Ordinary Time

B. and HC decided they would like me to weave them a light throw as their wedding gift. They also decided that they would like the colors to be similar to the ones which were in HC's bridal bouquet.  And here is what I ended up making for them.  The color is more accurate in this picture. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It looks like what I envisioned. I'm also pleased it is a good weight because for a while I was concerned it would be too thin. The yarn is 50% merino and 50% silk, so it's warm and soft.  In other news, I'll have some more things to share next week. I have a new project for the loom, I'm about to ply a large spinning project, and today L. began working on sewing a pair of jeans. No, she's never seen before, but she wanted to learn to sew and pants were what she was interested in making. I figure if she can learn to make pants, then anything else beyond that will seem easy. I'll be helping her and I chose a pattern with video t...

I'm tired. J. had been out of town all weekend and I've been single parenting. With everyone the ages they are, that's not actually difficult because everyone is helpful. I think it's that I don't sleep well when he's gone and I am a person who very definitely needs my sleep. And what I my key signs that I am more fatigued than usual? Well, I fell asleep on the couch yesterday afternoon and I don't normally do that. I also haven't read nearly as much in the past couple of days because my brain wasn't focusing well. But the biggest indicator is that I found myself getting in an argument on Facebook which the rational, well-rested version of me knows better. Given all that, I think my wisest course of action is to give myself an early bedtime.  This is also a heads-up that posting over the next few weeks could be spotty. I'll be in Arizona next weekend to visit my mom and do a little piano judging. And, in the next few weeks I need to finish writin...

You will have to all bear with me as I read though Radical Homemakers and drag all of you along with me. Despite it having been published in 2010, I don't think things have improved for US society, and in fact, I think there are some important dots to connect as we live through the fall of our democracy.  This first part has to do with busyness. Forgive me for cherry picking quotes, because I really dislike doing so, but if I don't, I will essentially be typing out the entire chapter for you. You don't want that, I don't want that, and the copywrite lawyers certainly don't want that.  To begin: " Indeed, the woes of work have plagued Western society since the industrial revolution imposed clock time upon us. Despite labor regulations, the number of hours we toil today is more than the medieval peasants endured during the feudal period." (p. 88 - Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes) I don't know about you,...

K. took these while he was at work on Tuesday. 

It took a while before the Trad Wife label made it into my consciousness. Much of popular culture tends to bypass me, and I think it was one of my children who first brought it to my attention. Curious, I then had to look it up. My immediate reaction was not positive, but there was no blog post about it at that time, because I needed to come to terms with it all. This was mainly because on some superficial level, my life and those glossy social media Trad Wives were kind of the same. I knew they weren't, but I truly didn't have words to explain the difference.  The library to the rescue! A while back, I came across the concept of Radical Homemakers. this sounded promising based on what I read, so I put the book of the same title on hold. And waited and waited and waited, until yesterday when it finally arrived at me library. And while I've just started reading it, I think this is my answer. From the introduction: "Some of the Radical Homemakers I came to know professed...

D. has given me permission to do a little bragging.  He was home last week for spring break and it was good to see him. From here he flew to San Diego for a large chemistry conference. D. is a bio-chem major and has been working on his senior research project. It was one of the projects chosen for the student poster presentations at the conference. He said it was a really great experience. I'm pretty proud of my boy.

I am very close to being done weaving the throw I'm working on. Here is a close up of one small section.  I probably have about two more inches that I can weave. See these knots? When they get closer to the heddles than this it becomes really difficult to get the shuttle through cleanly. It's time to jump to the ending color. Then I just have to hem stitch the end and I can cut it off the loom. I'm excited to see it all at once. Of course now I need to figure out what is going to go on next. Something a little narrower I think.  I also wanted to share pictures of the fleeces that resulted from yesterday's shearing. First Fred's. These are only small bits of each of the bigger fleeces. The white bits are lanolin. It's a very greasy fleece and it will wash out. If you look closely you can see the crimp in the fiber. A fine fleece is all about a very small crimp. And Everett's:  The crimp in this fleece is easier to see.  And Clark's: Clark probably has the...

Yes, yes indeed, the black sheep did have a lot of wool.  Today was sheep shearing day on the farm. It made most sense to sheer in the aisle of the barn, so the sheep were moved over and spent the night in a horse stall.  (The horses... were not fans. Based on the behavior of the goofy, giant animals, you would have thought I had put saber-toothed tigers in the barn. The horses are extremely relieved that sheep shearing is done for the year.) But back to the sheep. The shepherd who came to shear was wonderful and even showed me how to do it and gave me a turn. It's probably just easier to share pictures. Clark, the easiest going sheep, went first. Me having a turn. Then it was Fred's turn. You can see he really is a black sheep, but the tips of his fleece bleach in the sun. His fleece was extremely thick. G. having a turn. Clark and Fred looking significantly smaller. Happy to be back in their home. You can see that Everett also got sheared, but since he was last, the novelty ...

Today ended up being one of those days where I took care of a few tasks that have been hanging over my head. And as usual, each task was neither as difficult or as time consuming as I had built it up to be.  I started out with dealing with eggs. Remember all my moaning about the hens not laying? That is no longer an issue. Instead, if I don't deal with eggs every day we will be overrun. I think we're getting at least 13 eggs every day. And while the masses are enjoying having unlimited access to eggs, it is still difficult to keep up. So I decided to take a couple dozen and make some muffin tin omelettes. Many people like them and they are stored in the freezer which makes it a great way to them from going bad. Today I had some bell peppers that were languishing in the refrigerator, so I sauteed those with some onion and mixed in some chopped tomato left over from a previous dinner. I felt virtuous for not only dealing with some eggs but also making use of vegetables that might...

The Midwest has seen all the weather in the past week and a half. We've had 80° weather, rain, tornadoes, straightline winds, hail, and overnight had our second snow storm. It's been an eventful ten days. Getting dressed for the day can be challenging.  Here is what it looked like when I went out to feed horses this morning. But because being constant is not something the weather is capable of at the moment, here is what it looked like when I went out to give the horses their dinner.  I hate to give the weather any ideas, but earthquake and volcano haven't happened yet. Really, though, it could just save itself all this effort and stay at 65° and sunny for a bit. That would be lovely. 

Now that the chickens are laying again, you never know where you'll find eggs. You might think I'm just showing you round bakes of hay, but on closer look...

Stress does slightly odd thing to my viewing habits, and the state of the world feels particularly stressful right now. Usually, my go-to for mindless viewing when I want to turn my brain off is to watch House Hunters. While that is great for short term stress, an endless diet of it is more than a little hard to handle. For some reason, Project Runway is what my brain wanted, so I have been watching that at odd down times. It's kind of perfect in a way: It has very little to do with our current reality, there is absolutely nothing of earth-shattering importance happening, and frankly, it's hard to take it too seriously. Plus, every so often there is a really interesting piece of clothing to look at.  But to be perfectly honest, there are a couple of disturbing things about it as well. The models are all teens or early 20's young women and for the most part they are far too thin and look almost pre-pubescent. When you combine this with some really noticeable misogynism, well...

On Saturday I finished threading the loom for the blanket.  On Sunday, J. helped me get it wound on. This was the part I was dreading because the yarn very much likes to stick together, meaning the process of winding it into the back beam was going to be tricky. I decided before I began that I would take my time and not rush through it. It actually turned out to be the least troublesome warp to wind on. I think there's a lesson there somewhere.  I also did all the other things I needed to do in order to start weaving. With 960 ends, I knew the likelihood of having threading errors was high. But there weren't any! Having just checked for threading errors and waiting to start weaving. Today I began weaving. I was able to get about ten inches done. The first few inches were kind of a steep learning curve due to the width and the stickiness, but I eventually got faster. This is about at inch six or so.  It's turning out exactly as I imagined it, and it feels good to be able t...

Easter will be coming and that means egg dyeing. My crew haven't had much interest in dyeing eggs for a couple of years, and when egg prices were so high and the chickens weren't laying, this was not a bad thing to my mind. We still tend to boil a few dozen eggs, though, for egg salad sandwiches to have for Easter lunch. With the hens all laying again (13 yesterday, 9 today for example), I will probably boil several dozen.  And then I came across this. (credit goes to littlepinelearners.com ) Aside from the hibiscus flowers, the rest I typically keep in my kitchen or can easily purchase. Even better, this way I can boil the eggs and dye them all at the same time. I bet the masses might even be interested in this kind of egg dyeing.  Yes, I know Easter is still five weeks away, but by putting it on the blog, I stand a far better chance of finding this picture again when the time comes. And now you do, too. Plus, any little bit of beauty and happiness we can find right now is a ...

Have any of you read The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon? I had read good reviews about it, so put it on hold at the library. Since I was something like 360 on the list, I figured it would be a while before it was my turn. But due to the unfathomable workings of the library hold system, I got a notice it was waiting for me earlier this past week. You just can't ask why and instead enjoy the book. Since I had just finished a book, this is exactly what I did. The beginning was really promising. I liked the author's writing style, I was engaged in the story pretty immediately, and I loved the main character. All good, right? Except having read a little farther, I'm just not sure this is the right time for this book.  For those who aren't familiar with it, the story is set in the 1790's in Maine and involves a midwife and a body found frozen in the nearby river. Not too far in, we meet a new character who has just arrived in the village; a doctor (male, of course) who went...

So, I usually post weekly updates on Fridays when I post them. You will have noticed I shared one yesterday when it wasn't Friday. I just really thought it was Friday. It's been a week without a lot of outside obligations and J. took today off making yesterday evening very Friday like. Even after having realized that yesterday was Thursday, because J. was home it really felt like Saturday all day. So I guess I get two Saturdays this week. Which is good because it gives me a chance to work on the list of things I wanted to get done today. I could really get behind two Saturdays in a row every week.  And that's all I have for you tonight. It was our church's inclusive game night (which we made it to despite my confusion about days of the week), and all that people-ing leaves me a bit tired. And if I continue to keep writing this stream of consciousness post, I'll probably veer into not-very-well-contained fury at our current political situation and that won't help...

This will probably be a bit brief because there really hasn't been anything unusual or noteworthy going on here. I'm not complaining, mind you; I strive for boring. It does make finding blog topics a wee bit more challenging, though. The weather has been gorgeous. Today I sat in the sun and did nothing for an hour, just enjoying feeling warm while outside. I had brought a stack of magazines out to read, but really I just wanted to sit.  Earlier this week, I headed out to the horses to give them breakfast. As I was walking by the sheep pen, I realized that Everett had a bucket around his neck. Somehow, he had gotten his head through the handle of the bucket and was wearing it like a necklace. Then I noticed G. trying to lure him over with food. Now little Everett is the most skittish of the three and knew something was up. He was not going anywhere near that food. I when and gave Buddy his medicine and then went to help G. We ended up putting all the sheep in the trailer and clo...

Everybody loves to play with Buddy's hair. And he has a lot of hair to play with and is very good natured about it all. 

G. and L. have been very busy around here and as a result all of the seeds are started indoors and the cold hardy seeds have been started outdoors. Hooray!  In order to get those cold hardy seeds in, they also had to do some significant clearing of the garden beds as well as carting compost over and mixing it in. They have done an immense amount of work. Even better, all I had to do was provide instruction. At this rate we'll have an actual vegetable garden this year.  I'd show you the outside beds as well, but I didn't get a picture in the daylight. Plus, it currently just looks like dirt in raised beds. 

There's not much to share this week. I'm now a little over halfway done threading the loom for the blanket, but I never seem to have quite enough time to be able to sit down and work on it. The second half always goes faster than the first half, so I'm hopeful that I will finish it within the week.  I've also been working on a commission making three feedbag market totes. I have one completely done. And the other two will be with this fabric for the lining.  That's really been about all I've accomplished this week in terms of fiber related things.  But today was a good mail day and I know what I'll be doing this evening. First, the new Spin Off magazine arrived in the mail. I love magazines. It's like a surprise present when they show up in the mailbox.  And also today a package arrived with four Wild Fiber magazines in it. Someone on a fiber related sales group was selling them and the price was right. I've been interested in this magazine for a whi...