74

74 WHAT? Varieties of tomatoes of course!

Unfortunately, counting the tomatoes has been about all that I have been able to do because I have been weaving up a storm.

My bundle of pink warp has been transformed into three scarves/shawls. They are at that awkward size where they may work as either. Which is about 18 inches. I have fringed two of them and will wash them this afternoon.
And I made up another mixed warp yesterday at work and went back after supper to get it on the loom. I have it threaded through the reed and heddles and about half way wound on. I am warping it front to back because of tangling issues that I have had with warps like this before. The pink series of scarves was a bit of a pain to go on, but it was a breeze to weave. I am glad that I know both methods of warping and am learning when to apply each. Although I will say that for regular warps, back to front wins every time.

It is my big sale this weekend and I am hoping that there will be a lot of people and they will spend a lot of money. Not just at my booth, but at everyone's . I wish that you all could come.

Time to push the kids out the door and get ready for a meeting with the other organizer of the sale. And then it is off to the college to finish warping my white and cream shawls. I found some silk sari ribbon in gold and white that I have also incorporated and they are so pretty. I can hardly wait to see how they turn out.

It's Here!

My seed catalogue! A full page of pea varieties, three pages of cucumbers, and four full pages of glorious tomatoes to chose from! Oh yeah! Spring is just around the corner.

As Promised

Here is why I haven't been around much lately.

Three chenille colour and weave scarves. I had made the warp last year and put it away before I had a chance to weave it off. After Christmas was over, I also put my loom away and concentrated (such as it was) on knitting socks and relaxing. So there it languished all winter, spring, and summer. When I went to put it on, I remembered that I had made it three scarves long. I usually make the chenille scarves 60 inches long, with 6 inches of take up. I forgot about the take up part and wove them 60 inches long. Which meant that they were a little short when they came off the loom. Except for the last one. Which ended up being 94 inches long. That is one long scarf. I guess that you are never to old to get careless.
Next are the four merino shawls I dyed. I dyed the shawls in my usual way by laying out the warp and painting each shawl a different set of colours. These ones all ended up being 72 inches plus fringe. It was easy to see where the old shawl ended and the new one began because the colour changed. Too bad the colour didn't change for the chenille ones.
And yet another handspun. I am liking the striping that I get when I use the black.
And this is my next set of scarves. It is a mixture of pretty much anything that I had that was red or pink.

I'm off to see the babe sing in a wee concert. Should be cute.

Stuck

You know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? Yesterday at work, this was stuck in my head. All. Day. Long. Thankfully, I work at a place where you can sing people songs like this and everyone thinks it great. It's an art school so people are doing weird stuff all the time. I fit right in.

Come back later for some progress pictures.

Would you just make up your mind

Hi, remember me? From the land of ice and snow a few days ago. I get up this morning and check to see what is in store for me weather wise and I can't help but note that it is 17 C. That would be 62 F. This following on the heels of snow that stuck around for 24 hours plus. It is suppose to get colder during the day and end up being just below freezing by bedtime.

So my big question is, what layers do I put on today so that I don't melt this morning, or freeze tonight on the way home? Did I mention the heavy rain that we are suppose to get between now and then?

Weaving progress.....

First two shawls fringed and washed
Third shawl cut off and fourth shawl ready to weave as soon as my weft dries
Second chenille scarf almost finished weaving
New mixed yarn warp in pinks and reds ready to go on the home loom as soon as the chenille comes off.

And for no other reason than they are really cute, here are some yearling alpaca's at Legacy Lane Fiber Farm.

Weaving up a storm

Two more shawls woven and fringed, they just need a wash. Two more are on the loom. I usually cut off the shawls as I weave them. The thought of all that fringing at once makes me break out into a cold sweat. I am weaving them at the school to take advantage of a 36" 8 harness loom that is at my disposal This way I can fit the fringing in around the rest of my life at home. One and a half scarves in green chenille are on my 17" 4 harness Dorset at home. I got a really great deal on some chenille a couple of years ago and wove a few scarves off last year. I had put them away for the summer, but have had them on the table at market for the past few weeks and people have been showing interest, so I decided to weave the warp that I had made last year. I have some more chenille yarn and may make another few warps depending on time. I also have another handspun scarf to weave. I just love weaving these things off. Talk about instant gratification! Less than 4 hours from balls of yarn to finished scarf (drying time not included )

And upon waking up, I discovered that we have our first snow fall. Just a few inches. But still.

Heaven Sent

Via Lilloet.

Thanks Kansasa of Canadian Crafter for the gift of Grape Jelly (two kinds) and the most amazing Carrot Cake Jam that I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. I'd take a picture but empty jars are kind of boring to look at. Actually, only the Carrot Cake Jam is empty. But when I get my shawls (and laundry) all done, I am so going to make some of this stuff. Some of it will be given away for Christmas (I can hear the moans of delight already) and some will end up on my jam shelf. I think that it won't last long though.

I have also participated in a traveling journal which needs to be sent off today, and alas, no photo of the piece I did in that either. But it is going to come back to me again so hopefully I will be able to share my work. It is a collage with the theme "where do we go when we die". I was thinking of Charlotte. I can see her in the big studio in the sky, weaving with exotic fibers and perfect tension.

I think I may have won!

Today I unbag that last two bags of wool that have been sitting for the past two weeks fumigating. The last two bags are, of course, the ones with all the small balls that students use for tapestries. I guess that I was saving the best for last. And then ( I hope) the battle of the moths will be over!

I also started weaving my next set of shawls. I am about 2/3 of the way through the first one but there seem to be a few problems with my loom. So, seeing as fixing looms is the technician's job, I am also going to work on that today. I am using a 36" Macomber and it is just a wee bit fussy about a few things and I hate to have my weaving interrupted to have to stick a few of those metal things back on the treddles and lamms.

I needed that.

Wednesday night Bill took the boys and the wee one out to do the candy snatching rounds. Mira went off with a couple of her friends. And I stayed home to wait by the door and hand out loot. Thankfully the computer is in the room right next to the door and so I was able to spend some time surfing while waiting for the door bell to ring.

For some reason, a couple of weeks ago, I started thinking about Carol Burnett. Actually, I started thinking about her show. I remember watching it as a kid and laughing and laughing. Ten years ago thinking would be about as far as I would have ever gotten. Now, we have YouTube and you can almost guarantee that if it was once on TV, someone has posted it. So out I go looking and I find Tim Conway's Elephant Story. Or more accurately, the outtakes from Tim Conway's Elephant Story. I think that I watched it 3 times and each time I ended up laughing.

I worked on Wednesday and I think that about 75% of the people in the school were dressed up. Staff and students alike. I love working in such a creative atmosphere. There was also a costume contest for the students and for once the female with the least costume didn't win! The winner was a third year fashion student who had made a roman solider costume complete with breast plate, shield, skirt, sandals, and helmet. And the helmet had the little feathery thing sticking out of the top. Second place went to a first year who came as Batty McSomething-or-other. She is a little bit of a thing and a goth girl and her costume really was spectacular. And third place went to a trio of students who dressed up as Dorthy, Tin Man, and Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

When I told Bill about how many people had dressed up he asked me if I had felt left out. I didn't because I had dressed up as the Studio Fairy. She's the one that picks stuff up and puts it away. Fixes threading mistakes when the poor student is on their last nerve. Finds lost things (because she put it away, don't ya know). The two third year student dressed as a pot of gold and a rainbow. I wish that I had had a camera with me.

OK

I just got back from the visitation for Charlotte. I am actually not home. I just didn't want to go back to my house full of life just yet. I think that I need a few minutes to readjust. I found my self rather short tempered most of the day and figured out why on the way out the door. I don't deal with death very well. I don't deal well with it at all.

Why am I the only one that can't stop the water works? Everyone else seems to be able to keep it together. There is something in the air of funeral homes that gets me going. Maybe I should hire myself out a a professional mourner. I could just sit over to one side and sob quietly. Blow my nose gently. Take a few gasping breaths and get everyone going.

Something else I noticed tonight....There were 16 boxes of tissues, but no trash cans. The tissues were even in lovely marble tissue box holders. Do you think that I could find a place to deposit my used ones? Nope. No equally lovely trash receptacles. I just had to take my grief with me.

It was a closed casket and so I am still having a hard time believing that she is gone. I know that she was in there though. Her casket was draped with one of her tapestries. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of weaving that I have ever seen. I had seen it before and though so then, so this is not some knee jerk response caused by an out pouring of grief.

And she has given me her loom. It is a hand built 12 harness countermarch. It is huge. And I mean HUGE. The fellow that built it for his wife didn't really know a lot about how a loom works. Charlotte and a mutual friend Jack have been working on it on and off for a number of years. Charlotte brought me on board this spring and I added my input. It worked well with 4 harnesses , and between the three of us making adjustments and suggestions, we have it up to 8 with a passable, but not great shed. John said that I could come and get it anytime with in the next 10 years or so, which is good because I really don't have any place to put it right now.

Charlotte, you weren't suppose to die this soon.

Goodbye Charlotte

It is with great sadness that I note the passing of a friend and fellow weaver, Charlotte Glencross. Charlotte was a huge supporter of the Arts and weaving community. She was instrumental in transforming an abandoned school into a center for the arts.
Charlotte's woven creations were always stunning for her use of colour and materials.

She had cancer but had been doing better lately. I am having a hard time believing that she is gone.

Guess What I'm Having for Supper Tonight

The first night that I went to Bill's for supper we had Spicy Chicken with Peanuts. I got there about 6 and didn't leave till 3am. We ate, yakked, and drank wine (and also went through a copious amount of kleenex because we both had nasty colds). So some were around 1 or 2 am Bill hauled some of this out of the fridge because he had made it a couple of nights before and there was some leftovers. It was sooooo good. He said that he stole the recipe from a magazine. Stole, because he never actually bought the magazine but went back three times to the store to stand in line at the check out in order to memorize it. It was a bit on the dry side, so when he made it, he added the wine.

Chicken Fettuchini with Sundried Tomatoes

1/4 cup olive oil
3 large chicken breasts
1 onion diced
1 clove garlic thinly sliced
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 medium carrot grated
1/4 cup olive oil soaked, chopped, packed sundried tomatoes
12 oz fettuchini
1 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese (do not use the stuff in the plastic shaker)
1/3 - 2/3 cup white wine

Cut chicken into thin strips. Saute in olive oil over medium heat. Remove chicken with a slotted spoon to thoroughly drain the oil.
Saute onion, garlic, and fennel seed in the oil for about 6 minutes or until onion is soft.
Add the carrot and tomatoes and cook until carrot is soft.
Have pasta cooking in a separate pot at the same time. When it is ready, drain and put into a large bowl. Pour the wine over the pasta and stir. Add the chicken, and sauteed ingredients and stir. Sprinkle the cheese a little at a time and stir.
Enjoy this dish with the leftover wine.

And speaking of leftovers, When I make this dish now, I always make a double batch because that way there will be leftovers. This dish is wonderful as a leftover.

And now on to other things....

Finished spinning and plying Mermaids Dream the other night. Looks much like my other skein, except that it is 450 yards.
I have put down the shawl for no other reason the I have started mittens. It is getting to be that time of the year when our fingers start to get a bit cold and our thoughts turn to mittens. This is my first pair of mittens in years and they are going surprisingly quickly. I just started them on Monday or Tuesday and I am already halfway through the increase for the thumb gore. Unfortunately, I may have to put them down for a while because I seem to have a bit of bursitis in my shoulder. Maybe if I can stay away from as much shoulder irritating activities as possible this weekend, I have a chance at letting it clear up quickly. Sigh. Maybe I'll try switching to knitting right handed for a while.
I am halfway through threading a new set of shawls on a loom at the school. And I have my next set of shawls all planned out in my mind. I should have been doing this months ago, but somehow lost the initiative to do any weaving beyond my handspun scarves. They are so quick to do up that it makes weaving seem effortless.

Holy Tomatoes Batman!

This is our stash of sundried tomatoes. O.K., dehydrated tomatoes. It all works out to the same thing. I think that we have enough for the winter. Even if we use them every day. Unlikely, but a nice thought. Most of them are dried to quite a crispy consistency although some of them are a little more malleable and are packed in olive oil. We also ground some of the extremely dry ones into a powder and mixed them with some olive oil to have tomato oil for salad dressing.

So I think that I am looking for a few new recipes that use sundried tomatoes. Any suggestions of fish free recipes?

Home free (I hope)

It looks like our Vapona strips have done their job! The yarns all look pretty good. Of course only time will tell. But in the mean time, I have started bagging everything. All cones are in their own baggie (those thin kind that you find in the grocery stores), and all skeins are slipped into Ziploc bags. I am about 3/4 of the way through the process of bagging and shelving everything. And I am actually having a great time! Everything is getting organized. Before, everything was loosely organized into colour groups with no regard to yarn size or type. I am grouping everything according to weight and colour. This is actually something that I have wanted to do for a while but have put off because it is such a big job. Huge job.

But with everything being off the shelves and in bags from necessity, it is not a big deal to dump one of the bags on the felting table and start sorting. For those of you who haven't seen the felting table, it is basically a 4'x8' coated table with two inch sides to keep the water in and a drain at one end to let the water out. The sides help keep the various cones and skeins on the table while I sort and bag. Perfect.

I spent most of my day yesterday running between the felting table and the shelf with a few minutes here and there helping one of the FVA (Foundation Visual Arts- aka. First Year) students getting a warp on a loom. Thankfully she is one of those people who you can show how to do something once and say "call me when you are done" and she will complete the task correctly.

It was really nice to sit down last night, after, of course, I had prepared supper. I have started roping the kids into doing dishes and for the most part they are doing a great job. All that nagging is finally starting to pay off. And after supper, we sat down to watch a movie so I was able to do a bit more spinning on Sailors Delight and I am happy to say that I am almost finished spinning. And then comes the plying.

The battle continues...

Yesterday was yarn day at work. I got to haul all of the bags of yarn from storage and let them air out a bit outside. Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day. A little on the cool side, but that is to be expected in October in New Brunswick. I had to do some running around to find bags in which to put all of the yarn before putting it on the shelf. I finally settled on large Ziploc type bags for skeins and balls, large freezer bags for the larger cones, and produce bags from the grocery store for the smaller cones.
So far, I have gone through 60 Ziploc bags, and 10 large freezer bags. And emptied two garbage bags of yarn. Only 10 more to go. Plus all of the cottons that were on the shelves with the wool which I had to bag up and bring down to storage after bringing all of the wool up. We only had 12 of the Vapona strips and so things ended up having to be done in batches. I also had some student yarns to do.
I hope to get most of the rest of the yarn on the shelves on Friday, and the last of it on Monday. But that timeline is dependant on me having nothing else to do at work. Which may happen, but is highly unlikely.

Happy Wednesday

We're halfway to the weekend!

What are your wild plans?

Still

Knitting on my lace shawl. Just in case you though that I had abandoned it. I am into the second repeat of the body chart with 75 stitches on the needles. I do a couple of rows at night before heading off to bed. I am actually beginning to remember the repeat part. Which impresses the hell out of me. The stitch markers that I made myself are working well. In fact, I made a few more, just cause they are fun to make.

My head cold is still with me and seems to be getting worse instead of better. Blocked sinuses, sore throat, fuzzy head. Ugh.

Still spinning the second half of the second 4 oz of Sailors Delight. Although I looked in my bag of split roving and the colours reminded me of candy corn. Hmmmm. Time for a rename? Nah. Just a reaction to the season. And what am I going to do with 800+ yards of slightly heavier than lace weight yarn? I'm sure that I'll think of something.

I finished fringing my noil scarf. I did it the other night while waiting for clothes to dry. Twist a few fringes, go and tun the drum. Repeat. Which means the dryer is still not behaving in a way that it should. At least it is easier to start with the top off. I just turn the start knob and push the top of the drum with my hand.

And for those of you that have gotten this far, here is your reward. This is my latest hand spun scarf. Of course the colours are a bit washed out because I still haven't gotten the whole picture taking thing figured out.

Blooming

The cacti are blooming in my house. Every summer the plants go out to live in the sun porch and every fall they move back into their winter residence. My rather dark living room. This simulated the light change that florist do in their mysterious back rooms to make them bloom. And so without further ado, here are 3 of my 4 different coloured cacti in bloom.




Oh my. After looking at those photos I realize that my poor plants are rather dusty. Washing them is on my to do list. But now I have to go wake up the kiddies and get everyone ready for school and myself ready for work.

What happiness is not.....

My dryer has been acting up lately. As in it won't start. Bill has taken it apart and "fixed" it three or four times. And it always has not quite been the right thing. Not that all his hard work has been for nothing. The back bearing did need to be greased. The motor is much happier with it's contacts cleaned. And there was a lot of lint in various places. But the thing still won't start. In case you forgot, I have 4 kids. Kids mean laundry. 4 kids mean a lot of laundry. For a while, I was borrowing my neighbours clothes line. Unfortunately, it has been raining or we have had extremely high humidity for the past 5 days. No line. No dryer. No clean pants for my boys. As Bill said, the nag factor has taken a dramatic increase in the past few days.

But he thinks that he has it now. After much testing he thinks that that little beast seen circled below is the problem. He has gone off to consult with his friend Elmer. And hopefully will come home with a fixed circuit board.

Update: Still not working. Actually, it can be made to work if you reach inside and turn the drum with your hand and then quickly slam the door and turn the start button. This only works if the load is not so large that the weight of it will stop the drums rotation before you can get the start button turned. But seeing as this was how it was working before, it is not an improvement. The other fun thing about this dryer is that it will stop after 5 minutes and change direction. Or at least it used to. Now it just stops after 5 minutes.

Although something was discovered that was wrong with the small black rectangular thing in the lower left side.

Happiness is....

M.....

Making bamboo baskets.


Like I mentioned the other day, I went to a Bamboo Basket workshop yesterday. It was an all day affair and was also wonderful!

There were 12 of us and most everyone was a first timer and made a random weave basket like mine a few days ago.
Here Jiro is giving a demonstration.

Because I had already made a random weave basket, I wanted to try something a bit different. This was I wanted to do. Linda had also been in the workshop a few weeks ago and also wanted to make one of these. Jiro said that was no problem.
First you start out by making a base with the hexagon weave,
Then you make three more for a total of four. The basket has four layers and the bases must all be made first. You then measure them all and chose the smallest one for the inside layer. A metal tool is heated up and applied at the edge of the hexagon base and the spokes are bent up. You only have to do this with the first layer because the bend is so sharp, if you don't use the hot tool, the bamboo will break.
Then you cut three pieces of thicker bamboo and place them in the base. This will hold you hexagon together while you start to weave. At this point, I got so into making the basket that I forgot to take any more pictures until it was almost time to go.
And here is where I got to. The first layer is complete and the second is started. When I got home, I continued to weave and have the second complete and the third layer almost done. One more layer and then the rim.
Here is my table mate Carol. She is an artist who was taking the workshop to see if she could incorporate basketry into her art. Alas, she has decided that basket weaving is not her thing.

But here is her basket. And what, pray tell, is the white stuff that is covering her basket? Gut. As in pig intestines. You know, like sausage casings. The stuff is amazing when it drys. It looks like hand made tissue paper. She says that it dyes beautifully. It has a bit of stretch to it and shrinks a bit when it dries. I will hopefully be able to get a look at this when it is dry.

And remember earlier in the week I said that I wanted to get two scarves woven and one fringed. Well, one is woven and fringed and the one I wanted to fringe is cut and knotted. So I managed to get half my goals finished. I was laid low with yet another head cold. Ugh.