Puttering

I have been puttering along on a bunch of projects. It's been ever so hot here this summer, making it hard to concentrate on any one thing.
I am still hoping to paint the little vintage trailer before winter so I managed to run out at lunch one day to R&E Fasteners and purchased the first installment of 250 size 10, 3/4 inch panhead stainless steel screws.
It is too hot to spend the day out in my driveway, so I have been working on screw replacement for about 45 minutes each day at dusk. This is not a quick process since most of the old 1953 screws are pretty much rusted into place. It does have a sortof meditative quality though, working one screw at a time. I've replaced somewhere around 100 screws at this point, and will have to buy more soon. Why so many? Because the aluminum skin of the trailer is made up of a series of panels that are screwed to a wood frame. Not only are the panels liberally tied down, but every seam has a seam cover that has screws every few inches. And every window has screws all around the frame plus a gutter piece that is screwed on above it. Lots and lots of screws. Anyone want to guess how many? I'll reveal the answer down the road when I find out.

During the weekend I got the urge to dye something and pulled out the tunis roving I bought from Becky. I used a method that is totally uncontrolled. I soaked the roving for about 20-25 minutes, then squeezed it lightly and layered it in a plastic container while pouring dry Kool-ade powder directly on it pretty much randomly. I put the lid loosely on the container and microwaved it on medium for about 10 minutes. Let it cool in the microwave, then rinsed it out. Almost no color rinsed out so it really soaked up the dye. The result was a bit different than my usual as it still has a lot of white. I am looking forward to seeing how it spins up. Intended destination: socks.

One more fibery note: The lace vest is coming along slowly with some surprises. At first my mind kept tripping up on the lace pattern, but with practice it has become enjoyable to work on. The fabric is turning out more stripy than I expected but I am liking it anyway. I just hope I have enough yarn for the project!

And here is a gratuitous cat picture.

My Fireplace

I am terribly proud of my fireplace. Five or so years ago when I bought my house, I told the real estate agent that the most important criteria was that the focal point of any prospective home had to be a great fireplace. I love the house I ended up with, especially the floor plan. The fireplace was larger than average (for 1956 houses) but REALLY ugly. It was faced with white painted brick and someone had glued down odd sized pieces of black slate on the hearth leaving wide dirty white grout lines. For a year or two I lived with it, plotting its reinvention. Tile was the answer. Now some folks would hesitate before using the focal point of their home as their very first tiling project. I am made of more foolhardy stuff. After only a brief Home Depot tiling demo I went ahead and jumped into the job.

Here is a "before" picture of the fireplace, as I set up to start tiling.

Tiling turns out to be easier than you might think as long as you apply a little math and you count on lots of spare tile for breakage. Oh and remember to get out all the cat hair before sealing the grout. I ran into a slight conundrum when I tiled above the opening. The Home Depot demo didn't cover vertical surfaces and the effects of gravity. Luckily I had a little table and a length of 2X4 of just the right size.

I finished the fireplace a long time ago, scraped the popcorn off the ceiling, and painted the walls orange. I am ever so pleased with my livingroom. But for over a year now I have had a blank wall over the fireplace. It is directly opposite the couch so I have had huge opportunity to contemplate adding the perfect piece of art. I have even fantasized about maybe painting the right picture myself. Yesterday it hit me - the print I have had hanging in my office at work for about 10 years might be just the thing. Here it is, now hung over the fireplace. It is not perfect (it is too small) but it definitely will do for now. And the subject matter goes great with my small herd of folkart farm animals on the mantel.

Late addition

And here is tonight's pretty sunset...





Now back to the Battle of Hogwarts...

Holding Pattern

I know... slow to post. Not too much to show for the week, though.

I started a new knitting project, but with the swatching and the calculating (and a small bit of frogging) I am only a few rows in. I am trying a simple lace pattern that I made up. I won't go so far as to say I invented it, since it is so simple it must be out there lots of places. It is going to be a cardigan vest made from some green yarn I spun last year.

Garden-wise I spread a dozen bags of mulch, but it was to replace what had evaporated since last year, so no new progress.

Trailer-wise I set out to replace large numbers of loosened screws, only to find I had bought the wrong kind. Darn. A trip to Home Depot later and all I have to show for it is a referral to a specialty bolt and fastener outfit in Sparks. Apparently 1953 travel trailers used an odd size.

I'll try to have more to report once I have finished reading Harry Potter. Meanwhile, here's a pretty sunset from last Monday.

Spindling

Saturday was meeting day for the Carson Sierra Spinners and Weavers. We met in Heidi's shady front yard and had a lovely time chatting, meeting, and chatting some more. Sadly I didn't have my camera with me, so no pictures. The workshop topic was hand spindling and it was great to see all the folks who brought their spindles! I was the workshop speaker, so after lunch we passed out more spindles and lengths of roving. By the end of the workshop everyone was spindling away. Several of the spindleless went ahead and purchased guild spindles, so hopefully I have hooked a few more on the portable magic of handspindles! Now everyone is encouraged to go out and spindle at ArTown events. (Reno holds artsy events all over town every day of the month of July, so there is no end to the venues suitable for spindling.) For the workshop I went through all my bags and bins and collected up all my handspindles to show the variety. The total, including top whorl, bottom whorl and supported spindles, came to 28. Hmmm... could it be an addiction? At least they take up less space than the 4 spinning wheels, 2 charkas and 3 inkle looms. Let's not talk about my wool stash...

Spin-in in Calpine

Once again I must apologize for being slow to post. At this point Sharon, Birdsong and Sara have all blogged about our lovely Dual-Guild Spin-in at Anna Harvey's ranch near Calpine, CA last Saturday. Sharon gets the credit for putting it together and having the stick-to-it-ness to pick a date and make it happen. The Harvey Ranch was around an hour's drive for most folks and well worth it. Beautiful country no matter which road you took. Despite the smoke from multiple wildfires, the views were fantastic. Some of the big open west at its best. There were attendees from both the Carson Sierra Spinners and Weavers and the Foothill Fibers Guild (and a few of us who belong to both). It was good to see some folks in person that we mostly talk to online.
For me the best part of a day like this is the total relaxation that comes with sitting under the trees with friends and no expectations whatsoever. We chatted, looked at fleece, talked to the chickens, did a little spinning and chatted some more. Good times!

Another Stash-Buster Project

I have been admiring the lovely fulled and felted purses that Sharon, Mim and Allison have made. Although I have made several knit-than-felted bags, none of them were of a suitable size and shape to carry as a purse. In my continuing quest to use up the stash bits leftover from other projects, I paired up the leftover handspun from my green shawl and a blue sweater I made years ago. Both are approximately 50-50 wool-mohair, so they should felt up fairly consistantly and very fuzzy. Sharon's lovely purses are always an interesting, yet subtle combination of colors. Very elegant. I decided my personality lends itself more to funky stripes. Perhaps I lack subtlety. Hmmm...

I knit the bottom, plus about an inch up the sides with 2 strands to add a bit of strenth to the bottom. Then I knit up to the top with one strand, knit 1 row with 3 strands, then cast off with 3 strands. This gave it a fat lip, so to speak. I made a patch pocket for the front to hold either my iPod or my cell phone. The strap was a bit trial and error. Since I wanted to use it as a shoulder strap, it needed to be a bit thick for comfort, yet still be able to thread through the sides to cinch the bag shut. After trying several combinations of stitches and strands, I ended up making 4 stitch I-cord using 3 strands and size 11 needles. I am very pleased with the result. Here is the pre-fulling bag with a book for scale (I am rereading book 6 in preparation for book 7).
After putting both bag and I-cord through the wash for a couple cycles, and blocking it around books in a plastic bag, I put it outside to dry.
With our current heat wave still in force, the bag dried completely in about an hour or so. I strung the I-cord through the bag's sides and grafted the ends together. Since the I-cord is now a circle, I can use it as either one long strap or 2 short ones.

Record Heat in Reno

July 4th at my (non-airconditioned) house:


And today Reno officially tied its all-time record high for any day of the year at 108 degrees (at the airport).

I am making frequent use of squirt bottle and fan. Yikes!

Deceptive Packaging

In order to create a little more space for some of my many handthrown pottery mugs, I purchased a couple of corner shelf kits. The packaging showed the little white shelf happily holding up a few knick-knacks and the instructions said it would be a snap to install, all hardware included, quick and easy.

It lied.

Installation of these two little shelves took 3 hours, a drill and 8 drill bits, 6 screwdrivers, plyers, a rubber mallet, a 2-inch pallette knife, a level, assorted extra screws, washers and nuts, a pencil, a size 3 knitting needle, and lots of swearing. Somewhere in the process I lost one of the drill bits. Hopefully it didn't go down the drain, since most of the installation required sitting in the kitchen sink. It didn't help that I had to keep evicting the cat from the stepstool. Apparently she didn't mind the swearing.


So I say to you: if you buy a cute little shelf kit with simple instructions, be very skeptical.

Has it been a year, already? plus a Report from the Garden

Here it is, my one year Blogiversary. I am told that it is customary to make a celebration of it. Some folks hold contests or put together a sort of best-of memoire.
I prefer to let you read my blog's archives if interested. One point though: When I started this blog I fully expected to get bored or distracted and let it languish after a few postings. No one can be more surprised than I (me?) how it has developed. Keeping it has put me in touch with new friends and helped me to focus my creative efforts. Nothing like needing something to post to get me moving!

Now for a quick report from the garden. The lavender is in full glorious bloom. I am especially pleased to report that it is filled with the increasingly rare honey bees. There must be a hive nearby and someone may be getting some lovely lavender honey this year. There are also my favorite bumblebees. The whole garden is buzzing.
The Perovskia (Russian Sage) has gotten bigger than I expected and is even overshadowing some of the Blue Queen Salvia. I am not unhappy about it because it is also gloriously blooming. My two pallettes of rock are still filling the purpose of... er... yard sculpture, and today they have been joined by 15 bags of cedar mulch. The mulch will be put in place in the next week. The rocks won't.

The misplaced bog plant (Lingularia X palmatiloba) that came with the house has once again beat the high-desert odds and is blooming merrily.

A visit to Finney Creek Farm and BSG 2007

I just returned from my yearly pilgrimage to Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon. I drove up with Eileen on Thursday and returned on Sunday, so it was a quick trip. Pulling the little trailer with my little Nissan truck made uphill driving slow (dropping to 35mph), plus there was quite a bit of highway construction delay, so both Thursday and Sunday were pretty much limited to driving. And more driving. There are quite a few uphills between Reno and Eugene.


We camped at Laura's Finney Creek Farm 29 miles west of Eugene. She has sheep, llamas, turkeys, chickens, a dog, a cat, and a full-time job. Busy woman! Four of us Nevadans camped in the front yard and her visiting cousin camped in the livingroom. Friday morning was coastal-Oregon-misty and I was able to get some great shots of the farm. My favorite is of an overly vocal rooster.

Black Sheep Gathering is held yearly at the Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene. It has become a premier western sheep and wool festival. There are sheep, goat and bunny competitions, fiber arts competitions, fleece judging and sale, workshops, demos, and lots and lots of vender booths. And, of course, impromptu spinning circles to join between shopping forays.

I am pleased to report that my painted Kiwi and matching chair generated many oohs and ahhs. The Market consisted of three large rooms full of venders selling everything from fibers, books and patterns to wheels, spindles, dyes, and tools. The most common item this year was probably handpaint blueface roving. Handspindles were also plentiful, with a wide choice from plain to fancy with exotic woods and inlaid stones. Another trend is the explosion of newfangled fibers such as ingeo, soysilk, bamboo, etc. I'm not a fan of silk (except how it takes color) and most of these new fibers are advertised to mimic the spinning properties of silk. Instead I found myself gravitating to exotics such as cashmere, bison, yak and camel down. Friday was mostly about shopping and I came home with quite a nice little collection of treasures to keep me happy for the next year.

I took only one half-day workshop - Orenburg Handspinning with Galina Khmeleva. It was a lot of fun and I bought a set of the hand-carved Russian support spindles to try this at home. She gets 500 yards on a single small handspindle! It will definitely take practice. Imagine a whisper-fine lace shawl spun from champagne colored camel down. Definitely worth the effort!

Saturday evening was the BSG lamb barbeque and potluck, then back to camp to chat, laugh, and compare our purchases. And make a few purchases from each other. I bought some of Becky's Tunis roving. Although tunis are meat sheep, the fiber is strong, smooth and springy (a bit like Dorset?), so I want to try making socks with it.

Now I am home. The trailer is unpacked and safely stowed in the driveway. This weekend I will get out my newly acquired booty and happily plot its eventual metamorphosis into hats, shawls, socks and other fuzzy garments.

Spinning Chair

Last weekend I set out to find a folding chair the right height for spinning. I found a folding wooden chair, adopted it and took it home. It had a dark oil stain. Once it was sitting there next to my Kiwi it looked sorta plain. Wood items that come into my house are always in danger of going under the burning tool. And every wheel needs its own matching chair, don't you think?

Here's the wheel:
Chair before:Chair after much sanding, woodburning and painting:
The undecorated areas will be covered by a small fluffy sheep pelt I use to add cushioning.

I have an unfinished tensioned lazy-kate on order, so the sandpaper and paint are awaiting it's arrival.

Progress

First, I am happy to announce the arrival of the first lavender bloom in my garden for this year. Here it is.

While warm weather has worked its magic on the garden, I have started and finished a knitting project in what is (for me) record time. For the Guild's recent natural dye workshop I could only find a couple of small, lumpy skeins to dye. These were leftovers from my very earliest spinning that I just couldn't bear to throw away. I split the larger one so I had three little skeins at not even an ounce each. In just 2 evenings I have knitted this hat, making up the pattern as I went along. It still needs to be washed and blocked. I think (I really do) that the lumpyness of the yarn gives it a lovely texture. It is a bit brighter in person (the flash washes the colors out a bit). In a totally unscientific manner, I only vaguely remember which of the dye pots and modifiers I used to get these colors. I think the purple was brazilwood modified by ammonia, and the orange was madder plus something else. The dull beigey-pink went in and out of several pots in search of something other than dull beigey-pink. Ah well - looks OK when used with the other two.

Pembrokeshire Pathways Complete

Despite all the seemingly endless little cable twists, I have completed the Pembrokeshire Pathways socks. The pictures don't really do them justice.

Partway:








Done (click on image to see stitch detail):

I'm still checking each day for the first lavender blossoms. None yet, but the salvia is overcoming its frost damage with a minor showing.

Back to the Garden

After a week of work, work, work, it was great to get outside and do a little gardening. The lavender blooms are about ready to pop open. I check every day, hoping to celebrate the first sign of purple. Despite having pulled out most of the rock soapwort last year, it has reappeared and is blooming away cheerfully. More importantly, the potentilla that Linda gave me has once again overcome my abuse and rebounded back to life.
On Saturday I visited Dry Creek Nursery in search of more Lena's broom. They were all out for now, so after reserving 3 from the next shipment, I browsed around and adopted 3 "Blue Cushion" lavenders (one can never have too many lavender) and 3 lemon thyme. I bought them small - small plants mean small holes to dig with my newly back-to-business elbow. And they are awfully cute, too, like a little kitten or puppy, but with no housebreaking required.

In a fit of ambition I even turned my mind toward beginning The Wall. First step is to dig a foundation ditch to lay the first rank of stones. Since my yard slopes, hosing down the area to soften the dirt doesn't really work. So I evicted a nest of ants from under the soaker hose in the back yard and spread the hose along the future wall site. At that point my ambition wore out. I'll soak the area a bunch this week and start the digging next weekend.
Meanwhile I'll keep checking for the first lavender blooms.