As the Spindle Turns . . .

Solar cooker is set up. Sun came up early. Morning temp was 29 degrees, but by noon it was 43 degrees. I expect it to climb a little more. Had to adjust the angle of the cooker with a brick. So far, I've achieved 250 degrees inside. Seeing as I am cooking with a plastic bag, I'm okay with this. I am aiming for a long slow cook. Generally speaking, when I emersion dye, I look to keep the dyebath just under boiling. I didn't expect 250 but I'll take it. I won't need to do this more than one day. When it's colder outside, it is hard to achieve decent temperatures in the oven. We usually are overcast in winter which affects the temperature as well. Today is hazy but no clouds.

One of the down-sides to being a pirate is having to mend your own clothing after a fight. There's no doubt pickings are poor this year. I can't afford me own seamstress. So out with the needle and thread. If'n you're gonna cut me, ken ye at least do it on the bias? I ben mending so much that Captain Pinky is starting to call me Bedsheet Sal. Bad enough I be a weaver by honest trade. If you wanted to know what we rennies do in the off season, now ye ken. We mends.

It feels really good to have gone through the closets and boxed up everything for charity. We don't have much money this year but we are giving the gift of the eighties to charity. The old dresser was emptied and our herculean effort to move it downstairs onto the porch is complete. The Amvets picked up the boxes and bags and dresser. I have space!!! The vacuum has worked some magic. It helped that I did the stairs as well. I plan to take the project off the loom and move the loom out to the garage. It needs a bigger table than I have in the house. The sewing machine is going off to be repaired, possibly on Monday.

My chore today is to finish wet-sanding the shelving unit that we bought a million years ago at IKEA. While cleaning out one closet, we found the hardware to assemble it. Yeah! The shelves will go in the kitchen and the not so useful Baker's rack will move up to the upstairs bathroom which needs a cupboard. It will look nice. The mahogany matches the floor tiles. I need to place wine bottles of bubblebath where the old wine bottles lived on the bakers rack. Towels on the table, little baskets of soaps and necessities on the top shelf, and toilet paper underneath. I'll have to do a before and after picture and post it. Dear Genevieve has really helped inspire us to remodel and organize our house.

Next step will be to find a new home for our antique buffet which John has been using as a dresser.

It's been so nice so far this month. Because of my crazy show schedule, I'm always behind on yardwork. Like a whole year's worth. I feel like I've been given a gift, a very precious gift, time. With the weather in the 50's, and 60's, it's been perfect for working outside. We have a lot of trees for such a small space. There are 2 mulberries, a walnut tree, elm, and two maples. Plus the neighbor's buckeye tree overhanging our backyard. So I raked, mowed, trimmed brushes, and landscaped. Today we have a storm coming in, which to me means "free" water. And what needs water? Freshly planted plants. Yesterday I cleared the run-away section behind the garage. I cleaned out the gutters, and dug up a hundred baby pokeweed and rose-of-sharon bushes growing where they don't belong. I dug up extra forsythia shoots in the foundation, as well as a maple tree, walnut, and buckeye. I like my foundation in tact. It helps hold the roof up. Then I planted tulips bulbs, crocuses, columbine, and found a home for an extra lamb's ear.

Year's ago we had the walnut tree cut back and there was all this wood, which was stacked along the back. For years, a woodchuck made his home underneath. We left him alone. Now that he's gone, I am slowly reclaiming the overgrown area back there. The log bark decayed to give some lovely soil. And today I restacked the woodpile nearer to the house so I can use it in the winter. Some of the logs needed to be cut in order to fit in the fireplace. Since I don't have an axe or a chainsaw, I got out ye old-fashioned wood saw and started to cut. It doesn't look half bad.

I recently went back home to help convince my aging mother to see a doctor.

Appearances can be deceiving.

The town looked bustling, new development, etc. Everything was a chain. The were no more specialty shops, ethnic markets, etc. In other words, it lost all of the charm and uniqueness.

I think it started in the eighties. Before the steel mills fell, the farm implements went down. There were middle class, labor unions, and good jobs at places like Massey Ferguson, Jacobsons, In-sinkerator, International Harvester, Walker Mfgrg, etc. Then the thought of globalization came on and "poof" the jobs were gone. People became very thrifty. When I sold my wares back home I often heard "Well, (humph) I can make that." Sales went down. Way down. So I didn't go back. Apparently a lot of other people packed out too. No more specialty stores, artists, and roving vendors.

Ye reap what ye sew.

The agriculture affects the price of food. The price and availability of decent food affects health. Now we're back to why Mom needs to see a doctor. In the breadbasket of the USA, the choice of affordable nutritious food in the supermarket is disgusting. I don't live in California or anywhere where there is bounty and diversity of food. Quite the opposite. In fact, I save every vegetable skin, teabag, and eggshell because I have no topsoil. I grow what I can. I favor quality foods over quantity. I am a member of a food co-op. I shop at European markets, farmers markets, and specialty stores. Because if you don't, they will go away. Sure I live on a fixed budget. I just make well thought out choices on what to buy and make this week. And you know what? I don't throw food away anymore like I used to.

So guess what? Mom's sodium is too high; her calcium is too high; her cholesterol is too high; her blood pressure is too high. I watched her eat a mayonaise and cheese sandwich on effectively "wonder"bread for lunch. It was disgusting. I headed to the store to see what could be done. OMG.

There were stores that used to have reasonably priced food and of good quality. No more. Plan on paying even more than I do on the east coast. We used to grow most of our own vegetables when I was a kid. We had green and yellow beans, Bibb lettuce, peas, tomatoes, fresh rhubarb, asparagus, black raspberries, etc. My mother froze and canned and made jelly. There wasn't a vegetable in her house. Wow! What a rude awakening. I need to think on this to see what may be done. Their lifestyle is vastly different than mine. My sister is already way over burdened with two jobs, an autistic child, a senile mother and no like for vegetables. That needs to change. I think having a freezer would help. She needs ready-made nutritious food. Unfortunately ready-made is high in preservatives and sodium. What to do?

Side note: When talking with people about this problem, the response was also astonishing. People really feel they have no control over this problem. They don't look for CSA's or anything like that (Community Supported Agriculture). They think the reason I have so many choices for food is because there are Amish people where I live. Which isn't really true. There are no Amish at my farmer's market, not to say they wouldn't be welcomed, but that isn't the reason for the choices in food. It's really competitive here. There are CSA's, two fairly good farmers markets, a large selection of organics in most big grocery stores, a Whole Foods, a food co-op, even out in the boonies where I live- a health food store called Sunny Bridges. It starts with people caring about what goes into their mouths.

Okay. I didn't grow up during the time this series was popular. It was my daughter's generation. However, I sat through countless episodes on My Little Pony and She-ra and Rainbow Bright. It defined a generation. So I'm trying to process a backlog/stash of fleece. And of course, some of the burgundies were already spun off. And more little leftovers of other projects joined it. Last year it looked like this:



Well, now it looks a little more like this:



I'd picked up some wonderful mulberry silk top on etsy from the Yarn Place. Somewhere down the lone a bit of it got dyed pink. It really makes a statement.

After A Fair in the Park at Mellon Park, I decided I didn't have anything this year for my "purple" ladies. You know who you are. Purple is a color you can't live without. So far, I've spun over 100 grams. I am starting today on another ball. If you're not a purple or pink person, it's okay. I just spent a week with a lady who hates the color pink. It personally offends her at a basic level. I have other friends who hate blue. I am an artist and am not limiting myself to just some of the colors of the rainbow. I'll get around to your favorite color eventually.

With the Harvest Moon already waning in the sky, I found it high time to get something done before winter arrives. I started the day getting my daughter out the door and on her way to the Great New England Steampunk Convention somewhere near Fitchberg, MA. I already found a couple of items she forgot to pack, minor things, so she should have an excellent convention.

I am searching for all the fleece I dyed back in spring which I put away somewhere safe to be used, well, now. I crawled through a corner in the attic and organized a bunch of stuff but didn't find it. What I did find was some precut old blue jeans destined for a rag rug. So I started some water heating, found the synthrapol, and started to scour 2 pounds of blue jean scraps. I'm thinking some brown dye. Brown is neutral and goes with many homes.

Yesterday I cut back the overgrown sage bush, salvia officinalis. I soaked it overnight and started it cooking outside. The whole back porch smells like chicken seasoning. It's cooling now. I picked up 10 pounds of sock yarn and will start dyeing after the farmer's market.

So many errands to run this afternoon. I hope to get to get a lot done this weekend. More later.

Now I know. Fire red is the same as cherry kool-aid. The skeins shrunk a little. I'll need to re-skein them before selling. Spinning the red up into a sample for a shawl or quilt.



Today's project is making hummus from scratch. I soaked chickpeas overnight. Rinsed this morning and put them out in the sun to cook. Then Jen shelled them, mashed them, and added oil, lemon zest, tahini, more water, and salt.

Okay, I know I said I wouldn't but I did. I picked up more fleece. In Oklahoma, there was this poor ram who'd almost died because he hadn't been sheared in three years. A veternary technician student trimmed the poor darling. It was her first time shearing ever. She did a fantastic job (except he bolted into a pile of hay sometime during the process). Anyway, he appears to be a rambouillet cross with merino. Out of 4.5 pounds of fleece, it rendered about 2 pounds. A fair bit of that is too dirty or damaged.



First I rinsed several times. The waste water went well in the garden as fertilizer. Then I needed to add heat to get rid of the stickiness. I started with Orvus paste. It still had too much lanolin. I rinsed and tried Synthrapol and some heat with better results. I am out of washing soda or else I might have started with that. The fiber is so fine that I'm afraid of damaging it. And it's oh, so soft!



I also picked up some roving from Valhalla Acres near Hopewell, OH. This was already processed. I am very interested in trying different breeds to see how they handle. This one is a Romeldale/CVM (California Variegated Mutant) 80% natural black and 20% very white Angora rabbit. It looked like I was spinning skunk fur. The sheep's name is Shawn. I spun four ounces right away on the wheel. It filled one whole spool.



Upon the nature of designing a yarn:

I decided to do a heathery blend. I plan on plying Shawn with a four part blend of the rambouillet cross, Cosmo the coopsworth lamb I got last year, some medium grade commercial merino roving, all blended with the same amount of Shawn. It looks fantastic and spins well. So I now have exactly two ounces of blend on a spool. Time to check the kettle on the stove. Pictures will be added when the laptop is repaired as my camera won't talk to this ancient Win 98 dial up machine.

When time is short, I usually get the dyebaths complete. Weaving is always debatable. I can't concentrate when I have packing lists going through my head. Knitting can be done just about anywhere except when I've already packed it. The cochineal was a surprise. I tried ferrous sulfate (copperas) as the mordant. Purple not pink. These will be a nice contrast to the greens and yellows I've already dyed. Cochineal is pictured above. I needed a pop of color. Logwood, madder, and cochineal finished skeins are shown below. Now for the road. Packing continues.