Tag Archive | life stuff

More snow…

…Another 10″ this morning. This is the trail to the mail box.

And Himself likes feeding the birds but he doesn’t use a bird feeder just tosses it on the deck and in the snow. The towhees and Junkos were missing in this photo as was the little tree rat, the pine squirrel. He’s better stay missing! But the greys and the Jays were there for breakfast! You can tell that He’s generous with the expensive bird feed, too! Ah well, they are entertaining. This is our deck, by the way. Getting deep around the edges! lol

Hope you are having fun with your looms and staying cozy this rather chilly March! Traditionally it comes in like a lion (tho I’d vote Polar bear this year) so let’s just hope it goes out like that lamb!

I’ve been showing you the deck side, the “pretty side”. Thought I’d give you a view of my kitchen side. That’s my car, the shop behind it. The white area to the right of my car is the tarp that helps keep the snow out of the wood shed behind it. The path he’s shoveled leads to the porch and kitchen door. The 2nd picture was taken from the kitchen door though the snow boards which keep the snow off the porch. For the most part. Snow did a lot of melting today but there’s more scheduled for this week.

2023 WAL for 18″ Dolls

Feb26

Edited to add: The 4 pattern squares are woven in the standard way, not diagonally!

Okay< it’s fixed now. Just left out a rather important bit of information. Sorry about that, what I get for jumping the gun before I have finished re-weaving it myself.

Our next big snowstorm here in the west has arrived along with predictions of power outages.

I decided to post the WAL pattern today in case I cannot join you tomorrow.

Starry Day Dress

Check the page at the top if you need instruction for the diagonal weaving. I hope you will all enjoy weaving this dress for your girl! If we still have power I will certainly be joining you!

A bit of a fashion show.

Feb24

I spent yesterday having the ladies model some of the woven clothing in their wardrobes. Not all of them have written patterns but I think once you get the ‘hang’ of weaving for your dolls you won’t have any trouble designing your own. Meantime I hope you find these inspiring you to dig out your looms and yarns!

This one was fashioned after a dress knitted by Patricia Elizabeth over in Italy after one in the AG catalog, don’t recall what year.

It used the Multi looms. 6″ square for the front, 4×6″ for the back and skirt and 2×6″ was the sleeves. I indulged in a little lace work. No, I don’t remember what, but I could probably come up with some, if not quite the same. I think Pat’s dress was titled the White Dress, don’t remember what AG called theirs. Ruthy looks good it it if I do say so!

Still snowing here, 13″ this morning….

WAL 2023

Feb21

The Month of March is Weave ALong month on Ravelry Knitting for American Girl Dolls, for those who would like to try their hand at a different yarn craft. You do not need to be a weaver, because while this is weaving it is a simple and easy form of that ancient handcraft.
I will be weaving on the 4” Hazel Rose Multi Loom but this project can be made with many different brands of looms. You may own or be able to talk Mom or Grandmom out of their old Lomette, Weave-it, Weavette, even the more modern plastic zoom loom. If you have the HR Tiny Weaver square, that will also work. There are probably several other small looms that weave a 3 ½” to 4” square that can also be used

The larger looms, like the HR 7” square and the Potholder looms, will not be suitable for this project.
We will, of course, be happy to sell you one of our quality, hand-made hardwood looms but I am also offering a do-it-yourself instruction to make a temporary loom for those of you who think you might like to weave with us but aren’t sure enough to want to invest a lot in this project. This little foam board or cardboard loom will be sturdy enough to weave the blocks needed for this project and will last long enough for you to decide if you enjoy the craft. If you find you love weaving, you may then decide if you want to purchase a more permanent loom. email or PM me for this one.
Meantime, you will need your loom, a weaving needle, and your yarn. The needle you can buy are a low cost at most any carft or yarn store. The Yarn can be fingering, Knit Picks Palette makes a thin, light fabric, but suitable, Stroll sport is the one I used for this dress, and have also used light weight worsted sizes. Unlike knitting, which will change the size of the garment when you change the size of the yarn, these squares will always be right around the same size. What does change is the texture of the fabric. The heavier the yarn the stiffer the fabric. If you decide to use the self made loom, I’d advise using the finer yarns so as to put less stress on your little loom. The hard wood looms are stronger and can handle the draw-up for any of these yarns, of course.

I am going to be offering a 10% rebate or coupon* to WAL members on the 4” Multi Loom for this event. That includes the loom, the weaving needle, and the booklet with instruction as well as the project instruction for the dress we will be making & a couple others as options. * I’m trying to figure out how to do that on my web site so be patient. If you want to go ahead and buy one now it’ll have to be the rebate. But you need to let me know you are in the WAL.

We would like to start this project on Feburary 27. This is an early notice to allow time to find your loom and to select your yarns and weave a few practice squares. I would be happy to have an idea of how many of you are planning to join this WAL.

I will be posting the WAL info to my blog, https://hazelroselooms.blog/ and also inviting members of the Facebook pin loom group to join us if they wish. My view is that of “The more the merrier”!

We had great fun with the WAL’s the last times we did this and I hope this one will be just as much fun.

I picked the Starry Day dress because it is all 4″ squares but if you have another choice please feel free to suggest. We can decide together. I will post some pictures of possible patterns that do not need a collection of looms.

There will be a prize winner chosen at random between the finishers. I will keep a list of finishers on Ravelry but you will have to let me know via email with a photo if you are not a member.

February again…

Feb18

But don’t worry, it’s not spring yet! More snow in the forecast on Tuesday and through the week it sounds like. I’m okay with that. We have gotten quite a bit of precip this winter but are still not caught up with the last dozen or more years of drought. Garden started to thaw a bit this week with the highs in the upper 40’s but there’s still plenty of time for that , too.

I’ve done little yarn things this winter, knitted myself a scrap vest. This is all the scraps and snippets saved from projects over the last decade, probably. Tied together in an overhand knot. Will that hold? Ask me in a few years of wearing it!

And played with a few weaving techniques, that’s about it. Just did this one yesterday. From a photo posted on the pin loom facebook group.

Randy is planning our trip to Utah next month to take part in the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair, Friday April 28 and Saturday April 29
The Legacy Event Center – Farmington, Utah. I’ll be teaching a basic class on the 4 inch Multi loom, we’ll make a little needle book to learn plain weave and a texture pattern or two. The other class is the dishcloth class on the 10.5″ Quit Weaver Square. We’ll start with plain weave and see how far we get. The class schedule hasn’t been posted yet but should be soon–keep checking!

We’ll be at the Black Sheep Gathering, June 23, 24, & 25 and the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, October 14 & 15. Both in Albany, OR. I think we’ll also be at Lambtown in Dixon, CA, Oct 7 & 8. We’re also looking at Fiber Fusion Northwest in Monroe, Washington. June 4 & 5. Maybe. Sounds like a lot, beginning to feel like a lot as well. I think I’m getting old as these affairs are a lot more stressful than they used to be. I suppose it’s good for me. At least that’s what Himself keeps telling! lol

Did I mention that we can almost see the lake again? Yes, indeed, it has been coming up rapidly this winter. Authorities warn us not to expect it to fill this spring, tho, Partly it appears, because they have other uses for the water up here. I don’t mind sharing but it would be nice if we had some lake. Our local businesses mostly rely on that body of water to draw the tourists that they rely on to stay in business. We’ve lost a few already who weren’t able to tough it out. That’s rough on us all.

Way in the back, that thin line of blue is the lake. The rock piles (a remnant of the mining days) show the river wending its way to join that pool. This is the view across the Lake(bottom) from Trinity Center where we had tp go last month to get internet and cell service from the Verizon tower there.

And my little Fox friend is still coming for dinner each evening. He doesn’t get much, I want him to still hunt but while the snow was still frozen on the ground hunting was difficult and I wanted to keep him around. He’s my best mouser!

I guess that’s all for now. I hope it’s not too Winter where ever you are. Spring isn’t far and we can all be outdoors grubbing in the dirt again!

Carrots & Radishes

More Clothing…

Dec15

Weavers have asked for more so here’s another. This was the first pull over that worked really well. It was back in the Olden Days, when I was spinning my own yarn. This was the first whole Jacob fleece I bought and spun up. I used the colors as they came. I’m not sure what became of it, I wasn’t able to find it this morning to take new photo so this is kind of fuzzy. I used the 7″ Quilt Weaver square, we were only making two sizes of looms back them the 7 & the 12″. You can see that the sleeves are a bit odd. If I make this one again I’ll use the sewing machine and modify the sleeve where I drew the red line on the chart. I was scared of cut and sew back then, too, I guess! But it’s a easy one to make and you can use any nice yarn. You can also use cut and sew to modify the neckline if you wanted a different one.

The night visitors…

Nov26

I know you’re not supposed to feed the wild ones but it was just a Thanks Giving treat. I want him to stay around. He mostly lives on mice of which we have too many, enough to keep him and his family as fat and healthy as he looks now.

Easy Holiday WAL Week 1

Nov25

The project for this week is just a little “gift”. Gift uses two squares and Easy Single, as you might guess uses just one. You can use already woven squares you may have for either if these or just spend a few relaxing minutes to weave new ones. They are squares and can be any size you want and any style square as well. I used the 2″ square Multi loom but the Quilt weaver squares would work as well. For tree ornaments you’ll probably want to stay with the smaller looms but the choice is always yours. I just want to say, don’t judge the project by my bows! lol My old fingers are not very handy at these tiny bows anymore.

Gift

Easy Single Square Pretty

Another winter…

Nov11

We started out this month with some early snow. Is it early? Seemed so, the trees also thought so as almost all of them still have their leaves. We had no damage here other than a few broken branches but there were long stretches of power outages which very likely mean some other trees along the way weren’t so lucky. I felt for the PUD guys out in that weather but they did a good job of getting us powered up again and I appreciate it! Yeah, we have a generator but it’s a noisy contraption so don’t engage it unless the fridge and freezer start to suffer. We can hear all the neighbors machines well enough!

It’s been awhile, as has been pointed out to me, since I posted here. Things have been happening but not interesting stuff to write about. Gardening and canning, cooking and cleaning, you know that kind of thing. I have been weaving but mostly it’s all for Little Looms magazine which I can’t share here. If they don’t take it I can share but if they do it’ll be sometime next year. I’m not as fast as I used to be, especially at the writing it up part, so that pretty much covers my weaving time.

We’ve gone to three shows this year, Black Sheep Gathering last June, Lambtown in first part of October and OFFF in the last part. He’s looking at accepting the invitation to go to Utah for the Great Basin event. We’ve never been to it. That, of course, set him off looking for other events of this nature that he might want to attend! There’s are a lot of them scattered around but it all involves timing and the size of the event, too. And the distance! But that’s all day dreaming right now.

He’s got the wood shed full, says he thinks he has next years wood already, too. About the only good thing to come out of last years fires, there’s a lot of dead wood. So we get to burn it again. The woodshed below is full but he still has room for his drop cord collection and a few other items of manly interest. And they yard out there still has more. The unsplit pile next to the splitter is madrone. It’s a hard wood for those of you who don’t know it and makes a really hot fire. There’s lots of it after last years event. The best thing about madrone is that even tho the tree was burnt and died of it, it will come back from the root nearly every time so they aren’t really lost. I don’t want a Madrone in the yard, they are a messy tree, but I enjoy them out in the forest. They are also handsome and have white blossoms that make pretty red berries in the winter.

My broken Hyde King apple tree is making a come back after it got smashed by the fallen alder a couple years ago. It had one apple this year, which was not bad as the crop on all the apples this year was negligible. I got one pie and no applesauce. Got some nice winter squashes off my couple of vines. And the woodbine was once again brightening up the yard.

First Hyde King!

One of many tasty winter squashes.

So now I guess it’s time to settle in for the winter. We have a couple more guests for the cabin and we’ll close that up. It’s already in the Twenties at night and we don’t need any frozen pipes! Thanksgiving will be just the two of us and probably Christmas, too. I have a little turkey and a little ham so we can have our celebrations here properly! I even bought a can of cranberries so we’re all set! ;-D Hope you are all doing well and getting ready for a cozy winter!

It’s August already!

Aug3

Which makes me late again. Oh well, Late, as the saying goes, seems to be my middle name. But while I have been busy, I don’t know that all that much has been going on. Garden, loom projects, cabin rentals… We had a week of over 100 degrees. It hit 114 one day. Then the next week, this past one .was cool. We had one day with a high in the mid 70’s. I think the drives the garden nuts, too. My peaches are just now starting to soften and we had our first tomato for dinner last night. It was yummy! It’s an heirloom Oxheart. There’s another one ripe now, too, and lots of green ones.

And yesterday we were threatened by the Weather Wizards with heavy Thunder storms and flash floods. All we had was some distant thunder.

Until…

…about 1am I heard water running in the dry flume outside my bedroom window. Our “flash flood” had arrived. It fid not seem enough to worry about so went back to sleep. And it did no damage to us but the poor fishes did not fair so well. Apparently the heave storms were up in the alps in the burn scares from last year. Nothing to stop the runoff & it brought all sorts of mud and muck with it down Coffee Creek, into Treasure Creek and branched into the dry flume though the yard. It’s ugly and it looks like Coffee Creek Road is out again, too. The dump trucks being used for clean up of last years fire went up this morning as usual but came down again empty, which indicates they can’t get to where they are working. A while later some county road dept trucks and equipment went up and we haven’t seen them back yet.

Bur you may remember seeing the pictures I’ve posted of Treasure Creek that runs though our yard.

Here’s what it looked like this morning. and it still looks like that. The water level has dropped a little from the early hours but it is just as dark and thick.

This is the flume behind the shop. That ‘hill’ is mucky foam that forms when the stuff if forced though the culvert.

And now the thunder is booming overhead. This in spite of the wizards telling us the storm has moved on. Crystal ball is wrong again!

Randy been called by Search and Rescue to go to Siskiyou to the fire over there and help hunt for missing people. Not a search he’s looking forward to.

Hope you are having a reasonable summer!