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Loom Knitting and Felting

I have a new hobby.  It's not like I was looking for another hobby. Not sure why I thought the round knitting looms would be fun but they are.  What I like best about them is that they are fast.  I can make a hat in an evening pretty easily.

This one is made out of pretty thick acrylic and polyester blend.  It's nice and soft.  Took about two hours using the round green loom.

What is really cool about this is that if you make the hat out of 100% wool you can felt it.

You have to make it much bigger than normal size to do this and there is a large yellow loom for this.

I'm not going to tell you how to do it because there are a million videos on you tube that do a better job of that but believe me when I say it is easy.

This hat is about 5" longer than it should be and about 3" too wide.  You can felt it in a washing machine but not a front loader so I needed to hand felt it. You do that in the sink in very hot water with a little bit of dish soap.

Use rubber gloves both to use the hottest water and to provide roughness.  You need to agitate it and squeeze it and rough it up.  After about 5 minutes you will see it start to shrink and the fibers start to stick together.  After about 10 minutes it looks like this.

At this point you need to have something to shape it on while it dries.

Here is a close up of the fibers.

This one was the first one I felted.

Now comes another fun part. Needle felting.

You can use carded wool, wool yarn or sheet felt.  Here is some carded wool.

It's loose wool and the needle tool has 5 very sharp needles to push the wool into the hat.

You can also use sheet felt.  Although apparently it does not even have to be wool as I found out the "felt" sheet I bought at the craft store is made from recycled plastic bottles!

You push it in with the same needle tool using a brush block as your base.  I started with a pretty easy design to get a feel for how it works.  I really want to eventually do birds.

So that's it for now.  I've got another one going.  Give it a try, you can get all the supplies on amazon of course or your local craft shop.

 
 
 

 

 

First Pumpkin of the Year

Nobody loves pumpkins more than me excpet for maybe Gwyndolyn.

Spiders

They say there are around a million spiders per acre of ground.  That is an idea that is hard to grap. 

While out on our walk this morning we saw hundreds upon hundreds of webs in the fields. Now, I am guessing they are always there but the tempreture, dew point and sunlight has to be just right to see them.

They were everywhere, in the field, on the fences, in the trees.  

The trees looked as if they were decorated up for Christmas.

It's truly a beautiful thing.

 
 

My Husband Thinks I'm Nuts

This is nothing new.  He pretends to listen when I start with my weekend plans and what is on my "To Do" list.  I always have way more on the list that will ever get done but my feeling is that with so much on the list at least something will get done.  To his credit he always tries to accommodate my wacky requests. 

I left him out of this one.  I did it while he was at work as I knew this would be over the line of normal.

I decided I wanted to move the wood pile. It probably didn't "need" to be moved but those of you who know me, know that I move things constantly. I can't stand for my furniture to be in the same place for more than about two weeks and if I can put wheels on it I will.

Here is the old wood pile.

It was an eyesore as far as I was concerned, covered with the neon blue tarp right out there in the front of our yard. It was not near the fire pit and in fact we never had any fires out there cause it was just not convenient.

So I moved it here on the other side of the property near the fire pit.  It has a view of the creek and we have actually had several fires this season, so maybe I'm not so crazy after all.

  

The Year of the Garden

This was going to be the year.  We have not had a lot of time for gardening over the last few years. But this year we had a plan, it was going to be different.

We bought a greenhouse kit from Harbor Freight.  It came in a box of a million pieces.

It took us about three days to build it. Then I built some raised beds and put in automatic drip waterers. It has turned out to be pretty nice. 

The greenhouse was actually pretty successful. We had tons of lettuce, some strawberries and a nice crop of heirloom tomatoes.

We also planted potatoes in garbage cans.  My Mom planted a lot of them and tended them as the greens grew and covered them with soil as they grew.  We planted two large cans and one small one.  We were hoping for a huge crop. The greenery died so it was time to harvest.  We were instructed to dump them out on a tarp.  We had a little help with the harvest.

Jackie decided that digging in the dirt sounded like loads of fun.

This is our entire crop.  Not exactly what we were expecting.

Not sure what happened there. We will try again next year.

Oh and the upside down hanging tomato bags were a waste of twenty bucks.  I think we got one or two tomatoes off of those plants.

I wanted to build some square foot gardening beds but after adding up the costs I didn't think we were going to be able to afford to do it.  I started looking on Craig's list for unwanted wood and found someone tearing out a deck.  I got a truck load of 2 x 12's of fir.

We built several containers.

We used every bit of wood and bought a truck load of garden mix to make sure our seeds would have a good start.

We did not have much luck here. This was the carrot crop. A bit on the puny side.

We had a similar harvest of radishes and squash.  We did manage a nice crop of jalapenos.

One of 5 grape plants produced, we did have the best blueberry crop this year and the apples look really good.

So we will not be defeated, we are going to test our soil and try for a banner year in 2010.  Meanwhile we are going to try for a winter crop of salad greens in the greenhouse.

 

 

First Day of Fall

It's been an amazing summer, in fact we are still having some really wonderful weather.

We had several days over 100 degrees this summer which is very unusual.   Unfortunately, the day of our annual river float was on the cool side with it only getting in the 70's but 30 people took to the river and had loads of fun anyway.

The river has been so pretty this season. 

It's been very busy around here since I last posted.  I got so frustrated with typepad as it kept crashing on me that I pretty much got out of the habit of posting.  It has crashed on me already twice this morning so I am not hopeful.  At least now there is an auto save so I don't lose my post every time.

I have also been lured away by the ease of Facebook and Twitter but I have to admit, this website is way more fun to do.

We have some new additions to the family.  First is Willy.

She is a pygmy goat that we got from a neighbor.  She eats blackberries and other weeds like nobody's business and we love that since we have about 5 acres of blackberries.  I love the blackberries, but there are way more than we or the birds and deer can use.  The majority of the berries end up molding on the vine.  It will be nice to get them under control and have access to the rest of our property.  We are going to start them on clearing some paths this weekend.

And, if any of you know me at all you know that I can't just have one............it is the Noah's Ark of animals around here.  So, meet Stormy.

He is a 6 month old Nigerian dwarf goat.  He has been "fixed" and since they call fixed male goats "wethers", we named him Stormy. 

The big surprise was that while we got Stormy so Willy would not be lonely, Willy is extremely jealous of Stormy.  They compete for food first and foremost but they also both want to be petted and scratched.  They are very social animals.

We lost a few chickens over the last year and replaced a few. I picked up 5 chicks in April and while I have had good luck in the past picking hens I got 3 roosters out of the last 5!

These three Innocent looking chicks were big beautiful roosters.  Well, I can't have roosters here, for one they pester the hens nonstop but they are way to loud for the neighbors.

Lucky for us and them they have a chicken exchange program at the cenex, I can leave roosters for free and buy hens for $10 each.  I took in the three roosters and got two Buff Orpingtons. So we have 8 hens now, that should keep us in eggs for the winter.

The goats and the chickens get along really well.  Those are the three roosters there having a chat with Willy before they went off to the cenex.

I built them a new house.  They needed more room and I needed a house that was easier to clean.  I used those pre made cedar fence panels which made the job really easy.  Dave put the roof on for me. 

Lot's of perches and a vinyl floor that makes it easy to clean.

Three next boxes.

I still have to finish the outside egg collecting door and plug the holes on the top but I think it will work out just fine.  It's funny, there are three perches and the three elders take the top perch, the two teenagers take the middle and the babies get the bottom perch.

Here are the teenagers, the two hens from the April batch of chicks.

I have been told my luck was bad because this was a "straight run" or rather the mutts of the chicken world.  It's best to go with a breed like the Buff Orpingtons since they have better luck sexing them.

Memory Tree

Today we planted a tree for our dear friend Rachel.  In 2007 Rachel evaluated our wetlands area and made suggestions on what trees we should plant on our property.  So today we planted an Oregon Ash in her memory  along with a Garry Oak as that was her very favorite tree.

 

We were able to purchase a 16' Oregon Ash from a native plant nursery near here.

 

The site was very wet due to flooding from all the rain we have gotten lately and the antics of our new beavers.

  

  

Planted and protected from the beavers.

 

Next up we planted a Garry Oak in a much dryer area.

  

We fenced it in as well to protect it from the beavers and voles.

  

Linda brought some plum brandy from Serbia that Rachel would have loved, it was called Yellow Jacket. 

We toasted to her and the newly planted trees.

It was a beautiful sunny warm day and Rachel would have loved the entire event, even the mud.

 

Rachel Virden Hulscher

1974-2009

I give you this one thought to keep -
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still in each new dawn.

Gutters

I can't believe snow is in the forecast again.  We have had our fair share this year for sure.  We lost our deck gutter to snow in January. 

 

I went to Home Depot to see what they had in the way of gutters and of course could not find matching colors.  So I went with this vinyl snap together system.  It was really easy and pretty inexpensive.  The most expensive part were the corners at $6, the gutter length was under $5 and the brackets were under $2.

 

They are self sealing so you don't even have to use caulking.

 

In just a few hours we had replaced it.  This system also had gutter helmets for under $5 a section so I think we will try them out to see if it makes a difference, we are surrounded by big leaf maple tress that hopelessly clog them in the fall.

 I am very happy with the results.  I think little by little we will replace all the gutters on the house with this system.

Next Project: Wood Pile

Thanks everyone for all your kind words about my Dad and for welcoming me back.  It feels all warm and snuggy.

You Gotta Have Goals

Remember this?

 

That was December 15th of 2006.  I remember it, well mostly because we are still dealing with it but I blogged about it back then.  That storm took out both our cars and the fence as well as my green house and most of our garbage cans.  I remember my Dad got the day off since he could not get out of the driveway.

Insurance covered Dave's car but not my 88 Jimmy nor the fence.  We have been working ever since on getting that fence replaced.  It has never been a priority until we got Jackie.  He wants to be out there so bad.

We finally got the back gate posts set in concrete and got fence on the front gate.

 

We still have to figure out why the gate opener does not work and I have one more section in back to get up.  We would have finished it yesterday but the whole house water filter decided it needed to be changed as it started leaking all over the garage.  So, we had to stop what we were doing and take care of that.  Then it started pouring down rain.  We had to take a nap then.  I guess it wasn't such a good idea to be working on the 110 out there while it was raining anyway.

I also spent a fair amount of time this weekend pulling Stinging nettles.

 

It is amazing that we had months of freezing rain and snow and we get two minutes of sun and they pop up all over the place.  They are nasty.

We made a great haul at the native plant sale.

 

We got 5 Paper Burch trees, 5 Indian plum, 10 Nootka Rose, 5 Pacific Dogwood, 15Doug firs, 6 black huckleberry, 5 Oregon grape, 6 Salal and one Gary Oak all for about $1 each.  We have planted most of it but we still need to clear some blackberry to plant the fir trees.  That will be next weekend as we are in for another week of rain it seems.

It's All a Blur to Me Now

Yesterday I was trying to remember when the trees started blooming last year when I realized how much I depend on this blog to back up my memory.  I completely got out of the habit last year.  Perhaps, subconsiously I did not want to remember parts of last year. 

My Dad lost his battle with colangiocarcinoma on December 10th after being diagnosed in April of 2008 with the cancer.

It was really a tough time and blogging during that time was not something that was high on my list.  We all miss him a lot.

We had hospice here as he did not want to be in a hospital.  They are truly Angels.  I hope you never need them but if you do they will make your life bearable.  We can't even begin to thank them for everything they did for us and my Dad.

During his chemo he very badly wanted a dog. Didn't seem like the best time to get a dog and my Mom being a cat person didn't really want a dog-especially a puppy.  We were pretty busy taking care of other stuff.  But he really wanted a dog so we brought Jackie into our lives.

  When he saw him he pointed and said "I want that one" so it was love at first sight.  A wonderful little pup named after my Dad with a lot of his same personality traits. 

My Mom said "I don't want a dog, I never wanted a dog............I don't know what I ever did without this dog"

He is a joy with so much energy and unconditional love.

Meanwhile this year we have had the most snow and freezing weather we have ever had and another big flood, a new beaver family and beaver pond, new trees-so much to remember. We have actually made some progress on some projects.  If I don't start keep track of these things again I won't be able to remember when anything happened.

So, out with the bad and in with the new-onward and upward and all that jazz.  It's good to be back.  Now? when did those Swallows arrive last year?