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.

  

 

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

 The towels are finished.  I've been trying for a faux crackle look and have decided to just try crackle one more time.  I met a weaver who dresses her loom for crackle but only weaves with a single shuttle.  That's my plan anyway.

My favorite uses bright yellow for pattern.

I did some towels in muted colors, still in summer and winter, and the two blue ones are in our bathroom.  I wanted to be totally done with this draft before moving on because Gilmore tie-up is a bear.

I find myself liking my projects in stages, but by the time the warp was ready, I was thoroughly disenchanted with this one.  I'm committed now though since I don't want to change tie-up again for a while.

I stopped this afternoon after the warp was threaded and slayed.  The guild meeting is in the morning and it's a weaver from Dallas who was supposed to be our program last month but got frozen in place.  She's going to speak about the design process and I'm looking forward to it.

Thursday morning is our orientation with Linda Hartshorn for a workshop in parallel weaving.  This is my sample and I am anxious to get started.  It promises to be the boost my weaving has needed.  I feel like I've been going around in circles.

Delaney's book is almost as big as she is!  She's in Reno with her mommy until the first week in March.  Sadly, her grandpa had a heart attack last Thursday.  Matt and Julia picked Delaney up early Friday with a dog and a fully packed car.  They hadn't drive half way when she got the unexpected, a call that her dad had passed away before she had a chance to say goodbye.  Her Grandma Sue told me that Delaney has been a light in the darkness.  She certainly has that quality.  

Into every life some rain must fall

 

I got my first shot of the vaccine last Friday and while I was there they ran out of the Pfizer and I was given Moderna instead which has an additional week between shots so my next one won't be until March 28th.  It's a relief to just have the first one!

I've been knitting a lot and finished this Martha Green Aran knit-along.  I wish I had made the next size up which would have created a cowl but it's comfortable to wear as it is.

I am very pleased.

I also finished Alexia's sweater which is a couple of patterns cobbled together.

It couldn't be cuter on her.

It was very important to her that she could raise her arms without exposing her belly, and it passed the test.  I wonder what she does at school that requires this gesture.

I'm doing another zoom weaving workshop in a couple of weeks, and the only reason I can participate is because of zoom.  My eight-shaft loom is too heavy to take anywhere.  I'm really looking forward to what we'll do next.  This is just the tie-on and it's awesome.

Into every life some rain must fall.  This is the Subaru Crosstrek that we bought last May.  I had to drop something off for UPS pickup and just as I was leaving the parking lot, a guy in a 2001 Chevrolet Silverado with a massive trailer hitch backed into me.

Actually he pinned my car with his hitch so that I couldn't proceed.  Believe it or not, the damage is extensive and we won't have the car back until the 18th.  Just some rain.

Waiting it out, keeping busy

 I got the warp on, and in fact, both looms are dressed right now.  Arthur is my 40" loom and he's dressed for a parallel threading workshop next month.  I still have to check it for errors but have given all my attention to this summer and winter dish towel warp.

This is the first towel using magenta and bright yellow.

This is the second one using bright yellow and lavender

This is the third one using butter yellow and rose red.  I was suddenly struck by how the pattern is being swallowed up by the color so cut the warp from the shuttles and started to unweave.  With a little time away from the loom I am starting to realize that they are all going to look pretty much the same because of the super-saturated bright yellow.  Deb Menz has said that a little yellow goes a long way, boy and howdy!

It's been a while since Delaney has used her washable marking pens so last Friday I got them out.  She has outgrown the booster seat and for this she preferred to stand at the table.

She holds all of her pens while she's using them, like an artist, so I only give her six or seven at a time.

I think she's showing remarkable control with her mark making, but we'll wait a little while before we do this again.

By the time she was done with her picture she had colored herself as well, a little on her face and the palms of both hands. It washes off quickly but it's a bit of a rodeo.

I finished this sweater for Alexia.  It's so hard to fit someone when you can't measure and try on but I think this will work.  She told me her underarm measurement was 17" which can't be right since she's a skinny 16-year-old kid so she asked her mother to measure her again and said that it's 19".  Ape arms!!  I told her to measure the the arm of the sweater I made for her, from the body to the end of the cuff.  Surprise, surprise - it's 16". I ordered a replacement sweater dryer which will be here tomorrow and will wash it when it gets here.  I expect some size change when I do that.

I had a nice surprise on my walk this morning.  The irrigation district has opened the canal for ranchers to refill their stock ponds.  During the winter it only lasts a couple of days and it brings in all the water fowl, mostly ducks.  This morning a lone goose was crying his heart out, trying to locate his misplaced family.  Hope he finds them soon as he only has a couple more days before this waterway turns back into a dry bed.

Today is February 22, 2021 and I went into quarantine March 11, 2020.  Still no shot, still no vaccine.

Keeping it interesting

My first project for the new oven was a loaf of white bread, recipe from the King Arthur website.  What a difference having an even heat throughout the oven chamber makes.  It was perfect.

The recipe included a step to make the break have a longer shelf life.  It's from Japan and totally new to me, and it worked all the way to the end of the loaf.

I wasn't really surprised by the difference the new oven made in bread but I was taken by surprise at how different the cookies were.  This is the traditional Toll House recipe and finally the cookies weren't a first cousin of hockey pucks.  

My favorite weaving shuttles are the end-feed shuttles from Schacht.  I have two and weaving wouldn't be the same without them.  The yarn pulls off from the end of the pirn instead of unspooling from a bobbin, and it feeds a shot of yarn across the shed with reliable tension.  They are like night and day from boat shuttles, which I also have.  One day about a week ago I caught the shuttle on the left after sending it down the shuttle race, and something fell into my hand.  It was this piece of metal and it turns out to be the "spring" that holds the pirn pin in place.  I called Schacht and got a message that they're taking care of business from outside their business location.  I emailed them and they were johnny-on-the-spot with a replacement.  Oh how I love their shuttles.

This morning I finished the warp for Linda Hartshorn's class next month on parallel threading.  The warp calls for four 8/2 tencel yarns, 40 ends per inch.  Making the warp is much easier than I could have imagined.  My color choices are disappointing though, more like Christmas ribbon candy.  I thought I had picked colors that aren't complementary but I was wrong.  I posted a question on Facebook and got some handy information on quadradic color arrangements.  I know I'll do this again and I'm glad to have some direction for next time.  

I finished my workshop warp and decided to try just one more go at summer and winter.  Orange and purple are complementary colors and absolutely no-go together because together they make brown.  I made a mess of my colors in the workshop warp so decided to overload these six colors and see if I can manipulate them a little.  Should be interesting.

We're still watching Delaney two days a week and every-other-week, three days.  I never tire of it but I don't get a lot done, though that is changing as she gains more skills.  We're all waiting for her to talk, but it's slow going.  I think part of the problem is that we don't understand her words.  Banana is bwe-aah, for instance.  But she continues to keep it interesting.

 

More Staycation

This is the 30-year-old stove that was in the house we bought five years ago.  Before then I didn't know that some stoves in open floor plans have to vent down under the house.  They also cost a whole lot more than updraft stoves with range hoods.  The control panel part of the oven died last year and while the oven was probably still working just fine, we couldn't control it.  We decided to order a replacement last August.  Due to supply line interruptions production has been at a snail's pace and our replacement didn't come until last Thursday,

This is the brand we were replacing.  Ever hear of it?  Us neither.  Apparently Whirlpool bought them out.  There are no replacement parts.  Our installers had visited the house a couple of months ago to scope out the job and called a couple of weeks ago, wondering if we had gone with another crew.  Nope.  No stove, still waiting.  

When Ian called them last week to set up an installation date, Damian put us at the top of his list, said we had waited altogether too long.  He and Zach are the crew and worked three hours yesterday getting as much of the installation completed as possible.  The unpleasant reality is that the old stove was a 30 amp without a ground wire, the new one is a 40 amp and we were going to need an electrician in order to finish the job.  

Ian found a journeyman electrician on the Next Door app and darned if he didn't show up this morning and rolled up sleeves.  He said he has an overload of work, like all of construction in Bend, but he felt bad that we were left hanging.  That's a phone number we'll hold onto.  Damian will too; he was excited to have a reliable electrician to call on. 

Our installers put the stove box back in the hole because we told them we had a baby coming in the morning.  Delaney was absolutely fascinated by this new thing.  They left the door off to make it easier for the electrician.

This is the new stove.  It's unlike anything I've cooked on before.  The burners are instantly hot, just like gas.  Ian and I falling over each other planning meals and baking.  It even has a steam rack for bread.  With the installation expenses, it was a hefty price tag but I know it will be worth every penny.  I think it's part of Covid thinking - since I'm stuck at home, why not make home a little better.

I am still trying to weave summer and winter without having loops on the backside.  I know now that they're from not advancing the warp as often as I should.  There was one more cobalt towel which I kept for myself.

I had a couple cones of pale yellow so I decided to weave that same draft but with three colors instead of two.  The yellow saddened everything.  I should have known.

So I decided to stick to yellow companion colors, bright yellow and lime green.  Same thing.  I have more warp so guess I'll see how the light yellow can butcher orange.

I'm trying to keep pace with the Aran knit-along and have now divided for the sleeves.  The instructions for saddle shoulders were a week ago so I am falling behind.  Ian told me that if I were to knit him an Aran sweater that he would wear it.  I love these crazy cables and am happy to have another sweater in the wings.  I told him it won't be ready until next winter.