Under house arrest

Today is Labor Day and for eight years we celebrated it at our place in Red Rock Valley with Burning Man-style camping with our family, friends and neighbors.  It was so much fun that one year everyone chipped in and bought us this monument because it never occurred to anyone, let alone us, that we would move, but indeed we did, and 2014 was the last year.   We brought it with us when we moved, the only remaining relic of those times. This weekend we're hunkered down at home, along with many people in our region as smoke from the 25 fires wavers between very unhealthy and hazardous.  The good news is that the smoke is acting as a cap reducing fire behavior to some degree, whereas clean air could have the potential to move fire very quickly, so I try not to complain.

I'm thrilled with the rayon chenille scarves.  I struggled with the selvedges and finally put a floating selvedge on the right side which cleaned things up considerably.  However, the first one is too messy to sell and I'm thrilled to keep it.  Now I understand what all the hype about chenille is and I'm planning to weave more.

I immediately wound another warp, this time was some ultrafine Merino yarn that I bought at Webs years ago.  I'm sure it was meant for knitting shawls, it's very springy, and is certainly meant for knitting of some sort, not socks.  I wanted to see if I could warp from back to front this time without referring to the Web's video.  I didn't rush and thought through each step carefully.  It was on in no time and error free.  I can safely say that I am a convert.

I'm weaving as many hours in the morning as my back will let me, about three most days.  I think I'll keep doing scarves on Arthur and dish towels on Maudie Mae.  At this rate I should be well on my way to restocking my inventory for the Guild holiday sale in November by the time the fires are out, sometime in October.

I finished two more bears and found them far too fiddley for my taste.  Quoth the raven, nevermore!  Maybe some baby hats?  There's still a lot of Cascade 220 bits and pieces in that basket.


Someone asked me about these rod holders that I used for my "supplemental" warp.  I hope these pictures are adequate if you want to order some from your own local woodworker.  They were designed to hold the warp on the front beam for warping from the front.

My scarves have all been priced at $100 but I've had a nagging feeling about that so spent a couple hours on Etsy the other morning, reading descriptions and noting prices.  I'm getting ready to catalog and price these for the sale and have decided that I'll feel better pricing my smaller and simple scarves at less than that, maybe $75 or $80?  I wish I could go for a walk because that's the kind of stuff that I would noodle out while walking.

The living history part of the High Desert Museum wasn't staffed last Friday because of smoke so I stayed home, but I know I need to empty these bobbins before I go on this Friday.  They hold 4 ounces and are massive and neither of my lazy-kate's are wide enough.  This morning I spotted this drop spindle lazy-kate that I bought from Ken Ledbetter at the last Black Sheep Gathering I attended.  I haven't used it much, I haven't used my drop spindles much.  However, it was ideal for my perpose.  I skewered both bobbins with the pins from my Kromski lazy Kate and ran the singles through the eye which provide some tensioning.

It turned out pretty darn good considering my poor fiber preparation and all the talking and interruptions that occur while I'm spinning.  The next thing I need to do before Friday is prepare more fiber!  I have no idea what I'll do with the yarn and will cross that bridge when I come to it.

This was the headline in yesterdays paper and his face says it all.

The 8th Annual Gathering

The morning sky was lovely.  I jumped out of bed to grab this photo as I waited for our guests to arrive.

The first to arrive was a 32' RV from SoCal followed by this rig from Lakeview California.

Josh and Missy rolled in from Oregon just in time for lunch and it's a good thing because they had lunch patrol this year.  First things first though - they're setting up the awning for the "beer garden."

By noon, our place was a pretty full house.

A couple years ago we recognized the need to supplement the indoor plumbing.

Most of the over-nighters were in RVs.  We only had three tents this year plus this hybrid tent that attached to Jerry and Lorrie's SUV, letting them sleep in their vehicle but have stand-up changing room.

The most popular table game this year was Mexican trains because any age can play it. 

The most popular game was again the double elimination horseshoe tournament on Saturday.  It took a good part of the day and most everyone either played or watched.

Dirt was also a huge attraction.  I forget that not every boy has dirt to play in.

McKay our grand-niece and her family flew here from North Carolina.  Her parents shipped out a new-to-us game called Corn in the Hole, which is apparently popular in the South.  It's fun out here in the West too!

We had a little bluegrass pick-up band this year.  Several of us are vowing to dust off our own strings and knuckle down before next year so we can play too.   Alison and I sang along by looking up the words on our iPhones!  How times have changed. 

To give you an idea how eclectic the gathering is, Martha on mandolin is an old boss of mine, John on guitar and I went to 7th and 8th grades together then reconnected through Facebook, and Petey on banjo went to community college with Ian.

The food never stops.  This is breakfast Saturday which Rochelle fixed.  It's almost a bidding process.  People volunteer what they're bringing and when.  We have never had better food than we did this year, though because of the flies, all meals were served in the kitchen.  Rena drove out from Connecticut and got here Thursday.  She's a kitchen maven and worried to me about having enough food since we're so far from stores.  Ice is a problem, food is not.  I told her it's like the Bible story of the fishes and the loaves.  The food is heaping over at the end.  Later she told me that she got my analogy.  We eat well.

Buster and Maddie went to pet camp so Sammie was here on her own.  She did great with the other dogs and was the absolute champ with all the children.  Some of you know that she's an abandoned dog who adopted us several years ago.  

Gavin was our youngest attendee year and loved Josh and Missy's sweet dogs.  You've heard about Burning Man and the playa dust.  That's what we are in outdoors  all day and what the baby is sitting on here.  It is silty but it washes off.

The end to another wonderful year came yesterday.  It's an intense three days.  We come together from all over, family and friends, and we'll do again next Labor Day.  I took 244 photos on my DSLR and whittled that down to about 130 which I uploaded to Flickr.  If you want to take an extra few minutes, you can watch them here.  The slideshow is nice. https://www.flickr.com/photos/institches/sets/72157646746052569/  

I'm tired and the house is dirty.  I haven't woven in a couple of weeks or read a book either for that matter, but I could not feel more grateful and thankful.

The 7th Annual Gathering

The weekend kicked off with the delivery of the Porta-Potty which was delivered while Ian was dropping Buster off at doggy camp and picking up his son Doug from the airport.

 This was a much smaller group than in the past couple of years but every bit as much fun.

Everywhere I went, I'd come across a group of people visiting.  I heard from several people that because it was more intimate, they were able to spend more time in conversation.

People visited - oh my, did they.

And visited. 

I was surprised at how popular the beanbag toss game toss was with the kids, even the teens.  Most of the teens game together online, so they spent quite a bit of time in a group at the table with a laptop - and on cell phones.  Cell phones were commonly in use in spite of limited cell service, thanks to our WiFi .

And of course, horseshoes was huge again with the double elimination tournament on Saturday and then general play on Sunday.

The winning team was my son Josh who was the defending champ, but his teammate couldn't come this year so he picked his son Logan to be his teammate this year.

Ian and his friend Petey went to junior college together.  They've formed a team they call Team Sep and ordered hats this year with their team name - Sep for septuagenarian.  I think they make that long word look good.

Giant Jenga was back and more successful than ever, thanks to the new jenga blocks that Josh made.  He used kiln dried wood this time so they wouldn't warp and then sanded them smooth.  Evan and Josh played a game that went to 30 levels.  None of us ever got closer than 25, so Even is the reigning champ in Giant Jenga.

It was popular with every age because anyone can play it.

The game was a Gathering constant - set it up, challenge someone to play.

Surprisingly, Giant Jenga is a spectator sport because the higher the stack gets, the more shaky it is and the more difficult it becomes to tease out that next piece.  I cannot believe I pulled out the piece I did and the stack didn't collapse because it should have.  Back to Kerry who by now had everyone's attention.  She made a play and the tension was mounting.

And just like that, I reaped what I sowed.  And in case you're interested in making a set, the 2 x 4 is cut into 10 1/4" lengths because that's equal to the measurement of three pieces, side by side.  It needs to be square.  There are a total of 51 pieces and kiln dried wood is recommended if you're going to play the game more than a few times.  Otherwise, just ordinary pine will warp over time.

A new tradition was emerged over the last three years.  Almost everyone has left by Monday morning and that's when we clean up and neighbors come over.  We sit in a circle in the garage and just chat.  That's something we've lost somehow, with all our obligations and schedules and social networking - the ability and willingness to converse without being in a hurry to go somewhere.  Actually, one of the activities was swatting flies which are always obnoxious and we were quite entertained.  Notice now Sammie had made herself the center of attention.  I spent the morning downloading pictures, labeling them and then uploading them to Flickr.  If you care to see more, they are here. 

Meanwhile, there is a rental car in my garage but since I've just been playing catch-up, I'll save that for my next post.

Fixing to Get Ready Some More

Steve and Kelly are mountain climbers and wanted to married on a peak in Yosemite.  They were married Tuesday, six hours before the Rim fire broke out.  I took these pictures from a slide show they had running at their reception last Saturday. 

When I met Pam she was pregnant with Kelly, who is now 36.  I'm flanked by her daughters, Melissa and Kelly, Pam on the left and our friend Kelly on the right. Life has moved us all in different directions and being together again made for an emotionally charged afternoon. 

And what kind of wedding cake do mountain climbers have?  Why, a mountain of course.

I hardly recognize my soap, all dressed up like that.  They were so creative with the wedding favors.  The soap is wrapped in seed impregnated paper and the colorful balls are seed balls.  The paper on the right explains what seeds are in which ball.  Kelly also wrote up a virtual tribute to me as the soap maker. 

This was the first time Pam has been back to the house since her divorce to Bob, who is teasing me by taking of picture of me as I take a picture of him.  He humorously refers to Pam as his starter wife.  Pam and I ran together during the construction of this house and subsequent landscaping.  Many conversations were about plans and plantings.  It was great to see Bob again, comfortable to meet his wife and just nice in general.

I spent three hours this morning, powering through the scanning of the last of the slides.  I think there are about 600 all together.  People have expressed interest in the scanner I'm using.  I bought it online from Costco for about a hundred bucks.  The carriage holds four slides but you can only scan one at a time.  I'm sure there are slicker scanners but for the price, I'm pleased with the pictures.

I got a painful cortisone shot in my foot on Monday for plantar fasciitis and am supposed to take it easy on my feet for three days.  I'm wearing an air cast to help massage the ligament so I figured I might as well get these done.  We're getting ready for our Gathering over Labor Day and  my goal is have these scanned and copied onto flash drives so the kids can take them home.  The slides date from 1971 to 1979, pictures they haven't seen of themselves.  We haven't had a slide projector in about 20 years so when we moved here, I transferred all the slides into brown paper bags and that's where they've been ever since.  I'm feeling very virtuous.  I also have a kink in my neck.

Ian ran up to Doyle this afternoon to get ice so I took the opportunity to wind on this ten yard warp.  It was hanging from the front beam and I know someone is going to be sleeping in my studio so the looms will be pushed around.  I had hoped for a moment to wind this on and out of harms way.

I'll weave four scarves from this warp in plain weave and then dye them individually so they'll look like these two.  I've sold about eight of them and these are the only two left.  Christmas craft fairs are coming and I'd like to have several of these ready before then.

Petey is the first guest to arrive and he always likes to park down here and away from the night action.  My sons and grandsons are driving down from Bend tomorrow, but "the girls" have to work tomorrow so will drive down Friday morning.

The air quality from the Rim fire is problematic.  It's far worse in Reno and Lake Tahoe but it's not great here.  The burn area is now 187,466 and only 23% contained.  BTW, if you're ever interested in fire information in the west, the best site is YubaNet, hands down.  The American fire that plagued us a couple weeks ago is now 94% contained. 

Ian will take Buster to doggy camp in the morning, on his way to the airport to pick up his son Dougie.  Due to a surprising number of conflicts in schedules and life occurrences, this is going to be a smaller Gathering this year.  All three of my kids will be here but three of his won't.  I always look forward to it and every one is different.  The air is supposed to improve by Friday and will certainly be a topic of conversation for years to come.