Spring is a'coming

Delaney was in Reno for three weeks so we took advantage of the free time and went to Yachats for a few days - pronounced Yah-hots.  We were blessed with really nice weather, a window in between rainy days.

The coast had been experiencing extremely high tides which brought in unusually large quantities of drift wood and it was everywhere.  We even brought some home.

We walked the 804 trail to the point it empties onto the beach and continues in the sand for an additional 7 miles.  We took that as our cue to turn around.

This is our third time to stay in this little Air B&B, a shotgun house built in 1904.  It's very small but it's big enough and cheap enough for our needs.

It's situated at the mouth of the Yachats River and this is the view you get in the front room.  A right turn at that stop sign takes you to the state park where I took the first photo, maybe a couple of football fields from the house.

The sunsets were spectacular.  We ate fresh seafood every night and left just as the weather started to turn.  

I bought this stroller from a store that sells used baby equipment, clothes and toys.  I've since learned that BOB strollers are the Cadillac of strollers and I got a steal at $100.  The weather is mostly chilly and windy but we've gotten in three walks.

We walked to a nearby park where they have the only infant swing I've seen here.  I thought she would absolutely love it but she did not.  Plus it takes a lot of arm strength to get her back out!

It's been so dry that we called our irrigation guy and had him come turn the system on early.  He got distracted by me and one valve didn't get closed so water ran all night.  This was a surprise to wake up to but he got here right away and got it fixed.

We have our local deer who hang out here from time to time.  They know us and Ian can walk right up to them.  These is a migratory herd on their way to the Cascades.  I cringe when I think of all the roads and traffic they will have to negotiate in their journey.  They're molting and a pretty scraggly lot.

Delaney turned two while she was in Reno so had a small party there with her aunts.  This past weekend they had a second party for her family here.  

Ian and I are fully vaccinated so I was really looking forward to her party.  This is my oldest son and this is maybe the 6th time I've seen him this year.  Delaney was happy to see him too!

Delaney doesn't have many play opportunities and always enjoyed a visit from Dillon.  Their mothers were best friends at Reno High School and now their children are friends.  I took tons of pictures, we all did, but this is one my favorites because they're so innocent and sweet.  I'm not sure where they're going as that door is the entry to the laundry room and then the garage.

And taped on the garage door is this reminder, after getting to our house on quite a few occasions without formula, diapers or baby wipes.  I think that's her daddy's writing :-). He has drop-off duty.

 

Weaving Workshop

These cones are the eight colors I've chosen for my single shuttle Crackle towels.  They're here because I have stuff strewn all over the place as I frantically work on my Echo and Jim projects for the Linda Hartshorn workshop.  I don't think the workshop is any less intensive than her traditional 2 1/2 day taught in person.  The only thing missing is being able to handle the fabric but I've said that before.

I'm about at the end of my warp and have already selected eight colors in reds and oranges for another warp.  If I keep this up I might have enough inventory for a sale in the future, if that ever happens.

This is a sample from the Echo weave part that we did on the first day.  If you see purple, your eye is fooling you.  The warp and weft are both 8/2 Tencel which is a form of rayon.  The tie-up is a traditional 8-shaft twill.

These are the colors I chose.  The warp is wound at 40 ends per inch - wowzers!  That puts four threads in each dent, and while I thought it was over my head, I only made one warping error and was able to fix it with a string heddle.  I'm so impressed that I even know how to do that.  I can't tell you how much I've learned since moving here and being part of an active weaving guild.

This is a sample woven in Jin.  The only difference is changing one harness on each treadle and the use of a second yarn known as a tabby, which is one shot of a different thread woven as plain weave.  That thread's function is to tie down the weft and keep it in place.  It's slower to weave but it's certainly interesting.   The tabby is where I made the most mistakes, which just tells me that I need to do it more to teach my muscle memory.

Linda recommended that we use a finer thread for the weft and I only had three colors in a size 16/2 bamboo, nothing else finer.  I bought it a long time ago because I was going to weave Huck lace scarves until I wove a couple and realized how time intensive they were.  We were instructed to add enough warp to weave a scarf after we had finished all our samples.  The black is the finer thread and from this sample I decided to use it for my weft.

I chose three patterns and alternated them.

This is the finished scarf.  I'm pleased with everything except the length.  I ran out of warp because I had woven too many samples.  It's not even 60" but it's still wearable.  Tomorrow morning we wrap up the workshop and review our projects.  Ian and I are packing our suitcases and will leave as soon as that it done for a short stay at Yachats on the coast.  We'll resume our babysitting responsibilities next week.

  

 

Entering the sixth month with Covid

I got my materials for the Sarah Jackson workship, Color Confidence, and have been warping my loom as the heat upstairs allows.  Each of us got a packet of five colors, no two are the same.  This is the image that inspired my colors.

You can see how closely they match.  We were instructed to choose the color packet we were least drawn to but I liked them all but one, and I didn't pick it.

The warps arrived already wound but without a counting thread.  I tried to improvise and finally just decided to spread the yarn as evenly as I could.  I reminded myself that this is a workshop sampler.

We started this month off with a birthday - Matt's 40th!  He also started off this month running his own company.  This has been a dream of his ever since he got into setting tile, so in spite of his very successful run as a project manager for a construction company, he got his contractor's license and as of this week is Double Diamond Tile.  Julia is the vice-president and office manager.  She has to continue working two days a week so we now will add watching Delaney every other Tuesday so she can focus on paperwork.  You can't focus on anything and watch a toddler!!

A friend told me that she had solved her earwig problem with soy sauce/oil traps so I read about how to make them online and installed one using a cottage cheese container.  I never thought about the raccoons.  So I'm back to the old way of putting a head of cabbage in a pot of water and drowning dozens.  I do a final bath to make sure they're all gone and use the half of a head that they didn't eat.

I planted some sunflower seeds months ago.  I wanted those saucy blooms that look so pretty in a bouquet, but what we got our these monsters that we have staked up with a tomato cage.  The finches have loved these, eating the leaves, and when the seeds mature, the jays will eat them.  We want to feed the birds so next year I'll plant these again and also plant the saucy ones for cut flowers.

The only thing I have to weave on right now is the Prayer Shawl from Sarah Jackson's weave-along.  This has stretched me the most of anything yet even though it's only four shafts, but I know now that I like Shadow Weave and will weave it again.  Between the heat upstairs and the hours babysitting, I am weaving very slowly on this.

I finally finished something - ten more towels for inventory.  I have always had Christmas sales opportunities but in lockdown I don't know how that will go.  Often I'm contact directly and am able to sell towels that way.  I don't want to be caught unprepared.

The weather is hot all this week and I know how much Delaney loves to be outside so that's how we started today, on the patio, knowing that we would be in the house for the rest of the day.  It's scorching and yet our maple tree has already started to turn red for autumn.  Mixed message!

 

Finishing things, starting things

I don't make soap to sell anymore but I like it too much to stop making it altogether.  I've discovered that one batch makes enough to get us through a year, and it's that time again.  I looked at the upcoming week and realized that yesterday was the day.  The kitchen is pretty small so I have to put things away after I get them out, which really is no different than my weaving studio.  

I've made soap for over 20 years and things change from year to year.  I still use the equipment I started with with the exception of the electric stick blender.  Now soap is poured into silicon molds and if I were starting out now, I'd invest in some.  The palm oil and sodium hydroxide I was using yesterday were completely new to me.  I was nervous about the volume of the flaked lye but since I measure by weight, it turned out to be soap in the end.

I wrap it up in one of my favorite quilts and let sit for 24 hours before I cut the bars.  And then the bars cure for a month before they're ready for use.  We only have a couple bars left so I felt the ticking clock.

I started this morning by attending church on our patio.  I must admit that it's mighty nice to take my coffee and iPad outside and be there.

I've signed up for Sarah Jackson's Prayer Shawl weave-along.  This was a difficult warp for me so I only did it in increments so I could stay focused and even then I had to redo more often than I wanted.  It changed from light/dark to dark/light and the heddles changed direction with the color change.  Clearly I need more practice with this.  I finished the last of it this afternoon and recounted everything again.  I'm sure there are lurking errors anyway.

I also finished the Summer and Winter dishtowels.  I made too many threading errors.  I probably should put on more warp and do it again, but this evening I'm tired of them.  I had dangling loops on the backside of two towels which I started trying to stitch in place, but then decided - the heck with it.  I'll hem them and use them as hostess gifts.  They look good from the front.

I'll wash them with the towels this week and start hemming.  I have 16 towels to hem which is more than a little daunting.

I took away the automatic pencil that Delaney loved and have substituted three fat crayons.  She was pretty angry at first but is getting along just fine with the switch.  I'll see how she does with the little pads this week and maybe tape some butcher paper to one of the walls as has been suggested to me.  The problem I see if that she might not understand the difference between the paper and the wall.  I figured these little pads are good for this week at least.  And the good news, I've found another work-around that I think will still be effective after Google does their upgrade in September.  

 

Still Waiting

We are halfway through the semester which means its time for our midterm.  The 9:00 class assembled this pile as a still life study for both of our classes.  At first it felt like they were punishing us, but they have to draw it too. We're to pick an area to focus on, not draw the whole thing.

This is the area I chose and I wish I had zoned in on a smaller area.

This is where I left off on Monday.  I asked my instructor if I could skip Wednesday and attend my book group.  "What book are you reading?" he asked.  He was fine with it and I'll finish up this Monday afternoon.

This is my current warp.  I was short on colors and didn't think this through carefully enough.  There's a big problem with the values - just hope they attract buyers.  I called the orthopedic center and found out that my insurance approved my surgery last Monday so hope to hear from them this week.  I suspect this is the last warp I'll have time to weave for the next couple of months.

These are the colors I'm short on, all of my favorites.  Webs is backordered on Stone Green, a color that I use in many colorways, so I'm trying to come up with some alternatives now that I have received these eight colors.

The cupboard looks pretty bare, even after I plugged in my new yarns.  I called Eugene Textile today and order three additional colors that I'm limping along without.  I'll be lucky to sell enough at Fiber Market Day the end of March to cover some of my costs, but I remind myself that I'm lucky to have a hobby that pays for itself.

These are the previous towels, waiting to be hemmed.  I'm trying to get as much weaving as I can before I'm stuck with a surgical boot for six weeks.  Ian says he doesn't mind that he'll have to drive me during that time.  Gerry Sharp, one of my friends at SMART (the program where we read to kinders) has said that she would be glad to pick me up and bring me home during those six weeks.  I hope to wind several warps while I'm passing that time, including some Campbell tartan dish towels.

I read some where that at the beginning of the year you should turn all your hangers around backwards, then after you wear and launder your clothes, put them on the hangers turned the correct way.  At the end of the year, pull out the clothes whose hangers that never got turned around and take those clothes to the thrift store.  So I'm one month into this and wearing an awful lot of the same clothes.

Winter Olympics!

I finally finished these summer and winter dish towels yesterday morning.  They’re not what I had envisioned and certainly not worth the work I put into them, but at least now I can weave this draft.  Cindie Kitchens asked me if I knew that I could turn summer and winter, just like turned taquete so that it’s a single shuttle weave.  Well, now I do believe I will just have to try that out.  I think I could do multiple colors in the warp and then change each weft, probably not unlike TT.  I think it will be interesting.  But first I have to warp my workshop loom for a tartan class next month.

I’ve been looking forward to getting back to work on these, but yesterday was my colonoscopy prep day and my job became just that, prep.  I was fortunate to be the first appointment of the day so we were home by 8:45. The rest of today is all about recovery and getting rehydrated after going so long without liquids this morning, and since I didn’t get much sleep last night, I’m pooped (pun intended).  It’s a necessary evil but I’m glad it’s not an annual exam like a mammo!

It’s been over two weeks since I’ve been able to get into the studio and do any king of meaningful work, so Tuesday I went in for my volunteer shift an hour early and spent four hours making a dozen prints.  This incorporates a collage technique called Chine Colle and I am chomping at the bit for the class on this that I’m taking in two weeks.

I printed three linocut sets, one on music.

And I printed another set on Rive’s BFK, a cotton rag paper, using Chine Colle to incorporate a little color.  I am enrolled in a linocut class a month from now and I am chomping at the bit for that one too.  So much of my work these past few months has been self-discovery and exploration and I’m ready for some formal instruction.

Are you watching the Olympics?  We are!  My Olympics knitting is the twin to the sweater I knit for granddaughter Alexia at Christmas and I’m down to the last sleeve.  We’ve been selectively watching events through the NBC Sports app on the iPhone, then selecting AirPlay to the Apple TV.  Apple TV and our Smart TV are how we get our streaming content.  We’ve especially enjoyed the mixed doubles in Curling and like being able to watch the matches that interest us, especially the Canadian/French game yesterday for the gold which was fantastic.  We watched the Women’s 15 meter biathlon this afternoon, another quirky but physically challenging sport.  I expect to be wearing this sweater by the closing ceremonies!