We’re not in Kansas anymore

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These signs are fairly common in public restrooms.

We’re in Launceston, Tas today in anticipation of our flight to Flinders Island tomorrow. We hiked in Cataract Gorge, a city park, and took a 90 minute walk. We saw peacocks and wallabies along the way.

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Yesterday Tom hiked to another cape while I explored Port Arthur, where some of the tougher convicts were transported when they were shipped to Australia in the 1800’s.

It’s near the most southern part of Tasmania. The wind howled and the setting was eerily stunning.

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We saw black swans on while driving up the coast. Clearly our world is upside down.

Pre-winter winter

It’s not officially Winter yet but we got almost two feet of snow so I’ll call that winter. I cut my trail in the woods next door. I love the first ski of the season when I have to knock the snow off the trees to get them to rise back to the sky and make room for me. Now I can just ski in my tracks in the trail I broke.

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Yesterday we skied a part of the Jackrabbit trail, which is a 24 mile trail in the backcountry. I took two face plants but since it was in 2 feet of snow, it was like falling on a pillow. And I managed to get up. The we had lunch at a lovely lodge, Cascade Ski center. The fire was huge, the snow was high and the oatmeal stout was on tap.

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Now it’s back to work. I have a warp for towels on the loom. 20141213-202942.jpg

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Why not? There’s still time until Christmas.

Memory warp

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It’s been a while since I have used cards for weaving. I want to weave the cloak’s straps with a personal message, and add wolves and falcons. So far two bands done and no finished product. It takes time to get the routine back.

The first strap hit the trash due to too many twisted threads. The second is OK but a little short so I am going to make it into a belt instead.

Third time is a charm – I hope. There was little tangling at the beginning but I am remembering the technique. Let the games begin. My first wolf sigil is elongated so I’ve decided to incorporate several as an evolution (mostly in me figuring out how the picture translates to tablet weaving). There will be wolves, falcons and words. We’ll see…

The cloak has some design issues but what else is new. I love using my woven product as fabric. I’ve touched every thread multiple times. After I took it off the loom, I tried my best at waulking, to mildly felt it.

I stabilized where I wanted to cut with a zig zag stitch.

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Then hand stitched the selvedges together. It ‘s long enough but not quite wide enough.

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I used my freecycle serger to cut and stabilize the edges and it worked like a charm. I felted the larger pieces and already made a new needle holder. The rest will get tucked in my winter boots for an added layer of warmth.

I am not sure about my choice of fur for the neck but I found some lambswool that may look better. The dark may look too fake but the lambs wool is really a cover for my acupuncture table. I would miss it. Either one will provide a nice soft cover over the wool at the neck.

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Fiber ghosts

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My view as I ran an errand yesterday.

I have bought most of my weaving looms and sewing machines used, often directly from the previous fiber addict. It saddens me that I only met these women as they phase fiber arts out of their lives and sometimes moved away from this area.

I think of them as I use their tools. My wool carders have another woman’s name on them. My floor loom has stains where someone tried warp painting. A friend’s husband made my warping board – he’s passed away, I never met him but think of them both as I wind a warp.

Just yesterday I bought an 8 shaft Leclerc table loom from a weaver extraordinaire. Sadly her truck’s packed and she’s heading south after a few years here and our paths never crossed until now.

I am thinking of placing a personal ad.

Garden’s bounty

My garden was moderately bountiful but it didn’t produce anything as large as this Hubbard squash.

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This is a new food to me but is known by most people in the North Country. It’s a winter squash and reportedly very sweet. I’ll find out once I am able to wrestle it into the oven. My friend cut her’s with a band saw. I’m left with merely a bread knife.

My garden did grow a bunch of carrots and I harvested them and the lettuce and mustard greens. I left the last arugula crop in place because it looked so happy where it was.

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My lichens fermented for over a month and I tried to dye a wool/alpaca blend with them. For naught. I got slightly beige.

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But my pandas are playful and a success.

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Home for the colors

My garden froze when the temperature fell to 28 degrees f while we were away. But the trees sure are pretty, at home…

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And at work.

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One of these robins flew into our window this morning and the other sat nearby until the concussed one pulled itself together and shook it off. Unless, the first did it before we woke up and just happened to be there when its mate fell from the sky.

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Time to camp, reap and dye

Summer is almost over, the crowds have left and kids (and sorry, teachers) are back in school. So we took advantage of some time off and spent a few glorious days in the woods. We hiked to waterfalls, a gorge, lots of ponds and a mountain, with lots of swimming along the way.

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I packed light with a pair of shorts with zip on legs. However, one zipper was broken and my exposed leg was enjoyed by many mosquitos at dusk. Luckily we had a bandage in our pack and I taped the leg to the shorts but couldn’t make any fancy moves for fear of another mosquito feast.

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We returned to my bountiful garden where there is not much left to do except remember to harvest now and then.

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I’ve used some of my flowers to dye yarn with, so far, mildly disappointing results. I used colorful zinnias, dahlias and day lilies (with an alum mordant) all of which produced a yellow dye.

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I saw so many mushrooms during our hike, I want to learn about mycopigment. In the meantime, I’m soaking various lichen I have collected in ammonia to see what they produce. Early results are promising.

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Wild and weird

Summer ticks away. The garden is nourishing us. Today we had pizza with home grown tomatoes, purple basil and oregano (thank you Janice).

Sunflowers were planted for dyeing but they are too pretty to behead just now.

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I’ve been experimenting with my top load updraft gasification stove for cooking dyestuff outside. With my newest rendition, I boiled water in 6 minutes and had jets of gas burning across the top but won’t be able to sustain a flame for an hour. The “top loading” is the problem. You load sticks from the top, which means you have to keep lifting the large stock pot to add more fuel. Nope.

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It did satisfy my pyro tendencies for a day however. Now I’m planning a cinder block rocket stove. There are lots of metal varieties but I don’t weld or snip metal very well.

I had to tell this American Carrion beetle, “I’m not dead yet!” It was marching across my front porch while I worked outside.

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They don’t usually have “tails”. Not sure what was coming out the back door but it was icky.

Spiders, coyotes and turkeys are up to shenanigans. The coyotes are becoming too bold; hanging around in broad daylight. Today Tim counted 33 turkeys cross the yard and I encountered this spider web down the road.

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