antique_spinning_wheels

SILK AND MERINO LACE

2012-01-21T09:30:00.005-05:00

Cyndy gave me a gorgeous skein of silk and merino blend that she had spun so fine that - for a while - I was actually terrified of trying to knit with it.

Eventually I did find a simple pattern and started it a few weeks ago on size four needles.

At first it was so scary,it was all I could do to finish one row and pearl back without taking a break. But yesterday when eight good friends were here for our weekly spinning-knitting-rug hooking- and coffee and desserts- get-together, I was able to knit the pattern without any mistakes or need to un-knit. The previous week I had spent more time undoing my knitting than getting anything done.

This gorgeous plum/rust/fuchsia roving just came back from the mill. It is a somewhat longer staple and not as fine as some of our Finn wool, but very pretty. It is available in our etsy store or direct from us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

2011-12-24T11:45:00.004-05:00

The kittens pulled down electric fencing ribbon down onto the barn floor. It looks a lot like the decorative sparkly wire ribbon for gift wrapping packages. It is a terrific toy for them - - a kitten slinky!

Merry Christmas!

KITTENS

2011-12-12T12:03:00.005-05:00

The kittens are getting bigger and bigger - - and more adventurous. Climbing is the big thing. They like to sit in the sun with the sheep and chickens. If you look closely in the second photo, there is a pile of grey and white that isn't a chicken. It's the grey kitten stretched out sunning.

They are doing well and got vaccinated this morning.

Christmas shopping is pretty much finished - - all done online. A couple of gifts are in the process of being blocked. The green scarf is Branching Out - a free pattern and an easy one the other is Old Shale - - super easy.

Last night a bear came past the house, right outside our bedroom.

KITTENS AND SHEEP

2011-11-14T06:55:00.005-05:00

When we used to keep chickens in the same barn as the sheep, sometimes the chickens would use the sheep as a stepping stone to get up to the manger where they roosted. It didn't do much for the fleeces due to the occasional "accident," but the sheep seemed to enjoy having the chicken on its back for the moment. The sheep would try to peer around to look at the sheep on its back at the same time proudly showing off. "I have a chicken on my back and you don't."

The kittens are getting very adventurous. The black one chases the bantam rooster and was the first to decide to sit on one of the sheep about a week ago. The grey kitten is a bit more cautious. Fred caught these photos of the kittens and the sheep together.

HOOKED!

2011-11-06T09:33:00.001-05:00

The last couple of times I went to Rhinebeck, I was drawn to pictorial hooked rugs. I guess it was only a matter of time. Mary, who comes to our Friday afternoons with her daughter, has brought her hooked rugs to work on. I was fascinated so she gave me everything I needed to get started including strips of wool fabric in many colors. When I found I needed a color she hadn’t given me I either over-dyed the orange strips and mottled them with brown or Navaho-plied black and grey yarns I had here. Lots of fun!
It seems to me a spinner would have a terrific advantage as a rug hooker. A spinner can card together the exact colors needed and spin just the right amounts so there would be endless color possibilities with no “left-overs.”

KITTENS!

2011-11-02T11:48:00.005-05:00

One morning when I went out to feed the sheep I found a tiny black kitten curled up by the sheep pen in the barn. There was no sign of its mother or any other kittens. It fit in the palm of my hand. I brought it a bit of sheepskin to sleep on and gave it some food and water and quite a bit of petting. The kitten did well, but after a couple of days it disappeared. It was certainly not able to walk far on its own so I thought some creature had killed it. Then Fred found the whole litter in some wood behind the shed and the little black kitten came out to greet him. I wanted "my" kitten back, but decided he needed company so Fred grabbed the grey female with white markings. She did not approve of the arrangement at first, hissing and spitting at us, but after a couple of days, we had won her over. We had a bit of a scare before the big snowstorm when we saw the mother cat carrying a kitten from the barn. We thought she had "our" kitten. She had been visiting our adoptees, feeding them and eating the food I put out for them in exchange.

She must have settled the remaining three kittens in her litter in the barn after Fred rearranged the wood pile and then with the snow storm coming, decided to bring them back to the neighbor's place where she lives. We will get our kittens spayed and neutered and vaccinated. They will be purrfect for life in the barn. Yesterday evening when I went to feed the animals, the black kitten was curled up on the back of a sheep, patting another sheep on the nose.

OCTOBER SNOW

2011-10-30T09:28:00.003-05:00

It had been a warmer than usual October - - up until now. Luckily the snow here was fluffy enough to fall off trees and didn't cause power outages as it did to the south of us.
The snow built up on cold surfaces, but there were only about four to six inches accumulated where it was on the ground. The chickens were not amused. They took one look outside and decided to stay in today.

It is a good day to wash fleeces and catch up with indoor chores.

FALL FINN SHEARING

2011-10-26T08:54:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I picked broccoli and will get the kale and parsley today. We cleaned the barn and in a few days we are supposed to have our first snow.

We found a tiny kitten in the barn, hungry and grateful for food. Then his mom came and got him back. He is very adventurous and must have followed her and maybe fallen asleep or been playing in a little corner when it was time to go home. Fred found where the litter was living and got the kitten back plus his little sister for company. If they stay this time, we will get them spayed and neutered and keep them.

The sheep are all shorn and I washed and dyed most of their fleece. The blue is a blend of Jacquard Acid dye colors including spruce, turquoise and sky blue. The warm shades are russet (which to me seems more like salmon), brown and vermillion. The Finnsheep roving was carded by Pufpaff’s fiber mill in Michigan. The roving is for sale for $3.50 per ounce or $24 for 8 ounces plus shipping. There is only one pound left of the blue roving. There is over two pounds of the warm colored roving.

RHINEBECK!

2011-10-17T08:21:00.011-05:00

Rhinebeck was great as always. We drive up I-87 and while the colors weren’t as bright as some years, there is nothing that can take away from the impressive Catskills or the Hudson River.

Right away we ran into Mardi, Nufflebutt on Ravelry. As we left building A, alpacas and llamas were marching past. We had a nice visited with the Harrisons. Rose is Colbertnation on Ravelry. We waved “hi” to Jesh through the thick crowd around Holiday Yarns. We glimpsed Trish and caught up with Brigitta and Patti, - who took fourth place in the spindling competition -, right at the end of the sheep to shawl competition. There were tons of people there. Lisa, aka Tsock Tsarina had her own big booth this year and was delighted with how things were going. We didn’t get to talk with her for long because she was busy already first thing Sunday morning.

It seemed to us there were more vendors, more food booths, more of everything. I took photos of gorgeous things that impressed me, but only the wonderful hooked rug dog turned out. This was the first year the Finnsheep Breeders Association had an exhibit in the breed barn.

I watched the parade of sheep breeds for a while. Then with sore feet and happy hearts we headed home.

OCCUPYING THE WALL

2011-10-15T13:32:00.003-05:00

The scratching and rototilling chickens evicted the foxgloves from the garden and the plants took refuge in the wall. I haven’t the heart to remove them, at least until after they bloom.
Cooler weather is here. I am still holding out hopes for a patch of radishes that self-seeded in the garden. Some are nearly ready to pick.

FALL COLORS

2011-10-10T16:40:00.006-05:00

We have not yet had a frost which is very nice. In other years there has been snow - not on the ground, but flying through the air this time of year. The geese aren't taking any chances and they have been flying.

I harvested the carrots and made carrot cake.

The sheep have been shorn and their wool washed and dyed and it's ready to send out for carding.

NATURAL DYE DAY

2011-10-01T05:52:00.007-05:00

Last week when the girls came here for the afternoon, we dyed with onion skins that Greta had collected from the bottom of the supermarket bin. We used vinegar as a mordant and most of us got a warm orangey-tan color.

This week we used one ounce of alum to a gallon of water to premordant the wool and got a slightly stronger orangey color. We also steeped goldenrod flowers to release the dye and got lovely lemon yellows. Debbie dyed cotton as well as wool and Cyndy dyed some silk. Cyndy dipped some of her goldenrod dyed fiber into the onion skin pot and got variations between the colors.

A very nice surprise was the pleasant fragrance of the goldenrod-dyed wool - - herbal, almost citrusey.

I have been shearing my sheep and washing and dyeing their wool with Jacquard Acid dyes, ready to send out for carding and here are some of the results.

Irene aftermath

2011-09-05T17:51:00.004-05:00

Irene dumped about 6 inches of rain here and then it only took a little wind to knock out power. Last Monday the logging truck was clearing the roadway of trees that had fallen across the power lines blocking the road. Further along the road there is still water across it. The Shohola Creek came up higher than I can recall it ever being and made our road impassable for a few hours. Our power was restored in about three days, but many were not so lucky.

This rainy summer has given us loads of tomatoes. There are many, many more ripening out in the garden.

ENDLESS MOUNTAINS FIBER FESTIVAL SEPT. 10-11

2011-08-24T09:40:00.003-05:00

It’s almost time for Endless Mountains Fiber Festival again Sept 10 and 11 in Harford, PA! Harford is just off I-81 north of Scranton, PA.

Here are a couple of beauties we will be bringing to this fun show. The first is a PA German wheel with the typical sliding tension and sturdy, very wide rim. It was in great condition when we found it - - except that someone had tried to make it into a lamp and drilled out the mother of all. The maidens were also missing. Fred made new ones and it spins like champ.This one is nearly identical to the one on page 20 in Pennington and Taylor and came from north central PA as far back as we could trace it. $500

The second one is probably a marriage, but a very happy one! The wheel has a single deep groove which is as great for keeping the drive band in place as the extra wide rim on the wheel above. The barrel tension is beautifully turned and looks great with the delicate appearing wheel. This one comes with an accelerator head for $500.

Riverrim has test driven both wheels, but even mere mortals can spin on them. We’ll also have the double hole rigid heddle looms and several Saxony wheels including a couple of Scandinavian ones.

Chroma yarn

2011-08-19T09:46:00.003-05:00

A friend was using a strand of Chroma along with some alpaca to knit some great looking socks so I ordered some from Knitpicks.

I guess I was thinking sock yarn, since it is 70% wool/ 30% nylon so was surprised to see that it was a singles yarn. Then it isn't superwash, either so I wasn't about to make socks out of it after all.

Much preferring plied yarn, I added more twist to the fingering yarn I had purchased and then plied two strands together and we were off!

The patterns are a syntheses of Charlene Church's Hat's On! with some ideas from Anna Zilboorg.

Oh my,

2011-08-01T10:21:00.006-05:00

So much has been going on I can't keep track. From the time the old rose was blooming up in the apple tree and the black raspberries were ripe, the gardens have gone completely out of control. There has been an enormous supply of cukes and four kinds of summer squash. And then the beans came. Yikes.

I've made black raspberry jam and accidently made "BerryGrapey' jam which turned out much better than I expected. I thought a frozen container of dark purple liquid was black raspberry juice, but it turned out to be grap juice from last fall. Turns out frozen blueberries picked last summer make a nice jam with grape juice. It tastes like grapes, but has a certain je ne sais quoi.

Once the berries were safely in jars, I froze beans and squash and canned my first ever cucumber pickles.

A wonderful completely original J. Sturdevant double flyer wheel was here briefly. Riverrim spun wool on it with both hands at the same time.

Oh and this sign got finished. Fred planed it, cut it out and ran the the router around the edges to get it ready for carving and painting. I was pretty happy with the way it came out.

The tomatoes aren't ripe yet, so we are having fried green ones for supper. There are scary quantities of green tomatoes. I replanted lettuce and spinach so maybe we will have some in September. The spiders are moving indoors and doing their darndest to set up housekeeping where I haven't done much in that direction. I saw online that one can cut broccoli plants down to the last five or so leaves and they will make new broccoli heads by fall so we shall see if that works....that is if we can find anything in the garden by then for the weeds which are flourishing.

MOUNTAIN LAUREL

2011-06-16T09:34:00.009-05:00

The mountain laurel is spectacular this year. It fills the woods here and comes right up to the edge of the forest to the flower gardens we planted. But unfortunately so do the bears. This mother with her two yearling cubs saunters up the road next to the fields and our animals on a regular basis.

I knitted a few more squares for the Blankets for Birmingham project, but have been kept pretty busy with the gardens. We have had lots of rain this year which makes everything unusually florific on our sandy glacial till soil. The Milford Rose is a cascade of potent fragrance under the kousa dogwood.

The four ewes have plenty of grass. If you look closely, there is an ear sticking up that belongs to the fourth ewe. The garden has been a challenge to keep weeded. Little more tan half the potatoes came up this year, but the ones that did look great. I planted sugar snap beans around tomato cages this year and they seem pretty happy. The spinach didn't do well and already bolted, but the lettuce is nice.

P. Wood Great Wheel

2011-06-08T09:25:00.008-05:00

The P. Wood great wheel has been freed from gobs of drippy, shiny polyurethane and is ready to go - - priced at $500. It comes with a Minor's head and is wonderful to spin on. The spokes are fixed to the rim by wooden pegs rather than iron nails, something we have not seen before. The wooden pegs were shaved flush so that they do not catch the drive band at all. SOLD to Sierra!

Everything is blooming here. The Milford Rose is just beginning to bloom in front of the kousa dogwood. The deeper pink John Cabot rose is in full bloom with the ancient mock orange behind it and the mountain laurel blooming behind that.

RUSHING

2011-06-01T14:53:00.005-05:00

Spring seems to have rushed past. The wisteria which has never bloomed before decided to bloom this year. The earliest roses, the yellow R. hugonis, has already gone by as well and several other roses are blooming earlier than usual.

I wonder if this painted turtle is the parent of the tiny visitor to our spinning group several weeks ago. Fred noticed it hiking across the pasture this morning. By the time I got out with the camera it was in the driveway.

Cyndy told us about Blankets for Birmingham to provide some small comfort for victims of the tornados that hit Alabama - - before the terrible one that hit Joplin, Missouri.

Audrey donated an enormous cone of light pink yarn and it was distributed among our knitters over the past couple of weeks. These are some of my 8" squares.

PAINTED TURTLE AND DYEING

2011-05-13T18:10:00.017-05:00

Last week a tiny painted turtle came to visit while we were spinning. Fred found it in the back yard.

According to Wikipedia the fossil record of the painted turtle goes back 15 million years.

We were really worried about this little guy hiking all the way to get to the Shohola or the little tributary nearby so Fred drove it down to the water.

There are lots of creatures who would like to eat it, but at least our chickens didn't get the chance.

If painted turtles could survive millions of years maybe this one will.

This week we dyed fleece, roving, handspun and commercial yarns with Jacquard Acid dyes and food coloring. We hung the results outside.

We also celebrated Greta's 80th birthday will all manner of delicious things.

Patti brought her collection of wonderful antique quilts to show us as well as a couple of her recent pieces including terrific watercolor piece.

HALF TABLE SCANDINAVIAN WHEEL FOR SALE

2011-05-06T11:01:00.010-05:00

Spring is well underway. These daffodils are already spent. Riverrim gave me these lovely spotted beauties.

I found this four-post, half-table Scandinavian wheel in La Crosse, Wisconsin. It is 99% original. All the turnings on the piece relate to each other.

Fred repaired the original bobbin, reglued a repair to one wheel support, added new flyer hooks, replaced one axle bearing and a made a new axle peg to match the one in the other wheel support.

The wheel is unusual in that many turned parts including the legs and spokes are made of oak. The bottom table is a thick piece of heavily figured curly maple.
There is a curious label on the back of the wheel rim that may or may not have anything to do with the wheel’s history. Just in case, we left it in place.

The label reads: 01??9-9, 1920-??? Pending-CANADIAN-KODAK CD-Limited-Pat?? M-? C ??????-19 ? 6-S. P. ?? Dec-fc
A Raveler pointed out that Kodak Canada had recreational facilities for employees.

The wheel is for sale - - $425

WEAVING WOES AND WONDERS

2011-03-07T09:40:00.003-05:00

Heartened by Abby Franquemont’s posts – not sure where I read them – about how she learned to weave from the indigenous women in the village where she lived, I have been spending about as much time unweaving as weaving.
She wrote that when she and the other little girls were learning to weave, the women would insist that the girls unpick any mistakes. I suspect in our society today, the kids would be congratulated on their attempts rather than required to undo any mistakes in a woefully mistaken notion of boosting self-esteem.

The satisfaction when the weaving finally comes out right and the knowledge gained about all the possible mistakes one can make and what to watch out for next time are well worth every second of taking the weaving apart.

The issues on the four harness loom came about because I was not leaving enough slack in the white cotton tabby picks and it was drawing in. Then there was the problem that the treadling tie up and directions were for a countermarch loom rather than a jack loom. It took a while before I realized that the pattern would have been correct on the UNDERSIDE of the cloth!

On the rigid heddles are patterns from Sue Foulkes tutorial on the United Kingdom yahoogroup braids_and_bands. Sue also has a book out.

The blue zigzag band on the right is set up in the traditional method and I was finally able to see what Louise from the band_snoddar yahoogroup had been talking about regarding which side of the shed the shuttle should enter to make the most efficient orientation of the pattern threads.

The warping for the blue band is the same as for pebble weave – which I tried thanks to Laverne Waddington’s backstrap weaving Ravelry group and her wonderful blog - and prior to this tutorial I couldn’t seem to get it through my head how pick up would work with it.

My pick up weaving had been on the double hole rigid heddle loom which doesn’t much care which side the shuttle enters. Fred made me a wider double hole rigid heddle so I could try the Sami belt pattern that required 25 pattern threads. It was a challenge to try to graph the traditional patterns shown in Sue’s tutorial, but a thrill when it finally worked.

THRIFT

2011-02-05T15:00:00.002-05:00

Today I assembled and tied a quilt top that was given to me about a decade ago by an elderly woman. I don’t remember if she said made it herself or if she inherited it.

It is made of two inch squares - - some of which are pieced together to eke out the bits of fabric.

The fabrics came from worn out clothing or maybe even feedsacks and possibly date from the depression or even earlier. This is the same family that was the source of the two boy’s diaries from 1876 I transcribed.

While working on the quilt, I was listening to CNN this morning about how a family could thrive on one income and it suggested making coffee at home and using coupons. I rarely see coupons for stuff we use. Mostly coupons are for prepared foods or snacks. I have never ever seen one for a bag of flour.

Tonight we are having homemade flour tortillas.

ROSEMALING

2011-01-20T09:25:00.003-05:00

A friend who comes to our Friday afternoon spinning group does rosemaling and showed me one of Nils Ellingsgard’s books, NORWEGIAN ROSE PAINTING.

I have always loved painted wooden furnishings and was thrilled to be able to buy a few pieces when we lived in Germany. Norwegian rosemaling reached wonderful heights in the 1800’s. Some of it came to this country with the immigrations and Ellingsgard has illustrated some of those pieces in NORWEGIAN ROSE PAINTING IN AMERICA.

I modified one of the Nils Baera designs from the first book on the orange cheese box and a Knut Horne design on the top of the blue one.

The winter here until a week or so ago has been remarkably snow and ice free, but then we got an ice storm in the past few days. There are still frozen droplets stuck to the trees.

SHAKE UP IN THE COOP

2011-01-05T12:45:00.006-05:00

There was a shake-up in the chicken coop on Christmas Day. The old rooster, a beautiful Partridge bantam, went missing. He was finally located down the road where he had slunk off to, nursing his wounds.

His half-Auraucana son, black bearded and devastatingly handsome, finally made his move. He drove his father right out of the chicken coop.

Luckily the tiny rooster was located, reduced to mooching leftovers from a bird feeder, and brought back to live in the big barn with the sheep.

The first week of the New Year is off to a bang. I got a strange collection of things accomplished. A sheepskin vest was repurposed as a truck seat cover. Yesterday I sewed a jacket for the Catahoula Leopard grand-dog and this morning I made up the last of the black raspberry jam. Hope to get blueberry jam made tomorrow. This afternoon I’ll be making leather bags for Dungeons and Dragons dice.

Last week I got to try out my new black Scandinavian wheel.

I love how all the turnings have similar shapes for a very graceful look.

Fred had to make all new legs, treadle, bobbin/flyer and even one of the half table supports for this wheel. The story was that it came from an Indian reservation. It had certainly been used a whole lot. One of the legs had a wooden spool glued on to make up for the missing length. This wheel has much bigger bobbins than I am used to and I love how it spins.

AMAZING FIRST WEAVING PROJECT!

2010-11-13T10:15:00.002-05:00

Debbie Van Orden wove this awesome Whig Rose overshot set of four placemats and a table runner as her first project ever on a loom. Debbie also just picked up spinning. She plied yarns to make the pattern warp for her project. She did it on a four harness LeClerc Artisat loom. Debbie got the project done in record time too and with selvedges that make me jealous.

Greta Allman Lane gave her instructions and help warping the loom. Greta also got me started weaving overshot, but I had had a four harness floor loom in the past plus experience weaving on my tape looms.

Metal 8" Structo Loom!

2010-11-06T10:28:00.003-05:00

This 8" Structo loom was my birthday present, found in an antique shop locally. It was very grubby when I got it and I had little hope for the warp that was on it. The warp threads that had been threaded through the heddles was rotten.

Luckily the warp on the spool was still strong and thanks to the All_Things_Structo yahoogroup, I found Mary Meigs Atwaters pattern drafts in the files section and immediately set to work warping the Whig Rose/Lover’s Knot pattern. The weaving goes very quickly. Having a wonderful time especially since it came with its sectional warp spools with a fair amount of warp on them!

Fred and the FO's

2010-10-19T12:34:00.005-05:00

Fred wore his Aran sweater – finished for Christmas 2010 - spun from the wool of our Finnsheep to Endless Mountains and also to Rhinebeck and got lots of compliments on it - - and of course there are admirers here at home too.

When we got home, it was back to washing and dyeing fleece.

I got off to a bad start with my first overshot weaving, but with thicker yarn - - probably too thick - - for the pattern, things are moving along again. Still having trouble with selvedges, but that is hopefully something one gets with enough practice.

The first (of two) After Hours Shawl is finished. After making multiple mistakes because the cables I had weren’t long enough for me to “read” the pattern, I got the link-thingies from Knitpicks to join two long cables. It did seem awkward to knit lace on such large needles, but eventually I got in the swing of it.

RHINEBECK!

2010-10-18T12:20:00.009-05:00

The weather at Rhinebeck was perfect and fall colors were grand. We got there about ten minutes before the gates opened and they sold us tickets in line so we sailed thru the already ticketed group.

I met Anne Barkley Priest of Blue Island Farms, author of Trafficking in Sheep (available on Amazon.com) which I had read and enjoyed several years ago. She lives just across the river in Port Jervis. I bought one of her Blue Faced Leicester/Border Leicester cross fleeces. She said the fleeces she had there were more typical of BFL than BL.

The vendors we spoke to said they were doing very well, much better than the previous year. Several booths were completely out of biz cards. Merlin Tree had his new tiny wheels there. We saw Stephanie, just as we were leaving Bldg A. She had come up on Jill Deal's bus.

After cappucinos we went to buy some sheep milk cheese and admire the skeins and handmade items in Bldg E. One of the gentlemen from Holy Trinity Weavers was weaving a scarf in a handsome overshot pattern from a blend of handspun silk and angora.

We were very surprised to see the Ouessant sheep, weighing less than 50 lbs at maturity. They are the smallest in the world, prompting all sorts of notions on my part of keeping some in the living room. I fear in our fields they would be seen as hors d’oeuvres by the local predators. There were Gotland sheep, also. Both breeds have come to the USA via artificial insemination into similar breeds. Ouessants were crossed on Shetlands and the Gotland on several breeds including Finnsheep.

Then we found Tsocks at Holiday Yarns and got to touch her entry in the Tour de Fleece - - the incredible 18 ply skein! Her blog entry for July 21, 2010 includes a great video of her plying it.

Fred picked up her Ouelette and Scandinavian wheels for restoration and we headed for the Beekman Arms for lunch, passing one of my all time favorite Victorian gothics, the DelaMater Inn.

HARVEST

2010-09-23T06:52:00.008-05:00

The onions and squash are harvested. Tomatoes and basil have been processed. Jars of black raspberry jam and gingered pear preserves fill the shelves.

Blueberries and grape juice wait in the freezer for a time when they will also be made into jam.

There are still two sheep left to shear before the end of the month. I’ve been washing and dyeing wool to be sent out for processing.

I took time out over the weekend to join the Ravelry Antique Wheel Virtual Spin-in on the weekend and despite current foot issues got a little skein done.

ENDLESS MOUNTAIN FIBER FESTIVAL

2010-09-15T06:15:00.009-05:00

Another Endless Mountains Fiber Festival has passed and days later I’m still trying to catch up with things around the house. I bought fiber that I don’t grow myself - - angora and mohair that needs to be washed so it will go to the head of the line. I started shearing the sheep yesterday so that will need to be washed and dyed, too.

Cyndy gave me this beautiful threader for my tape looms.

Debbie Knelly, Knellykreations, lured me into her booth with the promise of chocolate where I wish I had realized she would be willing to swap one of her wonderful baskets for something of ours!

Ron Walter and Kitty Bell stopped by the booth and brought a couple of double flyer wheels for Cyndy to try out in preparation for her presentation at the Coverlet Museum in Bedford, PA Oct. 16. There are a couple of their double flyer wheels with the drive wheel above the flyers – like the one Cyndy is spinning on - - in the photo on the Coverlet Museum’s home page.

Fred made new stands to display the nostepinnes and new Russian supported spindles which showed them off perfectly. Cyndy wore out her fingers demonstrating the supported spindles and most of the ones we brought sold.

Although the weather was chilly on Sunday, it was still fun and grand to see friends we hadn’t seen in years.

31" rim CPW and J Platt wheel

2010-08-21T17:14:00.006-05:00

Here are two more wheels ready to go to the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival.

The Canadian Production Wheel has an oversized – and not original - wheel measuring just over 31”. Cyndy spun on it and raved about it.

Price $450.

It is tantalizing that a Josiah Platt from Milford, CT married Sarah Sanford in 1758 and they moved to Newtown, CT. The Sanford family originally came from Milford, CT and Sarah is the sister of Samuel who had the spinning wheel shop across from the family homestead in Newtown. Efforts to definitively prove Josiah Platt made spinning wheels have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless the style of the turnings and decorative black banding suggests a relationship.
Price $500

SOLD

GREEN MACHINES!

2010-08-16T14:16:00.008-05:00

GREEN MACHINES

Here are two Norwegian wheels ready to go the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival in September.

The green and black slanty is almost completely original, in its original paint. Each of its bobbins had one end that was damaged so Fred restored those ends, and replaced the hooks on the flyer. The highly ornate wheel is dated 1846 - - presumably by an owner whose initials are also on the table. The 21” diameter wheel is stamped with the makers handsome flourish on the upper end of the table. The style of the wheel is almost identical with three wheels in the collection of the Norsk Folke Museum that come from the area around Oslo. This wheel either came from there or was made in the USA by a craftsman who trained there. The wheel has two “captive rings” – delicate turned rings that are turned with the hub and mother of all, but not attached - that amazingly have survived over a century and a half without any damage. The extra matching bobbins sit on hand-forged pins and have decorative bead turnings on their shafts. A real beauty! Price $575 SOLD

The second gorgeous wheel is a 25” diameter wheel branded JJG. Vesterheim Museum in Decorah, IA has one by the same maker (Acc.73.8.61, Cat.28.A.47), but the one in the museum collection is not in as good condition.

When it came here, it had been slathered early in its history with green/black paint so that alligatored drips clung to the underside of each graceful spoke. There was only one way to return it to its original glory and that was by removing the hideous paint. Underneath all that paint was the makers mark and handsome chipcarving. Price $550 SOLD

TABLE LOOM!

2010-08-12T07:59:00.005-05:00

The National Weather Service said there was a 60% chance of rain for us today then a flood warning. So far not a drop of rain here. The day has just begun though so there is hope.

The chickens were admiring the onion harvest. I pulled the onions because some critter was getting into them. The tomatoes are all getting ripe at once now so more tomato sauce today.

I’ve put off working on a scarf in a handspun tussah silk/ Baby Finn blend in a variation on the Queen Silvia pattern in Nancy Bush’s Estonian Lace knitting book to get the new (to me) table loom set up to try an overshot pattern. Greta came here two days to get me off to a good start! It was great. There were several problems getting the loom to cooperate - - not the least of which is that there are issues with both ratchets, but now – thanks to Greta – I feel as if whatever comes up can be dealt with.

The pattern is a motif from Lee’s Surrender in the Davidson book. I’m using Aunt Lydia’s Classic Crochet #10 for the warp and a thicker 5/2 cotton from White Wolf and Phoenix.

DROUGHT!

2010-08-08T08:39:00.004-05:00

We are in a severe drought on Northeast PA, worse than anything I have ever seen. The year started off great with plenty of rain, but then around the end of June the faucet was turned off. We were lucky at first and benefited from a few random thunder storms, but in the past two weeks there has been almost no rain and none forecast for the next week.

There isn’t any gardening to do since even the weeds aren’t growing and the lawn doesn’t need mowed either. Before it got so bad we went and picked 26 quarts of blueberries and I had already made a gallon of black raspberry jam as well as froze some juice. I was so afraid of getting hit with late blight again - - no longer very likely - - that I went ahead and made a batch of green tomato relish which we loved last year. The pepper and eggplant plants are tall and lush, but have little fruit. The tomatoes are loaded and will keep ripening regardless of any rain. The onions are done and I need to get them in.

Wild turkeys are haunting the place scavenging wild black berries and the few thornless blackberries and scrounging the scratch grains we put out for our hens. One of the foods they would normally depend upon for the fall – acorns – aren’t going to be there for them. Tiny, immature acorns are raining down as the trees try to save themselves.

Our crab apple tree looks the worst so far.

The pasture has mostly dried up. On the positive side the fleeces look great!

SPINNING DEMO

2010-06-21T14:05:00.004-05:00

Sunday Cyndy and I – but mostly Cyndy – did a spinning demo at the Williams House overlooking Lake Wallenpaupack. The house is owned by the Wallenpaupack Historical Society.

I had some roving from the Sheep Shed Studio that I had dyed and had already spun one bobbin on my Londonderry, N H wheel that dates from around 1800. I spun a second one and plied the two bobbins during the afternoon. Cyndy showed combing wool, spinning on the great wheel and drop spindle spinning.

ROSES AND TAPE LOOM WOVEN BANDS

2010-06-18T11:16:00.007-05:00

Many of the roses have finished blooming ahead of the Japanese beetle onslaught . We have around 27 different wild, species, antique and cold hardy roses. Most of them bloom once and early. Right now the old ramblers, Seven Sisters (?) and The Fairy, are blooming along with the wild native roses and the Canadian Explorer roses. The Japanese beetles will be along soon, but hopefully the chickens will eat some of them.

We've had a lot of rain this year and the flowers loved it. The honeysuckle wafts its fragrance all around. The climbing rose, New Dawn, looks better than it has in years as does the other pretty explorer rose whose name I can't recall at the moment. John Davis is the one with the field in the background. It is one of my favorites.

I finished the band on the Modest Lady's Inkle Loom as well as the one I had on my paddle loom and made my first inkle band into a little zippered pouch by sewing four lengths together.

Modest Lady's Inkle Loom

2010-06-08T09:36:00.005-05:00

I just finished my first band on Fred’s version of the Modest Lady’s Inkle Loom. He made it after seeing an article in the Spinning Wheel Sleuth Handloom Supplement.

The loom is made of cherry and all the pegs screw in with threaded wooden screws. The larger peg is the tensioner which has the screw off center so it can be turned to adjust the tension.
I can sit on the sofa and work on it which is pretty neat.

Wish I could send the fragrance of these roses and peonies over the internet somehow.

Outdoors the Canadian Explorer rose, William Baffin, is in full bloom.

Gardens: flowers and veggies

2010-06-03T14:01:00.007-05:00

Fiber pursuits have taken a back seat to the gardens lately. I took a chance - - which would have been most foolish most years - - and put out the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers which had been living on the windowsills around mid-May.

There are already tiny tomatoes on some of the plants and the lettuce and spinach look better than any we have ever grown.

The brown chick’s mother was killed by a coyote, but the chick survived. It took us over an hour to catch the little twit who kept scampering away from us in the bushes. Judy gave us the white chick to keep ours company.

LOOM PORN: SIZE DOESN'T MATTER!

2010-04-01T10:40:00.002-05:00

There are actually four small looms in this photo. The fourth is at the bottom of the photo. The knitting needle I was using as one end of the back strap loom fell out on the floor and only the other dowel at the end near me can be seen.

I am following the excellent tutorial created by Laverne on her blog. You can also read about her backstrap weaving on Weavolution and Ravelrygroup – Backstrap Weaving.

So basically three of the four looms I use with a backstrap. I blogged about Laverne’s tutorial on how to set up the backstrap loom and weave your own backstrap in January. I had several false starts mostly due to faulty warping, but learned lessons in the process. My friend Greta lent me her warping board and that helped a lot.

This is my first foray into weaving on the inkle loom. This one was handed down to me and has no built-in tensioning system, but a pile of books works.

GREY AFGHAN DONE!

2010-03-11T10:40:00.006-05:00

Finished at last! The grey afghan is finally done. It was begun around the first of February and was pretty much a knitting marathon. It’s all my handspun. The darker grey is from the two rams we sold last year. The light grey is a fleece I bought somewhere.

It took over two thousand yards of yarn and I had totaled up the number of yards in each skein to start with and then weighed the remaining yarns after the first quarter of the piece was finished and weighed. It seemed likely that there wouldn’t be enough of the lite grey, but I had made myself a version of the Danish tie shawl with a neat knitted on edging from Riverrim in the lite grey so I hoped I might be able to just re-use the yarn from the edging and replace it with another color which is what happened.

In the meantime I got the box tape loom warped to take to Hrim Schola on the weekend. I also learned that Eleanor Bittle was absolutely correct when she said it wasn’t necessary to use a back strap on the box tape loom for pick up patterns.

ACRES OF GREY WOOL

2010-03-03T11:39:00.003-05:00

I started knitting an afghan in two colors of my grey handspun shortly before Fred’s February birthday as a present for him. The dark grey is a blend of the fleeces of our two Finn rams that we sold last year.

The afghan is coming along nicely, although it does seem like acres of afghan greyness, and I needed a break - - colorwise - - so I made this Painted Diamonds bag from odds and ends of my handspun.

The bag still needs a lining and the afghan is only three quarters done, but I should finish it in the next couple of weeks just in time to start shearing and washing wool!

CHICKENS

2010-02-20T11:19:00.005-05:00

The chickens are tired of winter. When they saw snow for the first time, they were not pleased and wouldn’t step in it for anything.

Now, after weeks of winter a little snow doesn’t stop them from the migration to their dust baths in front of the shed. There are two Golden Campines, one Brown Leghorn, two Auraucanas and a Partridge Rock Bantam rooster. Not in the photo is a tiny white Japanese bantam hen who has very short legs and doesn’t always make the hike. She hangs back calculating whether the merits of the trip are worth the effort.

The chickens keep to the paths usually to avoid the deep snow. For a while they were mystified by the paths that lead to the barns and up to the house. At first they could not figure out how the paths worked and how they could get to the destination they wanted and would try to fly over piles of snow in the way leaving snow angels behind.
The wild turkeys with their long legs have no such problems.

BACKSTRAP LOOM

2010-01-27T14:59:00.004-05:00

Laverne Waddington has an excellent tutorial on backstrap weaving on her blog and on Weavezine.com. She also has a backstrap weaving group on Ravelry.

I used two strands of different colors for my warp - - one each of red and black cotton warped as one.

After Laverne suggested attaching my loom to a table top with clamps, things went along well.

NEW TOY! THE KUMILOOM!

2010-01-20T08:18:00.004-05:00

This Kumiloom seemed like a good Christmas present for my granddaughter who likes fingerloop braiding. I helped her get it going and was so impressed, I had to have one too!

The loom is made of a flexible foam with slots cut in it to hold the strings very firmly so there are no tension issues. The bobbins are terrific. They flip open to wind and flip closed to hold the string securely - - so much so that they are still holding on when only a half wrap is still on the bobbin core. The bobbins snap together in a stack for storage. I got my Kumiloom kit on ebay for $15 including shipping, but there are a number of sources for it.

My spinning wheel threading hooks needed new loops so I dug out my silk – some purchased from Stringpage.com - and dyed some white silk blue (food coloring + vinegar) and here is the result.
The braid on the loom and the blue braid were made with the basic instructions that come with the loom. The black braid is a variation on the basic one.

Which is which?

2009-12-19T13:28:00.001-05:00

Which is the real maiden and which is the repro? Fred was asked to recreate the missing maiden. It took a couple of tries, but the results were worth it.

The maidens are from a lovely Scandinavian wheel owned by a Ravelry member of the antique spinning wheels group.

Finishing the last presents

2009-12-17T09:25:00.005-05:00

The last presents are finished. I made a version of the amazing Queen Silvia into a scarf (minus the scary X-thingies where you knit five together three times and yarnover twice all into the same stitch – I think!). It was pleasant to knit (Knitpicks glace) even though it was only my second try at lace-weight knitting. The photo isn’t very good. I snapped it just before packaging it and getting it into the mail without checking to see if the photo was okay.

The hat – requested by my grandson – was made of Knitpicks swish worsted with a hand dyed orange band. I am not into orange so didn’t want to buy a WHOLE skein of orangeness. The green/blue thing is going to be a glasses case for my son who has discovered that his arms are too short for reading. It is my Faux-Isle pattern (Aug 07 archive) which is always fun. It just needs to be hemmed at the top and the lining sewn in.

Ta-daaa!

2009-11-16T15:16:00.004-05:00

The sweater for Fred is finished!

My mom sent me the Barbara Walker fourth treasury of knitting stitches for my birthday and I found an awesome cable that looks like a three dimensional chain. The only trouble was I couldn't figure out how to do it from the Walker book.

So I went on the Ravelry group - Big Sky Knitting- and found out the pattern for the cable (left and right versions)is in handy photos in Janet Szabo's cable book. (Cables: the basics, volume 1).

I love making sweaters starting with the shoulder saddles and working one's way down. Fred tried the sweater on numerous times so it fits very well. It is made from my handspun Finnsheep wool.

National Coverlet Museum

2009-11-06T12:40:00.006-05:00

Last weekend we went to the National Coverlet Museum in Bedford, PA to see antique spinning wheels and other fiber processing equipment from the collection of Kitty Bell and Ron Walter displayed against a backdrop of exquisite hand woven coverlets.

We were thrilled to see so many southeastern PA wheels with red/orange stripes on them - - all carefully documented like the three Andrew Kunkle pieces and this gorgeous yarn Johannes Kroh winder. There are over thirty antique wheels in the show including several Farnham wheels, a glorious Irish Castle wheel by Henry, several patent wheels, double flyer wheels, as well as flax processing tools.

One whole room was devoted to flax processing. The title of the flax processing exhibit is “Stay at Home and Use Me Well”, taken from an inscription on a flax hetchel.

The museum shop is filled with reproduction coverlets and other items hand woven of easy care fibers instead of the original wool and linen fibers. The patterns duplicate actual coverlet designs.
The town of Bedford is lovely and is home to Old Bedford Village open during the summer as well as Fort Bedford.

RHINEBECK!

2009-10-19T14:02:00.012-05:00

This year the weather was a lot cooler for Rhinebeck, but that made the cappuccino all the more enticing once we finally got to it. Before we ever got to Rhinebeck, we had to detour to Red Hook to view a pristine W. Hopkins saxony with the terrific chip carved detail.

The featured breed was Lincoln Longwool with luxurious lustrous locks.

We got to meet the Tsocks Tsarina of the Ravelry Antique Spinning Wheels group. She had a couple of questions for Fred about two of her wheels.

Also met Jesh who we also “knew” from the Ravelry group. The reason Jesh’s neck is all scribbly is because she has only recently submitted the pattern for release and it isn’t out in public yet. It was a lovely thing, but you’ll just have to wait for it.

As usual I had to get pics of the horses. I think one will do for a painting. This is what came of the photos of the black team of horses I took at Goschenhoppen.

We paid a visit on the way home to the Beekman Inn for lunch rather than brave the cold winds at the vendor stands.

Estonian Lace

2009-09-24T11:40:00.003-05:00

This is what happened after I bought Nancy Bush’s Knitted Lace of Estonia.

I’ve done a few simple lace scarves starting with Branching Out and had some scary times so decided to make life easy on myself. I picked the Lily of the Valley scarf and chose to make it in Knit Picks merino and silk white fingering yarn on size seven needles.

The yarn is terrific - - maybe because of the 30% silk content. Even frogging the same row ten times didn’t make the yarn look funny, a handy quality for a beginning lace-weight-knitting-wannabe.

There are some mistakes here and there, and I only did one repeat of the central motif and three instead of five of the lace edging.

Unfortunately Knit Picks was out of the bare (white) laceweight merino/silk blend yarn so I got this magenta for the next version of the same scarf. I wish I had used the seven loop knupp instead of the five loop knupp, but I’ll do that in the future.

The pattern is going much easier and managing the laceweight yarn is also going a bit better than I expected - - am still making mistakes, but maybe by the next project…..

I really wish I was making the scarf in white. To me lace just needs to be white. Oh well, they’ll have more in November. BTW there is an Estonian Lace group on Ravelry!

FALL ABUNDANCE

2009-09-20T08:52:00.006-05:00

Summer’s ending and fall is almost here. The Endless Mountains Fiber Festival was last weekend. Saturday it was misty and overcast, but nevertheless more people came out than we could have expected. My personal favorite souvenir from the festival was this amazing Canada goose done in crochet by Janet Povlock of Unadilla, NY. Her booth was right behind ours and I couldn’t go home without one of her geese. She also makes them in other versions, but all are exquisite.

There was a threat of frost last night so I made a last batch of basil pesto, picked a bunch of flowers and covered the eggplants up. After the tomatoes and potatoes were hit with late blight I thought it would take out the peppers and eggplants too, but that didn’t happen. I never grew eggplant before and they were a great addition to the garden. Almost every recipe for eggplant talks about sprinkling the slices with salt and letting them drain to get the bitter juices out of them. If they are sliced, dusted with flour, dipped in egg and fried in olive oil immediately from the garden there isn’t a trace of bitterness. We have been enjoying an orgy of eggplant parmesan at least once a week and have frozen the fried slices for later.

Even the late blight hitting the tomatoes was not such a horrible tragedy. I quickly learned that green tomatoes plus a bit of sugar and tomato paste makes a fine tomato sauce. The neat thing is that there is no need to peel or seed the tomatoes because the skins are tender and the seeds are tiny. That is going to be my plan for next year’s green tomatoes at the end of the season.

Judy also gave me a very nice green tomato relish recipe that we like.

Fred wrangled the winter squash this year, keeping them mulched and weeded. They were far happier than under my haphazard care and produced such abundance that there were more than enough for us.
I still need to shear two more white lambs, but the other three ewes and the grey lamb are done. The grey lamb’s fleece is so pretty and soft. I can’t wait to spin it!

GOSCHENHOPPEN FOLK FESTIVAL!

2009-08-08T10:06:00.007-05:00

The weather was herrlich for our trip to the Goshenhoppen Festival yesterday.

It is a long drive for us, but there is nothing like it any closer. This year we got to sample an old fashioned stew of potatoes, onions and wurst as well as homemade peach ice cream - - peaches, sugar, vanilla and heavy cream, oh my!

There were lots of Mennonite show towels embellished with drawn work, cross stitch and satin stitch and folks making them in the old ways. The towels were normally hung on two little nails on a door and never actually used as towels.

When we got there the teams were just being hitched. Draft horses are so impressive no matter what they are doing. There is even a threshing machine operated by a grey draft horse on a treadmill.

The highlight for us was being able to talk to Eleanor Bittle. We met her for the first time last year at the festival. She has been demonstrating on her tape looms at the festival since 1983. She had a marvelous loom with her yesterday dated 1816. It was clearly a labor of love by who ever made it. It would be hard to find more bells and whistles.

She was showing how her narrow linen tapes were made on her treadled floor tape loom.

Tape Loom Project

2009-07-31T08:38:00.002-05:00

I think I probably saw this idea somewhere, but cannot recall where.

Fold the tape in half or wherever the patterns work out the best and sew the edges together. Shape the fold end to a point. Hem the bottom and fold up under the point.
Sew the sides together; attach a button and loop and it’s done!

HOME TEXTILE TOOL MUSEUM

2009-07-12T05:53:00.010-05:00

Yesterday we took a trip to the Home Textile Tool Museum in Orwell, PA. We had the place almost to ourselves so got to see things we hadn’t seen before.

Esther Weldon was dyeing skeins in a cauldron over a fire. Fortunately it wasn’t too hot that day. The flax in the little plot next to the barn was just starting to bloom. It looked to be about three feet high. Nearby a fellow was shoeing a horse.

I was intrigued by the elaborate chip carving on the table of a great wheel in the big barn.

In the house there were lots of spinning wheels including this rare Farnham accelerating wheel. We were told there are only three known to exist. There was also this three legged quill winder along with beautiful old Pennsylvania overshot coverlets.

Fred got a good look at the tools hanging in Bill Ralph’s old shop.

This flax break was shorter, taller and generally handier than some we have seen.

SMELL THE ROSES!

2009-06-16T15:55:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you wind up spending so much time pulling weeds that you forget to stop and smell the roses. I wish you could smell the pale pink rose, the Milford rose, brought to Milford in the late 1700’s. It has the intense fragrance used in perfumery.

The honeysuckle is blooming too. It is a fragrance I recall from Mystic, CT where I lived for a while as a child.

The deeper pink rose is a Canadian Explorer rose that we love.

It isn't easy being green.....

2009-06-03T11:50:00.003-05:00

All tattooed and vaccinated! The lambs get another dose of vaccine in a month.
Some are weaned already. Most of the lambs are for sale. We won’t be breeding the few ewes we will be keeping as pets. So these are our last lambs. I will really miss having such wonderful little creatures every spring, but we are just getting too old.If you are interested in some registered Finnsheep email me: Hatton at ptd dot net

BEARS!

2009-05-28T11:42:00.001-05:00

Not just one, but three bears showed up by the edge of our field. There is a mother and two yearling cubs. They got into my brother-in-law’s trash. He leaves for work very early and put out his trash in the morning for pick up. The pick up was either late or didn’t happen so by around 11 AM the bears were in it. This is just a few feet from where a bear killed one of our sheep last fall.

Solar Minimum

2009-05-20T07:42:00.003-05:00

Two nights ago we had a “killing frost.” I covered the potatoes and strawberries, but there is no way to cover the native chestnut oak trees that were hard hit by the frost.
The photo shows the chestnut oak by the house. The dark curled leaves are the youngest leaves. I don’t know if the frost can be directly attributed to the deep solar minimum we are in.

The last deep solar minimum happened in1911-13 and brought some chilly weather with it. The least number of sunspots counted in the last century happened in 1913. The next smallest number was 2008. The third smallest number was 1912. The seventh smallest number was 1911 and 2007 was the ninth smallest number. Check out the graph here

By chance I was just given a diary to read from that period from the same family as the diary of the two boys I transcribed in my book. The writers home was less than a mile from where I sit now in Northeast PA, about 75 miles as the crow flies from NYC.

The entry for January 13, 1912:
Clear and cold. 18 degrees below zero in the morning….

January 14, 1912 Partly cloudy and cold. 36 degrees below zero in the morning and did not get above eleven all day….

January 16, 1912 Clear and very cold. I drew logs all day. The thermometer stood 4 degrees above zero at noon.

The following month:
Feb 9, 1912 Clear and very cold. 20 degrees below zero when I started in the morning.

Feb 10, 1912 Clear and very cold. The thermometer stood at 4 degrees below zero at noon.

Another deep solar minimum happened in 1816 - The Year Without A Summer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
While the 1816 chill is attributed to volcanic activity, it was also at the mid-point of the Dalton Solar Minimum

SIGNS

2009-05-17T10:10:00.004-05:00

The sign is finished. The gold leaf in the lettering looks bad in the photo - - better in real life.

The tomato plants are longing to be outside, but tonight the forecast is for temperatures in the 20's. I hope they are wrong, but we are still in the deepest solar minimum since the early 1900's. This site tracks the daily sunspot number as well as other fascinating other-worldly stuff.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

2009-05-12T15:24:00.004-05:00

We needed a new sign for the place. This one is nearly finished. There is a bit of carving left to do and then it gets a paint job. Finnsheep don’t have horns and that is a very good thing. Horns get seriously stuck in fences so I am happy our sheep don’t have them, but they sure are decorative!
And this is one of the new youngsters.

TINY LAMB

2009-05-06T09:00:00.002-05:00

This tiny lamb was born in a set of quads yesterday. She weighs under two and a half pounds. There is a six inch ruler beside her for scale. She is tiny, but is going great guns.
She couldn’t stand up at first, but today she can. She was too small to leave with her mother and big boisterous brothers and bigger sister.

The brownish coloring on the back of her neck and eartips are phaeomelanin. It is similar to the Tunis lambs that are born with red wool that gradually fades to white.

LAMBS!

2009-05-02T18:52:00.010-05:00

Lambing season makes me hyper.
It’s so wonderful to see the little new lives, the perfect little critters coming in to the world, knowing so much about what it takes to be a lamb.
That is the good part. The other part where I always wind up loosing sleep isn’t so good.

We got off to an uneasy start when a yearling had the tiniest little black ram lamb. He weighed just over two pounds and couldn’t stand up to nurse. He wound up in a box in the entry way off the kitchen for about a week. We bonded. When I finally had to put him out in the barn with the other sheep I worried about how he would manage. He got in some trouble at first because he wanted to follow all the other ewes around sniffing their hind legs - - which probably felt like having an annoying little fly bugging them. While he had been in the house the quads were born - - all way bigger than he. He bonded with the quad I was bottle feeding so both would come out together to get fed.

This morning another yearling had her twin ewe lambs, covered with shiny ringlets.
I think there is only one ewe left to lamb. I will be glad when I can unplug the intercom and put it away and sleep peacefully through the night again.

IT'S SPRING!

2009-03-27T07:51:00.006-05:00

I love wool. It takes dye so wonderfully. I have been shearing and picking hay out of parts of fleeces I could salvage and dyeing the wool - - in shades of red.

This Knitpicks Sipalu warm palette bag looked great in the advertisement, but up close and personal, I wasn’t happy with the colors. So overdyeing with Jacquard Acid Dyes gave me a bag I love. Do you notice my fondness for reds????

The handmade wooden button is by riverrim from her new etsy store. It was the perfect finishing touch.

Meanwhile spring finally showed up. There are robins, a bluebird's song and lots of geese honking. The tom turkeys are in full battle dress, coming and going.

BLUE SCANDINAVIAN SPINNING WHEEL

2009-01-26T13:02:00.004-05:00

This is a pretty amazing job of resurrecting a spinning wheel. Fred outdid himself this time. This wheel came to us missing its front leg, one stretcher, both maidens and bobbin and flyer.

It was pretty tricky to get the leg stretcher fitted into the existing hole in the crossbar between the two back legs and into the front leg. Fred only had some photocopies of similar wheels from Vesterheim to go by along with online photos from the Norsk Folke Museum.

The Norsk Folke Museum spinning wheel collections are online here. Use rokk as the search term. The photos were pretty small so details on the maidens had to be for the most part imagined.

The wheel belongs to the group of Norwegian wheels I call “steep slanted table” types in an article here.

This wheel has a 24” drive wheel with a whorl with two ratios. One is 1: 16 and the other is 1: 14.75. It is extremely light weight.

The wheel is loaded with decorative details. There are pretty cut outs on the table; turned ends on the bottom of the wheels supports, a hand forged wrought iron footman with a curlicue at the end of its hook over the axle cam. Instead of having an external crank for the footman, the axle crank is between one side of the wheel and the wheel support.

I painted the new parts of the wheel so they would be a close match in color to the rest of the wheel, but am not sure whether to keep the “shabby chic” look or ad more paint to cover the bare spots.

SANFORD DOUBLE FLYER WHEEL

2009-01-10T11:48:00.005-05:00

I posted photos back in September from the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival where Cyndy got the double flyer working, spinning on it with both hands.

At the time Cyndy felt that it would be better to find a way to wet the flax as it was spun. Spinning dry didn’t smooth it as much as wet spinning and now and then stray fibers caught in the flyer hooks and stopped the process.

Cyndy found a picture and description in Patricia Baines book, Spinning Wheels, Spinners & Spinning that seemed to suggest a wet sponge hung from the front of the horizontal distaff arm and the fingers or fibers were moistened on it.

We tried to simulate that, but it didn’t seem to work all that well so we'll have to try again sometime.

The wheel was squeaking some when we started and when made the video, but got quiet later, after some oiling.

This is just a quick peek at how it works. There is a longer video from a better angle here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJGRpUrECiE

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T13:40:00.002-05:00

I did get the sweater finished. As mentioned previously I chose a merino superwash. The choice was because I didn't want a kid to get the impression wool was itchy and didn't want his mom to have a hassle washing it by hand.

I wasn't entirely happy with the way the sweater worked out. When my grandson put it on, the neck immediately stretched out so much I had to put in elastic around the neck.

This is only my second major project with "store bought" yarn. I knit an adult size Scandinavian sweater with some yarn I got on ebay before this. That yarn behaved the way I expected it to do so I don't know why the superwash was so different. Maybe it was just because it was superwash?

MUST KNIT FASTER.....

2008-12-21T15:07:00.003-05:00

I wish I had thought of knitting my grandson this sweater when he was a couple of years smaller. It wouldn’t have taken so many stitches! He is growing so fast that there is no way I can just get this done in my own time. If the sweater isn’t finished by Christmas, he’ll probably just grow right past it.

This is Knitpicks clematis heather “Swish” superwash Merino.

I used Janet Szabo’s technique of starting with the two shoulder saddles, knitting down front and back to the bottom of the arm hole and then knitting the sleeves. Then one goes back to knit the front and back from the bottom of the arm hole down in the round.

The neck ribbing came out perfect where it hits the cables on the back of the sweater and on both sleeves, but missed by a mile on the front of the neck. Hopefully people will be looking at the child's smiling face instead.

Have a wonderful Christmas! I need to get back to my knitting.

THE BOOK! 1876 Westbrook Diaries

2008-12-05T09:42:00.007-05:00

This was an exciting project for me. Last spring a diary of a teenage boy was discovered written in 1876 in the back of a ledger from a store in Dingman’s Ferry, PA.

The ledger itself dates to the 1830’s and records accounts of local people buying sugar, fabric, sundries, coffee and spirits. His brother’s much shorter diary was in a little booklet with the ledger.

It was so interesting to see what life was like for teenage boys (13 and 16) in the Poconos of Northeast Pennsylvania - - in their own words. Two brothers start off the new year writing diaries - - probably their mother’s idea for improving their spelling and writing skills. One boy fades out after a few months, but the other keeps at it for most of a year. Seasonal work - - logging, plowing, harvesting, removing rocks from the farm’s fields, hunting and fishing keep them busy as the year progresses. They work with teams of oxen, horses and mules.

The boys’ father runs an inn, a lumber operation and sawmill as well as the family farm.
Important people - - historic names in the history of Pike and Wayne County - - and names of the oldest families here pass through the pages of the boys’ diaries.

The boys lived about three miles from where we live today and were often sent here to fetch my husband’s relative to preach on Sunday. It took me months to get it all transcribed and then to find illustrations for it. Some of the illustrations come from book for children from 1847.

106 pages. 6” x 9” illustrated paperback. 2008 $14 free shipping
Available here http://finnsheep.etsy.com or by contacting us directly hatton at ptd dot net

NEW ROVINGS

2008-11-17T10:58:00.004-05:00

This is the roving I just got back from Zeilinger’s. I can’t believe how fast they were!
I dropped it off with them at Rhinebeck and here we are - - just a few weeks later, here it is!

Natural colored grey roving with brownish overtones – about 3 ½ pounds available.

$1.50/ oz, or $22/lb plus shipping.

Jacquard acid dyed roving with blue streaks on a lighter blue with touches of plum. About 2 1/2 lbs available.

$1.50/oz or $22/lb plus shipping. This roving has a bit less plum color and more blue in real life than appears on my monitor.

ROVING!

2008-11-14T09:34:00.003-05:00

I wound up making a shrug for each granddaughter. Shrug This is a fun pattern, super easy and knits up quickly.

The shrugs are posing with some of the roving I just got back from Zeilinger’s. This is roving I dropped off to them when I was at Rhinebeck. So in less than four weeks - - including return shipping time - - my roving was in my hands!!! Can’t ask for faster
work than that.

And it is just the way I wanted it!

AND THEN IT GOT WORSE

2008-10-31T08:21:00.003-05:00

If you look closely at the photo, you will see the big tree branches that fell shortly after my last post, trashing the fence in the field.

We are just back on line this morning. Our power has been out sincethe 28th and only came back last night. The phone, internet and tv came back this morning. Very heavy snow and high winds hit while the leaves were still on the trees. Trees fell onto powerlines. Trees and branches came crashing down all over the roads. Route 6 was closed towards Milford for a long time Tuesday. The interstate was closed for most of a day eastbound Tuesday since wires were hanging down across it. Tractor trailers were being routed onto unplowed state roads and immediately closing them due to accidents or inability to get traction on the greasy wet snow. What a mess.

Eventually our volunteer fire company had to open a shelter for folks who had no heat and no electricity and there were still people in the shelter last night.

Our generator won't run our well pump so it was a hassle getting enough water for the house and the animals. But finally the power came back on last night and the tv, internet and phone – all via cable – were back this morning. Getting back to normal is a great relief. I was going stir crazy in severe internet withdrawal.

On the plus side, I finished the other fingerless glove and am nearly finished with Shrug This, which is a fun knit.

GLOBAL WARMING???

2008-10-28T11:15:00.005-05:00

Global warming?

The power was out when we woke up this morning. It came back on around 11 AM, but could go out again at any time. Heavy wet snow has bent and broken trees all around here. Most of the roads were blocked by multiple trees across them. The snow isn’t supposed to stop until maybe tomorrow.

We will be getting a bigger generator that will run our well pump as well as the other basics.

BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS

2008-10-24T11:32:00.004-05:00

During the night after we went to Rhinebeck, a bear killed one of our sheep.
The PA Game Commission brought a barrel-type bear trap and set it up at the end of our driveway. The trap has been there for about five days now and … no bear.

This is disturbing on a number of levels. The road we live on has a lot of school age kids as well as some very small ones. Some of the houses they live in are set right in thick woods next to a swamp. Bears have killed our sheep before this, but this is the first time in seven years.

The bear climbed over 4’woven wire fence topped by two strands of electric fence and the fencer was working.

Okay, that was the bad news. But there is some good stuff. I finally got my son’s birthday present finished - - this Rune Stone. The inscription is in Old Norse. The runes say “a tree is not felled with the first blow (of the axe).” It was carved into our native bluestone – a type of hard sandstone - using a wooden mallet, steel cold chisels and a steel punch.

Another positive development is that I found a good way to hand paint my handspun.
I’d spun up a couple of skeins at demos during the summer from Carol Lee’s bargain roving and wanted to dye it.

First I wet the skeins thoroughly with a vinegar and water solution, spun that out so it was just damp and placed the tied skeins on a table covered with plastic. I made up dilute solutions of Jacquard spruce, sky blue and turquoise and used a foam brush to place the dyes in stripes along the skeins. Then I wrung the excess dye out of the skeins to keep it from puddling in the bottom of the container and put it in the oven to set the color.

I’m happy with the color - - not as happy with the way the fingerless gloves are going. The pattern is very nice and easy to follow, but my I keep making mistakes anyway.

Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival

2008-10-18T17:32:00.015-05:00

We had a great time at Rhinebeck!!! The leaves were gorgeous on the way. Both sides of the Hudson were alive with color. The day was beautiful. There were a lot of people there. First we dropped off wool to be processed at Zeilinger's. Then we went to building A and said hi to Dave Paul.

In another booth was a signed Borduas Canadian Production Wheel identical to the one Fred is currently restoring. Building A was completely mobbed, so much so that it was hard to actually see anything.

A team of beautiful grey Percherons pulled a wagon giving folks a ride while musicians in brilliant handwoven garb played Andean inspired music.

We bought some spinning wheels from Lewis White and I wandered around admiring fiber on the hoof. There were beautiful natural colored Angora goats.

I got to see a Soay sheep in real life and even got a sample of the wool which is rued rather than shorn.

There were Teeswater sheep and colored Lincoln Longwool.

And then I caught a glimpse of a familiar fiber. I swear I am not stalking Stephanie . I snapped a photo of the back of her head at the SOAR vendor market, but didn't have the nerve to say hi.

This time I jumped right in there! Hi Stephanie!!!

Fred had been in line all this time to get something to eat, while I ran around looking at sheep and shaking hands with Stephanie, but started feeling faint after I had come back several times to see how far he had inched along in the line. So a mere few folks from the front of the line he gave up and we left.

Did I mention how crowded it was????

We had a lovely meal at the Beekman Inn in Rhinebeck.

The Inn is the oldest in the United States and dates from 1766.

WOOL EVERYWHERE!

2008-10-15T13:07:00.004-05:00

The fall leaves are at their peak here now. Our grey ram stopped on the way to shearing to visit with the ewes. His fleece was covered with mud, but luckily it washed out leaving me with lovely fiber.

Now all the sheep are shorn. The rams had to be separated because they started fighting due to the seasonal rise in their hormones. Romance for them is about a month away.

I have been madly sorting, washing wool and dyeing to get it ready to take to Zeilinger’s wool processing.

Zeilinger’s will be at Rheinbeck Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend. If I can get it all done, the house will be somewhat back to normal and there won’t be bags of wool all over the place.

Spin Off SOAR Gallery and Vendor Market

2008-10-09T17:18:00.007-05:00

On this beautiful afternoon, we drove down to Pocono Manor to see the Spin Off SOAR
vendors.

The gallery was full of wonderful, inspiring works.

The display of Peruvian hand woven bags, ponchos and other items caught the attention of people who inspire me, Sarah aka Phiala, Stephanie aka the yarn harlot and Abby.

Further along we found Cyndy mulling the purchase of a beautiful Golding spindle.

FALL COLORS

2008-09-30T10:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday everyone came here to feast and dye. Bonnie brought an awesome tomato pie.

Grapes were picked and taken home. I’d had enough of making jam and juice, but the grape-color is great so it gave me an idea to overdye some yarn I’d recently spun from fleece dyed turquoise and salmon that turned out awful. I used Jacquard lilac and was very pleased with the variegated results. My skeins are posing with the asters.

Audrey and Cyndy dyed the other skeins. Cyndy also dyed some silk hankies and showed us how she works with them.

While she was here Cyndy also made a video of me weaving on the rigid heddle. I am embarrassed to admit I still haven’t finished the piece folks will recognize from the Weavezine article http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZnkoeCb38

Last days of the summer

2008-09-18T10:19:00.003-05:00

The woolly bear says it will be a warm winter. The Old Farmer’s Almanac the opposite. And then there are the sunspots - - or lack of them - - to tell us it isn’t going to be warm at all for quite a while.

Soon there will be a frost. In the meantime, I am squirreling away food for the winter.

The potatoes are huge. After a bad start we still got some winter squash. And the tomatoes………….. enough already.

The freezer is full of tomato sauce, basil pesto, dill/parsley pesto and blackberries. Jars of pear honey, rose hip jam and soon grape jam will be on the shelves and the garden will be done for the year.

The sheep need shearing. I sheared two of the lambs and want to blend the white fleece with some white bunny fiber I bought at the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival. I have never used bunny fluff before.

SHE DID IT!

2008-09-08T11:43:00.003-05:00

She did it!

Cyndy managed to spin flax on our antique B. Sanford double flyer wheel with both hands at the same time!

Pam Mawhiney, curator of the Home Textile Tool Museum in Orwell, PA came by our booth at the Endless Mountains Fiber Festival over the weekend and helped Cyndy get the flax properly arrayed on the straight distaff and then it actually worked.

Cyndy found that it seemed to take a sort of milking the cow motion. One hand was letting the linen thread wind on while the other was adding twist and pulling down flax fibers from the distaff.

It was thrilling to see the wheel used the way it was made to be used! Very often these are described as gossip wheels with the notion that two people spun on them.

An advertisement in the Hartford (CT) Courant in 1801 describes double flyer wheels as
“Two handed wheels are highly recommended to young Women, as they can spin one third faster on them.”

Beardsley Sanford learned his trade from his other Sandford relatives in Newtown, CT where three generations made spinning wheels including double flyer wheels. Beardsley, however, moved away and ultimately settled in Harpersfield, NY where he is mentioned in the history of that town.

MORE NEW ITEMS FOR THIS WEEKEND'S SHOW

2008-09-03T09:52:00.005-05:00

More new items for the PA Endless Mountains Fiber Festival this weekend!

This is a double flyer wheel made - and signed by – Beardsley Sanford (1790-1868)
He learned his trade in CT, but worked in Harpersfield, NY. Many wheel makers produced double flyer wheels. One maker advertised in the Hartford ( CT ) Courant in 1801 that they would increase the productivity of young women. Today one could keep two projects going at the same time and switch back and forth.

And then there are these lovely shuttles! With all the gorgeous types of wood, how could anyone choose? They come in three sizes: 8, 10 and 12” long and are priced at $10, $12 and $14.

PA ENDLESS MOUNTAINS FIBER FESTIVAL!

2008-08-28T11:46:00.005-05:00

The Endless Mountains (PA) Fiber Festival Sept 6 & 7 is a week away! We can't wait!!

Here are some of the beautifully restored antique spinning wheels we will have there.

The lighter colored one is a signed Shaker wheel (signed SR AL) made in Alfred, ME. It looks exactly like the one in Pennington & Taylor's book, Spinning Wheels and Accessories.

The darker one with the complete distaff is a huge favorite of Fred's. We don't know its origin, but there is so little wear on the original bearings and treadle that is it basically like the day it was made. This wheel is a delight to treadle.

The more compact wheel at the bottom with back braces is clearly a Berks County, PA wheel. It has remnants of orange stripes painted on some of the turnings.

We'll also have some of the double hole rigid heddle tape looms Fred makes at the show. Signe Mitchell's Weavezine has an article about these looms in the new fall issue.

Fred also makes double hole box tape looms which can be seen in our January and February 08 blog archives.

GOSCHENHOPPEN FOLK FESTIVAL!

2008-08-10T11:29:00.002-05:00

The Goschenhoppen Folk Festival was simply amazing! Most shindigs of this type we’ve been to have demonstrations on a schedule. You go over to this part of the area and they will be doing something then an hour later in another location something else.

At the Goshenhoppen Festival things are happening all the time everywhere. How often do you see folks making wooden water pipe and a pump made from an enormous beam for a well? Or a horse powered treadmill? There was a wood turner working on a treadle lathe, two or three iron smiths, a tin smith, wonderful period knitted lace, embroidery, spinners and a tape loom weaver with part of her collection of tape looms there, plus tons more things going on.

The tape loom weaver told me that there were PA German tape looms with multiple holes, presumably for pattern weaving, similar to mine. There were at least three different teams of beautiful horses as well as the handsome grey pulling the ice wagon.

The festival is on the grounds next to the wonderfully preserved Henry Antes house built in 1736.

There was a whole section on period Mennonite food preparation that we didn't get to along with traditional dishes at the food stands. We can’t wait for next year to go again!

Historical Society Demo

2008-07-14T12:15:00.001-05:00

Cyndy Donohue spins on our PA great wheel while I have a whirl on my Londonderry, NH wheel. We were demonstrating at the Greene Dreher Historical Society open house in Wayne County, PA over the weekend.

Cyndy was spinning some natural colored Finnsheep wool from our sheep that she had cleaned and carded. She used a wool finger to turn the wheel some of the time.

She uses dried corn husks as quills for the great wheel so the spun yarn has a sturdy core that can be slipped onto a metal rod for plying.

SEA BLUE SOCKS

2008-06-18T08:39:00.000-05:00

The yarns for the blue poncho mentioned in a previous post were so pretty that I decided I needed to make some socks too!

I used Jacquard acid dyes (turquoise, sky blue, lilac, teal and possibly some royal blue) for the colors. The different shades were carded together to make streaky effects. The wool is Finn from our flock.

BLACK AND WHITE

2008-06-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

Is it ever really black or white? There is always a contrast. The contrast can be beautiful.

BLUE PONCHO

2008-05-20T09:25:00.002-05:00

Another poncho on the needles. I used the yarnharlot pattern, but modified it a bit. The wool was dyed in three hues of blue with some lavender and carded together. I love the varied color.

Cyndy' gave me some pretty stitch markers to keep track of the patterns.

One of my beautiful granddaughters is modeling the first poncho in shades of green. I dyed my wool about four different related greens for this one. The blue poncho is for her lovely sister.

New lambs!

2008-04-19T08:06:00.000-05:00

New lambs!

They are always so much fun to watch. They scamper, jump and have lamb races. This time the yearling has been joining in with her new baby - - racing and jumping with the lambs or calling and scolding him for leaving her side.

This year it is clear that our flock has inherited some spotting genes along with the modified color gene - - very evident in the yearling’s ram lamb. His fleece is no where near as dark as the black lambs. I was also pleased that my efforts at getting a finer colored fleece paid off.

RUNE BAND

2008-04-03T08:39:00.000-05:00

Fred wanted a head band with the name of his favorite mount to wear to SCA events so I wove Harley Davidson phonetically in runes (Younger Futhark) on the band.

I used white 60/2 silk from the Stringpage for the background and black crochet cotton for the pattern. The fine red lines are 20/2 red silk.
Not sure why, but I was unsuccessful at keeping the width even in the lettering. There was no trouble keeping the width even in the pattern. The pattern is from the files of the band_snoddar yahoogroup and is equally handsome in reverse.

Sun Spots

2008-03-30T18:48:00.001-05:00

I check the sun for spots here every few days in hopes that they will come back, bringing warmer weather. The danger is that if they don’t come back soon we could be headed for another Maunder Minimum. It was 13 here over night and it is lambing time. Luckily so far two ewes have lambed during the warmth of the day and we have four new ewe lambs.

So when I told my dearly beloved this morning that there were a couple of minor blemishes - - not exactly spots, but perhaps an encouraging sign, he said he didn't know why I worried about things I couldn't do anything about.Well, if I can't do anything about it, I don't need to feel guilty that I do need to do something - - clean something, give some creature some vitamin or vaccine to prevent something, advise my offspring to avoid some harm, or write some letter to my newspaper or representatives. I can just worry about it with no strings attached.

NEW BAND WOVEN PIECE

2008-03-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

This is the finished band from the box tape loom. The reverse is on the left.

The pattern is from Finland via the band_snoddar yahoogroup’s files. I love this pattern. It has similarities to the black and white pattern I wove for my belt shown in a previous post. The doubled x-shapes remind me of the image of Sleipnir’s eight legs on the Scandinavian Rune Stones.

DOUBLE HOLE BOX TAPE LOOMS FOR SALE!

2008-03-10T06:23:00.001-05:00

The design for these comes from an early Pennsylvania tape loom pictured in Pennington and Taylor's Spinning wheels and Accessories.

The difference is that in the original there was only one set of holes and far fewer slots. Fred's looms are more versatile and give the weaver more options.

There are three box tape loom versions. One has just a warp beam and is $225 plus shipping.

The other two have both a fabric and a warp beam and one of those has a removable heddle that could be used on its own or slipped into the box for easier storage. The one with the removable heddle just sold so there would be a short wait for that one.

They are $250 plus shipping.

The looms are made of hard maple, finished with Danish oil and measure 15" long, 14 1/2" tall by 7 " wide - - except for the version with only the warp beam which is about 3" shorter.

All come with sticks to keep the warp even as you wind it on.

Email us at hatton at ptd dot net

New tape loom band!

2008-03-06T10:17:00.000-05:00

My latest tape loom project! The pattern comes the band_snoddar yahoogroup.

Thank you, Louise!

TAPE LOOM WARPED

2008-02-05T08:31:00.001-05:00

I had been wondering where my warp was disappearing to, but barring alien abduction, it seems there is a LOT of take-up on these warp faced weaves. I am using size 8 DMC perle cotton for the weft which is much thinner than the baroque cotton I’m using for the warp.

The warp I started with was about 8’ long. Some of the pattern threads became too loose because I hadn’t wound the warp evenly enough so after weaving about two feet of tape, I cut that off and Fred re-warped the loom for me. Now on the re-warped part, I’ve woven another two feet of patterned tape and am already close to the end.

The choice of pattern also seems to have considerable effect on the width of the tape.
With the exact same number and thickness of warp threads and same weft, the zig-zag pattern shown produces a one inch band, but a crisscross pattern that includes three solid color horizontal bars at the end of each pattern segment, creates a band 1 3/16” wide.

NEW BOX TAPE LOOM

2008-01-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

My husband, Fred, made me this box tape loom. It has double holes for pick up pattern weaving. Now to warp it!!!

BAND WEAVING

2008-01-26T06:40:00.000-05:00

Here are some photos (front and back) of the band I have been weaving on the little tape loom. The red pattern yarns are in the upper holes of my little loom. The patterns were inspired by the Ingrid Hansen article. Since my loom has only half or a third of the holes and slots compared to the ones in her article, my band is narrow and my patterns less complex.

NEW BAND WITH A DIFFERENT PATTERN

2008-01-21T16:11:00.000-05:00

The weaving is getting easier, but it still takes time to do the pick up patterns.
After having to untie myself from the band and loom which were tied to a chair to answer the phone a couple of times I made a quick release clamp from my first pick up patterned band. It is just two pieces of wood with holes in one end that I ran the band through and knotted. I made a loop at the other end of the woven band to fit over the end of the wooden pieces to hold them. It is perfect to clamp the woven band as it gets longer without distorting it.

ROVING TO YARN

2008-01-19T10:10:00.000-05:00

This pin-drafted roving was processed by Loch’s and to me looks like a winter sunrise.

The roving came from the spring shearing of our Finnsheep that I washed and dyed before sending it to Jamie.

I couldn’t resist diving into it turning it into yarn.

DOUBLE HOLE TAPE LOOM

2008-01-08T10:37:00.001-05:00

Tape looms were used to create trims, ties and fastening options in the days before Velcro, elastic and zippers.

Tape looms were often used to produce a warp faced band. In this country they were sometimes incorporated into a box, equipped with a crank to wind the warp.

I had seen photos of very old tape looms in the collection of the Norsk Folkemuseum click on søk i samlingene and then enter the search term Båndgrind

There is also an article on double hole rigid heddle loom weaving - - but unfortunately no indication of how exactly it was done.

So Fred put more holes in my tape loom……… and made this very pretty tulipwood shuttle for me after designs we found on the Norsk Folkemuseum site.

TAPE LOOM!

2007-12-28T09:42:00.001-05:00

My new toy!

Fred made this tape loom for me. There's one in action here:

http//www.memorialhall.mass.edu/activities/media.jsp?itemid=7848&img=0

I am in the process of getting acquainted with mine.

Tape looms go back at least to the 1400. There is one pictured in the Codex Manesse.