Archive | September 2021

Sept-Trying again..

Sep28

Maybe  the internet and I will get along better today. You think?! Doc says, Yes I did break my finger. He gave me a new splint and congratulated Randy on his. He also said I’ll need to wear this thing for a month!! Trying to make apple sauce today. I can halve them with the cutting board and big knife but coring realty puts a strain on that finger so Himself will have to take over that slot for the time.  But I’ve got the first pot cooking. The Squeezo wall take care of the clean cores.

I spent most of yesterday in town what with Doctor, Chores for Himself, and my own list. Traffic was horrible, with fire hold-ups still north of town and Weaverville’s first traffic light being installed on the other end of town. Took forever to get from place to place so I didn’t get anything done on the shirt yoke.

But we got a lovely cool wet rain! It was so relaxing that I didn’t mind sitting at two road work stops on the way to and from town, just relaxing with the cool and wet and dim landscape. It was great. And hopefully did some damage to the remaining fires as well.

I’ve made and modified the pot holder. Have two more made and one test woven. It’s a light commercial “worsted” woven on the 5″ Quilt Weaver Square. So a test for both yarn and loom size. The dark on on the left is the first one I made using the 7″ and it was a little too long. I rewashed it to felt it a bit tighter and then cut it off shorter. The red one and the one on the skillet handle are both handspun felted max. You can see the pot with the apples there on the left, too.

But now I think it’s time for some lunch and by then the apples may be ready for the next step. Hope your day is moving along smoothly!

The Summer we don’t want to do again.

Sep26

Wild fires and drought. We did have to evacuate. spent 8 days in the trailer with half our household goods. Thankfully a kind neighbor let us camo in their field so were only about, well, I don’t know, probably less than 10 miles from home. Randy, being in Search and Rescue and part of the sheriff’s dept. was able to go home and check on things and keep the pumps going to keep things wet and water the garden. We’re back now, the fire got less than a miles from us and then went up a draw behind us and around Billy’s peak. Good for us but not so good for some others. My walking friend is still not allowed home.

But she is luckier than some others who do not have homes to come back to. About 30, they say. A lot of them summer places but several were folk homes and at least one historical resort. We havent gotten any news about the other one yet.

 

 

But we are home and trying to get going again, putting packed things back in place. A lot of them not going back but rather into the donation piles. And others being sent to the kids.

And I’m still having adventures. I went out to the garden today to take photo’s of my zinnias to show sis asking her if she wanted seed and tripped over one of his row stakes. Landed on my foreheat this time and didn’t rebreak my nose, thankfully. Just a few scratches on my heard head!  Took the skin off my healing arm where I cut it last week & have either broken a finger or pulled it out of joint. He’s splinted it up for me and I’ll take it to the doc tomorrow. Didn’t want to go on Sunday. It’s my left hand so I can still weave but it does make typing a little tricky!

But I also have a long rip in my pant leg so thought I’d weave one of those colorful patches. Rooting around in the yarn bin I found a bag of already woven 4″ squares in a colorway in Opal sock yarn. And I have a couple shirts that are just right for this kind of thing so now I just need to stitch it on and wash. And there are enough patched left to patch the pants! 

Well, it appears my blog editor has decided Iam done posting today so I guess I am. Hope your day is going better than mine.

Weaving a Pot holder

Sep4

Okay, finally here’s some weaving content! When packing up the kitchen in case of evacuation I used all my potholders as packing material between breakables. Clever, huh? Yes, but I still have to cook meantime! The too thin commercial pot holder that was left  is cute but I may as well use my barehand and burn scars are not cute! I I dug out some yarns and the 3.5×7″ Quilt Weaver rectangle and wove a few. Two are Brown Sheep’s Lamb’s Pride 80% wool, 20% mohair and a skein of my own handspun, unlabeled, of course. That’s how I know it’s mine. Rosy, my spinning sister, labels hers with fiber type and yardage. Anyway, I wove two of each yarn and felted them in the washer with some bath mats. Not a good choice by the way as they incorporated  a nice bit of white fuzz onto my blocks. But as I am not after pretty with this project I didn’t let that stop me, just something to keep in mind!

So now I see that the Brown Sheep felted up nice and tight, the hand spun less so but still good. I decided that the Brown Sheep were going to be a little too small for my project and that both were still a little thinner than I wanted for a pot holder. So I sewed the smaller ones to the larger to make my holder a double thickness. Then I used a blanket stitch to sew the two pads together.

Those of you who use the original non-stick (cast iron) skillets know how hot that handle can get but I think I’ve fixed that now! I’ll tell you after breakfast tomorrow!

It’s not pretty or cute but it looks like doing what I need. It ought to be pretty fire proof too, so hopefully I won’t set the kitchen on fire! However, I think I’ll make another and make it just a bit shorter. And maybe this time I’ll go for cute as well as safety!

 

I think September is the start of Fall…?

Sep1

At least I hope so. The Weather Wizards have been speculating on La Nina, telling us we may get a colder and wetter winter this year. What a wonderful thing that would be. I’m afraid to believe it, tho because if they are wrong it is going to be just too disappointing! Anyone who has been watching the goings on out in the US west know we are drying up and burning up. Here in Coffee Creek we are under Evacuation Warning and the fire is creeping closer. We have the trailer parked in the driveway and are loading what we want to save. Have you ever had to make decisions on what you want and what you have room for? Then you know what it’s like around here these days. Not only that but we don’t know we are going to have to leave so meantime we have to go about our lives. There  are still looms to make, the garden to tend and veggies to can, he has unfinished jobs… It’s hard to pack what we need to take if we have to leave when meantime we have to live here and need those things for that! If you can figure that out!

Space station photo. I tried to mark the fires for those in the area. Not guaranteed, tho.

Here’s a picture of the fires on Aug 2 from the space station. That was before the Haypress fire (ours) got over the hill and down into Coffee Creek drainage. Since that time it’s been creeping down toward us. The canyon is filled with smoke from it and from the rest of the fires in N CA. But the fire people tell us that’s a good thing as it keeps the fires down, less oxygen for them. Also for us! But I don’t think we’re going to be able to count on La Nina to arrive in time to save us so we’re just going to have to count on the fire crews and our own resources. And your good thoughts or prayers!

But meantime…

Bread and Butter pickles from the basket of cukes.

Looking up at a Tall sunflower!

Meantime since I was disturbing the dust I decided to run all these dust collectors through the dishwasher. My, they are shiny!

He mulched the potatoes with straw and now we have a crop of wheat! I can make potato bread! ;-D

Himself thinks these old games are worth a lot of money to game collectors, but I think those guys want unopened new “old”
games and mine have a lot of miles on them! I played and so did every kid that came around. It was fun but I expect I’d get Zelda slaughtered these days. If I could figure out how to hook it up to the modern TV. But it just goes to show what you can find when you start digging out dusty corners. I didn’t find my wedding rings, tho. 😦

Is it history?

Weaving content is still missing for the same reason. But there will be projects in a couple of Little Looms magazines next year so is that something to look forward too?! I hope!

Meantime get out your dancing shoes and give us a rain dance or two!

The neighbor brought her kids over for lunch.