August already!

 I've been knitting on a cardigan pattern from the winter Vogue Knitting issue and had been having misgivings about the size, hoping I had enough yarn.  I kept knitting thinking that surely it would be fine.  This is when I realized I didn't have enough yarn for both sleeves, so I took stitches off the needles and measured on the kitchen table.  It was way off.  At some point I had begun to loosen my gauge and it was a couple sizes too big.

There was nothing I could do but start over.  Actually frogging and reconditioning yarn is pre-starting over.  It's been my Olympic knitting and I am halfway to the armholes right now.  It's a complex pattern and I recognize that it probably won't be a garment before next year.

The county fair shaped up at the last minutes which left everyone scrambling so I was really impressed at what we were able to do for the fiber arts exhibit and demonstrations.  I haven't been weaving so the bright towels on the left were all that I had to enter for judging.  I didn't deserve a ribbon and I didn't get one.  But attendance was surprisingly good considering the short notice and high temperatures.  It was the 100th birthday of the fair and I think they were loathe to miss another year after last year.

Our guild's spinning study group put together this "sheep to shawl" display along with information on rare breeds and wool samples that said "touch me."  People seemed to be happy to have their fair back and were curious, though all entries were down, all except quilts which were more than they had ever had.  We think it's because the Sister's quilt show was last month and they accepted half as many entries as usual which meant that quilters were happy to have a place to display their work. 

Our displays were attractive and it was nice to be indoors, which I'm sure is what our visitors thought too, with temperatures approaching the century mark.  Some of the displayed pieces were submitted to be judged but we also beefed up the visual appeal with items "for display only" like my turquoise and copper scarf on the table.

We've had returning deer these past couple of weeks.  I seemed to be the only one who hadn't seen the new neighborhood fawns but then a couple of days ago the twins shot by me at the start of my morning walk.  One raced across the street but this guy stopped to double check before scampering off.

And on the other side of our fence, the wildflower seed that I sowed have taken root and are producing cheerful little meadow flowers.  I thought I distributed the seed evenly but it looks like I tipped up the bag and dumped it out.  I think it will even out next year but it's sure a cheerful addition to our yard right now.  According to the package the annuals will flower this year and next year the perennials will bloom.

Alexia has been displaying a lot of interest in weaving this year and is asking me really intelligent questions.  At first I was thinking I would order a 16" rigid heddle loom and having it shipped to her but then I remembered this Dorset loom that I bought to use in workshops.  Since discovering zoom weaving workshops, I've decided to skip the workshops where I have to fill the back end of my car with equipment and unload, reload, unload, etc. It occurred to me that its a perfect starter loom for Lexi.  They're coming up in October to pick it up.  

With all the time that pandemic and quarantine have provided me, I have done just about no weaving.  I finally have a warp on one of my looms.  Instead of trying to learn something new or use workshop information, I've defaulted to my old friend, turned taquette, and boy does it feel comfortable to be on my own home turf.  

I've started taking Delaney to the library once a week.  She gave up naps when she outgrew the Pack-n-Play so on the recommendations of her parents, I take her for a car ride after lunch which causes her to fall asleep and take a two-hour nap.  The trick is to get to the library without her falling asleep first!  The conditioning is so good that she falls asleep within the first mile and the library is three miles from the house.  It's tricky.

 

Prize Surprise!!

Ian and I made a day trip to Eugene yesterday.  We spontaneously decided that it would be nice to get over to the Valley again before winter weather sets in, and it couldn't have been a more beautiful day for an easy drive over the Cascades.  The timing was perfect since snow is in the forecast for Sunday.

I've never been to Eugene Textile Center before and this will be my only visit at this location as in another month they will have relocated to a building twice as large which will also house Glimakra Looms.

I had won a $50 gift certificate to ETC from the State Fair and decided it was time to buy a new raddle and lease sticks.  It's exciting to have such a complete fiber store within driving distance.

The top pair are the lease sticks I made that are adequate but not great, and on the bottom are the set made by Glimakra.

This elliptical shape is what sold me on them.

I wound a warp yesterday afternoon and put it on my brand-new lease sticks.

 This morning during Delaney's nap I was able to quickly dress the loom.  I knew the new sticks were going to be an improvement and they're well worth every penny.  The yarn easily slid through them.  I also ordered an Ashford raddle to replace the one I made from a yardstick and nails.  It has to be custom made and Patty Huffer (from Redmond) who works ETC  three days a week will bring it over to me when it's ready.

This is another prize I got from the State Fair.  No one knew anything about this basket at the guild meeting last week and it was presumed that someone left it behind after the meeting.  I got a call from our treasurer several days ago telling me that the basket actually was my prize and she would drop it when she came to Bend for Costco which happened to be yesterday.  She dropped it off on our front porch while we were in the Valley. 

And to make confusing more confusing, I got a call from the State Fair office last Thursday letting me know that I have an additional prize awaiting me at the Outdoor Quilt Show office in Sisters.  We didn't know it but that office had offered to be the collecting place for entries from Central Oregon which were then ferried to the Fair in Salem, and somehow this prize came back after the Fair was over.  After playing phone tag with Dawn Boyd from that office, I am going to meet her when she comes to Bend next week for her hair appointment.  The award that just keeps on giving!!

My daughter texted me this morning asking, "How is my favorite niece?"  I took this picture in my arms and said, "She's hungry!"

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

My daughter and her family including grandson Kiernan drove up from Reno the day after we got back from our trip to retrieve Alexia.  We enjoyed several days with them and then they hit the road, to be back to Reno on Monday.  Alexia had an orientation to attend.  Nevada has a program called Nevada Youth Legislator where high school students can apply to the state senator in their district for this position.  There are 21 state senators so 21 high school students, most of them in the south where the population is.  She still isn't clear on their mission but it is going to be a great learning opportunity regardless.

She applied to Senator Heidi Gansert's office and was accepted.  A term is for two years and next year the Reno kids will fly to Las Vegas for the orientation since they came up this year.  She even has her own business card!

And State ID.

It's back to babysitting on Thursdays and Fridays for me.  Delaney is now four months old and can roll over!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch - the living history department bought a hand crank ice cream maker on eBay.

It's been a huge hit with the kids.  They line up to take turns cranking and then go to the end of the line so they can do it again, even though they know we're unable to give them any of it.

But the past two weeks have been too hot to do much of anything, too hot to bake, and too hot to make ice cream, so we've been playing cribbage.  Izzie taught me last week.  Her grandmother taught her when she was seven and now she's taught us.  Yesterday we played a tournament and surprisingly it was a big hit with the public.  Many adults have played it and the kids love helping us add up the cards - 15-2, 15-4.  It's not as easy as it looks as these reproduction cards only have the spots, no numbers.  It's gets confusing after a while.

Our county fair was just a couple of weeks ago and my demonstration shift was the first morning it opened.  In spite of the air conditioner not working in our room, we still had very good turnout.

My scarf took the Superintendents Award.  I don't know what that means or who the superintendents are, but that's a mighty big ribbon.  It's headed to the State fair tomorrow.

 And I settle back into my routine, enjoying the last days of summer.

Busy Time in Bend

It’s been firecracker hot this past week with temperatures in the triple digits and smoky as fires consume vast swatches of the West, but life goes on at the High Desert Museum ranch house.  Kids Camp is in full swing and their activity with us yesterday was cast iron cookery over an open fire.  Ethan was super cautious about keeping the flame safe and the event went off without a hitch.  They made griddle cakes to use with the butter they had churned in the morning.  We’re seeing a lot of visitors from foreign countries this summer.  It takes me a little more thought to explain homesteading and the homestead act to them.  We try to stay in character, but for them I realize I have to explain the “why” behind how I became a homesteader.

My daughter sent me this picture.  Alexia kept knitting on the circular needles, teaching herself how to decrease from YouTube videos and also how to make a Pom Pom.  I taught her both English and Continental knitting, but she found her gauge looser and more consistent with English which was her method of choice when she went back home.  I had explained that Continental has less motion so reduces the risk of repetitive motion injury and is also faster.  She switched over in the middle of this project and then went on to teach herself how to purl.  I never showed her how to cast on but no doubt she’ll find a YouTube video for that too.

I bought this Zoom Loom years ago when we visited Webs and have only made one square.  I asked her if she’d like it and she was thrilled so the hunt for a shipping box has begun.

Meanwhile son Josh asked me to knit a red cap which I had planned to start in June when I discovered that the 20-year-old driveband that came with my Patrick Green carder was kaput.  I haven’t had time until now to get that project underway.  To my surprise the band I ordered from Susan’s Fibers is the right length but thinner and also performs much better.

I spun the first half of the fiber while demonstrating at the Deschutes County Fair and suddenly life got busy all over again.  The second bobbin is on hold but it really feels good to be interested and excited about spinning again.  I’m glad my spinning malaise was just temporary.

Crook County Fair asked me to be their spinning and weaving judge again this summer which I once again enjoyed thoroughly.  It’s an intimate little fair and the people are delightful. This entry however took the cake and left us all scratching our heads.  It’s a felted fleece designated as a seat cover, however, the fleece side was full of VM (vegetable matter) and was so greasy with lanolin so that none of us wanted to touch it and felt we needed to wash our hands afterwards.


At the end of all the categories I had two special ribbons to award.  I gave the Judge’s Award to this exquisite silk yardage.


And then there was this astonishing nuno-felted horse’s mask.  The felt itself was perfect, but the more I looked at the tiny details, the more I discovered: seed beads nestled in the felt, a half-dozen different bird feathers beaded and attached, slips of horses mane attached in a similar fashion.

A picture of the mask in use was attached to the supplementary material.  I was thrilled to give this Best of Show.  It’s going on to the State Fair next and I’m anxious to see how it performs there.
BrewFest starts this Thursday and we will have a houseful of guests for about four days.  All of Ian’s kids will be here and two of his grandkids; six of our seven kids will be together which is the most any time since our last family gathering in 2014 before we moved, and thankfully the temps are predicted to drop!

On the beach

Our destination for the last part of our vacation was Yachats, pronounced YaHawts, and this AirB&B for the last three days of our trip.  Because of the extreme heat inland the fog bank had come ashore and our plans of long walks on the beach were stymied.



After having a separate room to herself all along Alexia good naturedly accepted the futon in the living room which was rather unfortunate since it was colder outside than we had packed for and the cottage got quite small at times.  We saw lots of down jackets and caps in use.



We tried to take Lexi to all the things we have enjoyed in this area over the years, like lighthouses and tide pools.  Lexi had said all along she didn’t want to visit light houses or tide pools.



We hiked up to Heceta Head lighthouse, one of our favorites but it’s closed for the month of July so we had to content ourselves by looking at the outside.



True to her word, Lexi was not impressed or interested.  She had more fun playing with the dog.



We should have listened to her from the start.  She had been researching the things she wanted to see and once we let her pick, she was informative and interested again.  This is Thor’s Well and best seen at high tide or storms so we timed our visit for high tide.  It was cold and windy but she loved it.



Her absolute favorite spot of all was the Cape Perpetua lookout.  From here we could see Cook’s Chasm and Thor’s Well, where we had just come from.



We took the circular hike from the parking lot to this WPA-era lookout.  There’s a lot of CC construction along the coast like this.  It was put to use during WWII as a lookout for enemy submarines.



This bridge was also built during the WPA era.



We got home on Wednesday and Friday we were back at the High Desert Museum ranch house for her last time this summer.  Her parents drove up from Reno and all of our family got to spend the weekend together, then it was time to go home.  Oh my goodness, how the time flew!  And speaking of time flying, on Monday she’ll start high school as a freshman!



Thursday morning (the day before yesterday) I demonstrated at the county fair for our guild with both my spinning wheel and a drop spindle.  I checked on my entries and as I had thought, my sweater received no acknowledgement.



These were the judge’s comments, and yes, the sleeves are a different gauge since the body was knit from triple ply and the sleeves double ply.  Since all the yarn was spun over ten years ago I can’t remember why I switched in the middle like that and of course, there’s no more wool left.



This on the other hand was a complete and utter surprise.  I hadn’t actually entered it, but last Monday but Mary Wonser dropped off a fair admission pass, she lamented that entries were way down this year.  I felt bad since I had only entered two items.  She said that if I had anything else, that she could enter it for me, so we went upstairs and she picked out three more items, this being one of them.  I passed it over since it’s such a simple project, but it pleased the judge and that’s what counts.