick up our CSA box, I went by the artists coop, thinking I could pick up the bars that have these labels.  I have a box of soap there with rock art labels, but I'm way off.  The rock art show is next month.  That means I'll be labeling soap in the morning, but there has to come a point when you say - enough.  I did enough for today.  I made chili this morning for the potluck and it's in double freezer bags tonight, going into the ice chest tomorrow.  I made meatloaf for our dinner so I can have it cold for sandwiches.  Enough.

This is a quick shot of our CSA box.  I cooked the beet and turnip greens up to accompany the meatloaf.  Until we started in the CSA program, I shunned greens and I have no idea why.  They are delicious.  The two vague baggies are lettuce greens and that totally changes up my food plans.  I need to take advantage of their short life and pack them somehow. 

I just checked the weather and nothing has changed.  It's going to be a firecracker hot weekend, just like last year only worse.  Look for me deadman floating in Lake Francis in the purple bathing suit.

Limbo

I got home last night and realized the only photo I took all day was at Sopa, a Thai restaurant in Nevada City, where Kerry and I ate lunch.  She is the neighbor I talked into accompanying me to the Not 2 Square weavers meeting yesterday.  I've virtually belonged to this group for a couple of years but this is my first meeting and boy was the trip worth it.  It's an informal gathering of weavers who sit in a circle and share their projects and then answer questions, and was I ever full of questions.  It was a five-hour round trip, but I drove home feeling like I had attended a class.

I came home through Reno so I could pick up our CSA box.  This is our second pick-up and the third week for weekly subscribers.  Already the box is bigger.  I try to work the pick-up around other appointments but Nevada City was a pretty big work around.  We're going to have the fresh greens tonight - one day old.  Yum!

I like how blue glass looks when the sun shines on it so I hung a couple of bottles on the tree that I had emptied of essential oils.  Then I decided to try some orbs of recycled glass that's I've hung inside our windows.  They're heavy and ultimately the suction-cup hangers lose their suction and they drop to the sill.  Not only do they look great in the tree, they twirl in the breeze - such a happy surprise.

The Not 2 Square group has some extremely talented and experienced weavers.  I took my iPad, expecting to take photos and make notes.  I was so absorbed I completely forgot.  There was so much give and take and tips, like this one.  I had been measuring the warp as I progressed with a pin on the selvedge, then I'd measure the distance between pins as I advanced the warp.  My towels are not quite the same length.  Igor uses grosgrain ribbon and Ingrid uses bias tape, premeasured and pinned along the right selvedge.  Since I had already cut this measuring tape to 30" for convenience, I'm using it instead.  Ingrid said she doesn't wind it on but lets it dangle so she can remove it and use it for every towel.

I took all my handspun skeins and when they got passed around the circle, I got some admiration but more importantly I got some direction.  I'm always in awe of Dee Jones, as a person and as a weaver.  I want to grow up to be just like her!  From her comments I took the initial steps of creating a scarf.  I tried off-white commercial yarn but it washed out completely so I'm trying some hand dyed, handspun silk I did years ago.

Someone suggested a 2/2 twill but I felt that smothered my warp.

I remember Cindie saying that sometimes the best solution for an interesting warp is just good old plain weave and so that's what I'm doing.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be weaving a lot of "projects" before I finally get my scarf sea legs.  I had it in my head that my novelty yarn had to be warp (the up and down threads) but this is looking a lot like upholstery.  I'll finish this off and the next project scarf will be using my novelty yarn as weft (side to side).  I was called this afternoon to sub tomorrow so this is in limbo for now.

Color

I finished the looper bath mats and I'm thrilled by them.  I posted a picture on Facebook and one sold to a friend from book group.  I have enough loopers for four more and then I have to decide what I'm going to do next.  The loopers are pricey.   I'm trying to decide if I can sell enough of these to justify ordering more loopers.  The postage is killers.  Groan.  I think what I sell pays for my materials.  I suppose there are worse hobbies.

I picked up our CSA box after my dental appointment today.  This is our first basket this year and it's our first year to participate as a single family.  In the past I've picked up weekly boxes which we split with our neighbor.  This year we're on our own so bought the bi-weekly subscription.  I have learned from past experience that we will be challenged to eat all of this in two weeks.  By the middle of summer, we'll be getting twice this many veggies. You don't realize it,  but produce is dense food.  Tonight we polished off the Swiss chard, accompanied by a ham steak.  Uber yum.  The carrots were planted in hoops houses last fall and the yellow ball is spaghetti squash.

Life is Good Deux

My rug warp arrived from Yarn Barn of Kansas. I was pleasantly surprised by their prices for UKI cotton and think that I might have just become a fan. In between everything last week I got a ten-yard warp wound and onto Miss Millie. It looks a little like a 50-50 ice cream bar, doncha think?
I added the orange stripes to recall the orange stitches on blue jeans. I took a couple of finished placemats to our knit group this afternoon and they hands down preferred the hit-and-miss mats to the denim. Groan. The denim is so much more work. I think when I finish with the denim I'm reweaving, I'll just only do hit and miss. If that's their opinion, that's probably what craft fair shoppers will think too.
I stopped by Lauren's classroom quickly today and though she wasn't there, one of her students was working independently and showed me her cardboard weaving. If you click for big you'll see that she has labeled her working parts. The shedding device is on the left, the heddle rod in center and the shuttle is along the bottom with what she has woven so far on the right. She was so excited to show me and carefully arranged everything so I could take this picture.
Today was week three of our CSA (com-
munity supported agri-
culture) baskets. There are several locations for pick-up but I choose St Mary's health center - we have a long history with St Mary's. DS Matt was born there, for one. I started to pull away when this sign caught my eye. Click for big.

I had only rolled a couple of feet when I saw this second sign on the other side of the parking garage entry. It was still a Catholic hospital when my oldest son was in for an extended hospitalization, and the sisters came to see him every day - that's hard to forget.
Each week the basket has gotten bigger. This is what I picked up today. We split a basket with neighbors Carol and Harry - one basket is supposed to feed a family of 4-5. Pick up doesn't start until 4:00 so don't get home until after 5:00, then I have to split the basket so Ian can deliver the other half. Plus, he loves the visit. It's a mixed blessing as I'm always in a hurry and I'm also excited as all get-out to see what we got this week.
While that may not look like a lot of food to you, it's dense and filling. It's getting harder to use everything in a week, which has taken me by surprise. We had salad with the nasturtiums tonight.

In the middle of everything, DS Josh Skyped from Oregon and I had a 45-minutes visit with him and grandson Logan. Ian was more than ready to eat after that. We'll spend the week with them after Black Sheep Gathering next month. I know I said last post that Life is Good but it really is!