Adirondacks

Joint venture

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IMG_1759I completed my cabin quilt on Valentine’s Day and already wrote about it here.  It hasn’t made it to the cabin yet because Tim wanted it on our “bed” instead.  We had an IKEA mattress and frame on the floor for over a year.  I’m getting too old for this.  I had to roll onto my knees to get out of bed.

Tim had been hemming and hawing about building a bed.  I was hoping to duplicate the bed we slept in on Deal Island, Tasmania, but since we didn’t have a cove where timber washed up on the beach, it was difficult to duplicate.  We did find a great sawmill nearby though and got to choose lumber for the project, including an irregular piece with the bark still on it.  They cut them to width and we drove them home.

I helped out with drawings but Tim did all the real work.  He made a beautiful, sturdy bed.  Best of all, I can rise to my feet straight out of bed.  Maybe one day the quilt will make it up to the cabin, where I have to crawl to the foot of the bed to get up.

 

Fashion statement

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My year of no purchased clothes is well underway but I haven’t really had to defer any purchases at this point.  I made my own piece of fabric for fabric’s sake though.  One Christmas, I made towels for everyone and Andre thought he might like the same fabric for a pair of pajama pants, which he has expertly sewn in the past.  Well a birthday came and I wove some fabric.  I wove it in a small rose path pattern with an easy to remember treadling sequence.  It’s been cut off the loom and sent to the tailor.

Then it gets complicated.  I made a scarf for a friend of a friend of my DD.  The wearer has been replaced by a new bare neck and a second, albeit slightly better, scarf has been requested.  I worked up a shadow weave.  I’m not sure if this is leaving my house yet though because it feels luscious.  The two colors, variegated tencel, and alpaca wool, are too close to really work with shadow weave, which can be a tricky weaving pattern because you use each color every other row.  My feet refused to cooperate.  Sometimes I would be muttering #1 to myself and look down and find my foot, which I thought was on the first treadle, actually on the fourth treadle.  Happily, these mistakes, like most of the pattern, can’t be seen.

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This got me thinking about weaving and sewing something for myself.  I think I’ll make a vest for a big event in DD’s life, for me.  Maybe I’ll look as handsome as this guy.

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A gift for every holiday

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I have been working on a quilt for Tim for the past year, when other shiny projects didn’t catch my attention.  At one point I thought it would be an Anniversary gift in September but that didn’t happen.  Then I thought it would make a great Christmas gift to keep us warm in the cabin, where we sleep when the kids come to visit.  But that didn’t happen either and besides, I had all my holiday knitting to finish.  I would mention the quilt that was going to one day be finished at each of these holidays.

Finally it became a Valentine’s present, in use at bedtime on February 14, complete with heart quilting in the center of each square.  The batting is wool, which was very easy to work with, except for little wool dust bunnies rolling around on the floor. The quilt was entirely pieced on my Singer 66 treadle sewing machine and then machine quilted on my little Singer Featherweight sewing machine. The material is all homespun and I pieced the back with leftover fabric.  One problem with a slow, drawn out project was at some point I thought I only had to make about 6 more squares but instead I needed 16.  After the quilt was put together, I cleaned my workspace and low and behold, found the missing blocks.

Heart quilting
The mandatory label with a photo of the cabin

Finishing a quilt always generates a satisfied sense of accomplishment.  This time it even encouraged me to pull out fabric intended for more quilts… but alas,  shiny objects, looms and spinning wheels, beckon.

 

Stranded

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At my darling daughter’s request, I’m back to knitting hats. Stranded  hats.  She wore one of my hats to a party and ended up requesting 4 more, including 2 moose hats, which I had to design.  I got out my punch cards and away I went.  They appear to be frolicking or playing leapfrog though.

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Frolicking moose

I’m going to sew these on my machine to try to speed up the assembly.  Right now it takes me almost as much time to finish them by hand as it does to knit them on the machine.

Our good friend is heading way north to volunteer for the Yukon Quest.  She is an avid dog lover, skijoerer (yup I spelled that right.  Skijoring (in Wikipedia) which is defined as:  a sport where a person on skis is pulled by a horse, a dog (or dogs) or a motor vehicle. It is derived from the Norwegian word skikjøring meaning ski driving. So she wants to see the pros at work with their sleds and  beautiful dogs.   I made her a hat of course.

It’s not my pattern; I bought the knitting chart and made my own punch card for my knitting machine.  I’m quite pleased with it.  Everyone at the dog shelter coveted one too.  A good endorsement.  The pattern is Husky Sledding Chart and its graphics are perfect.

Next up are panda hats I am still designing and punching cards for.  Three color punch card is keeping my brain fresh. My machine is older and relies on punch cards instead of the computer.  This means a lot of up front work before a pattern may be knit.

Loki looked stranded in the snow yesterday when he was stalking something in the bushes.

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So handsome.  Then he came in and cuddled with the rambunctious, hyper, mildly annoying, but so sweet, kitten, Elli. They were even touching for warmth.

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We had a small dinner party the other night and I made the American version of a self saucing pudding and I have to say it was delicious and easy.  The recipe is from King Arthur Flour.  They call it a self saucing chocolate cake.  Our chocolate loving, skijoerer loved it too.  A good testament.  Here’s how pretty the table looked before dinner.  I won’t show you the aftermath but a good time was had by all.

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Here’s the link to the King Arthur recipe.  Try it!

 

Chasing rainbows

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Sometimes the most beautiful images occur on the dreariest days.  Rainbows don’t appear on sunny days.  Yesterday was gray with freezing rain predicted.  I went for a run and minutes after I got home, it started pouring with a little sun peaking through.  I got the camera out because I thought for sure a rainbow would form and wasn’t disappointed.

First a dull, double rainbow emerged.

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Then one dissolved and the other became more vivid.

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Finally, it widened across the sky.

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If it had been a sunny day, I wouldn’t have this to talk about.  I followed the rainbow all the way to work and when I got there, found the pot of gold.  Apparently, I have been accruing vacation time and don’t take enough time off!!  Lighthouses and sailing, here I come. And more rainbows to chase.

 

 

Full house

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It took a while to attract the goldfinches this year to our feeders.  We had chickadees, one of which ate directly from Tim’s hand, nuthatches, blue jays of course and squirrels, including a big fat grey one.  Well they’re back, in a flock.  Yesterday there was no more room at the feeders.

I’m working to keep warm.  I put this string quilt on hold while I struggled to learn how to use my knitting machine(s).  Now it’s time to finish it for the cabin.  The fabric is all homespun and I made it entirely on my Singer treadle sewing machine.  It may have even been considered exercise.

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I know I’m human because of course I’ve erred but perhaps only I will know. The process was pretty simple.  Sew a lot of strips on a square piece of fabric, then clean it up.

Elli was fundamental in helping me plan the layout.  Now to add borders and layer it with wool batting.  It will weigh a ton and should be toasty.  I could have used it last night.  It was blustery cold and very windy.  We took our evening soak in the hot tub with a wind chill of 9 degrees f.  It was so windy, my robe blew right off the coat rack.  Happily Tim retrieved it for me.  But when I went to put my shoes on, I saw they had blown right down the hill on top of dear, departed Shirley’s ( my feline companion of 18 years) grave.  I had to tromp in the snow in my bare feet to retrieve them and say hello to Shirley.  Brrrrrr. A hot shower and wool clogs helped.

Take a hike

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Tim nearly dragged me out of the house today to take a hike. I’ve been down with a cold and my exercise plan has gone to pot – for now at least. 

All’s good though. I finished last minute Christmas gifts and shipped a wedding gift. It’s a tartan throw I wove. The plaid was from a wedding dress from 1766 in Scotland. 

   
   

 I’m pleased with it. I hope the bride to be is too. 

We snowshoed next door and saw evidence of a piliated woodpecker

   
 Beavers

  
Some little critters that live in a hole in the snow

And people who build rock cairns

  

Except for a small meltdown by me, a good time was had by all (Tim).
  
  

Feeling blue

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It was time to pull out the dye pots and Greener Shades dyes.  Before Thanksgiving, my first attempt at dyeing my own self-striping sock yarn was a smashing success, almost. The dyeing process and results were great. I just couldn’t get to the yarn. 

How could that be? Well it’s a mildly involved process. In order to make two balls of identical yarn, to knit a pair of matching socks, first I knit two strands of white yarn together into a large rectangle. I knit it with very large stitches so the dye can easily penetrate the yarn.

  
The process is made easier because I knit the rectangle on a knitting machine but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Then I “paint” the rectangles with dye. In this case I painted half of each with black and the rest with varying shades of blue and green and maybe a little purple, my favorite color way these days. 

  
Then I let them dry during our beautiful fall weather.  Next step is to unravel the rectangle into two balls of yarn. That’s where I had a big fail the first time and kept trying to unravel from what turned out to be the wrong edge. Who knew?  It would unravel most of the way but get caught on the end stitches. I wasted so much yarn, I only had enough to make the cutest pair of tiny socks for little Otis. Now I know. 

  
We’ll see how these knit up big people socks.

   
In the meantime, I’m proud of my latest weaving endeavor. 

  
My floor loom is presently occupied by a small blanket in progress.  It’s inspired from a plaid from the 1700’s found on a wedding dress.  Despite careful planning, I ran out of weft yarn and am waiting for it to arrive so I can proceed with holiday weaving. In the meantime…gotta keep weaving. 

Oh shoot

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Days are short. The sun set at 4:16 today. Somehow my mind turns to gardening. Not in a big way, mind you. 

The author of Year Round Indoor Gardening discussed his book on NPR a few weeks ago. What a concept!  Fresh greens all year. Shoots  grown in soil indoors.

After sprinkling a tablespoon of seeds on soil, The first 4 days you basically do nothing while the seedlings develop roots. 
Then you move them to a window that merely sees daylight and you end up with a salad a week from when you started. 

  
Here’s my sunflower, buckwheat, peas, and radish salad. And that’s just the half of it. 

As they say, Winter is Coming

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We had our first snow flurries this weekend. We’ve (mostly Tim) tucked in the house and winterized the tools and watch the sun set at 4:30. 

The mountains had some brief beautiful fall colors.  

   
I forgot to take pictures though.  The deer and turkey were plentiful before hunting season. Now I have to remember to grab an orange vest before I run and their numbers have dwindled. 

  
We picked the perfect day to explore the old fort at Crown Point. 

   
    
  
But a new kitten and knitting and weaving projects occupy most of my time. And sometimes it becomes a tangled mess. 

  

  

Just like world affairs.