Today on the Farm – A Day of Random Projects

Could I actually write a post a day? This is two in a row. I don’t want to bore anyone who clicks here, but I think I could always find photos to write about.

I shared this photo on IG this morning. This is me trying to stay warm while looking at IG before getting out of bed. The woven piece has meaning. After I had the major accident in 2019 my Farm Club friends got together at one friend’s house and wove this shawl/blanket using handspun yarn they had all brought. I think some weren’t even weavers, but Mary had the warp on the loom and guided them all through it. I have my own woven blankets around here but this one always makes me think of friends.

By the way if you go to that link in the last paragraph you’ll find lots of typos. That is because my small motor control still wasn’t very good and I couldn’t type very well.

I have been harvesting my walnut crop. When the wind blows the walnuts off the tree a lot of them are still in husks. I can’t throw all those husks away when I know what great color they give. I had a bucket of husks that had been soaking for a week and decided to use them this morning.

I also decided that its time to do something about the skulls that are in various stages of progress in the barn and the garage. I never get them as beautifully white as most you see for sale, but I still sell them. This one needed a little glue.

Dan’s project for the day was to pour concrete in an area where the concrete walkway is being undermined because it’s a low spot and holds water once it starts raining.

This was the first load.

He ended up getting two yards of concrete for this patch.

This is at the north end of what we call the corral, out of sight behind the tractor in the photo above. The disturbed part in the center above the black tub and in the foreground are where I have buried skulls. There are some in the tub too. The baling string in the front is tied to horns so that i can figure out where they are and how many. When I dig up the others I have to be careful because I don’t know exactly where to dig. When the ram, Townes, died Dan buried him in the mound at the very top of the photo in front of the burn pile. You can’t see it but there is a string on his horn too so I know where to dig eventually. At the time of his death he was so bloated, even his head, that I didn’t want to try and salvage it then. It seemed to likely to explode. [Some of you probably don’t want to hear this stuff, but it’s not always pretty on the farm.]

I spent the afternoon at the Weaving House working through a box of handwoven pieces that I had put aside and never got around to finishing. I think that three were destined to be ponchos–at least that’s what they are now.

I spent a long time going through all my weaving notes to figure out when I wove these and what fiber I used. This one is handspun weft. I don’t know if I meant it to be a poncho–maybe it was just a very short blanket. It’s a gamble to choose how it will sell best. It looks like an awkward size, but if it’s worn at an angle I think it will be good. I need a photo on a mannequin.

The third poncho of the day. I don’t know if these will make it to the website. I think one will be at The Artery and two may go with a friend to her Bay Area sales.

This is on the south side of the Weaving House. The vegetable garden is done and the indigo that was left is all shriveled and dry after the frost. It’s almost December and a couple of the hollyhocks I use for dyeing still have flowers! What’s with that? Do you know I have packages of these flowers for sale with directions on using them for dye?

Woven Goods

It’s the season for selling when you’re in the business of making. Now I seem to spend extra time taking photos and then trying to keep track if the items are at The Artery or here, listed on the my website or on the Fibershed Marketplace site . Ideally there were would be three batches–some at the Artery and not on the website, some here and just on my website, and some here and just on the Fibershed site. The goal would be to have everything sold by Christmas and to not double-sell anything…but those lines are crossing. I have to be vigilante. Here are a few examples of what I’ve been weaving.

DSC_4954Chenille scarf using clasped weft.Shawl 1065-2-1Local yarns dyed with coreopsis and dahlia flowers.Shawl-1059-3-1More local yarns dyed with mushroom and black walnut.Ponchos 1067This is the stack of ponchos that I finished in early November just before the Fibershed Wool Symposium.IMG_1021 This is how the loom looks from where I sit.IMG_1027 The rainbow colors are a result of a prism that hangs in the window behind me. After my mom died a friend gave me the prism and said that it was to remind me of my mom. And it does, as it reminds me of the friend, Sylvia.IMG_1023Coreopsis dyed yarn.IMG_0308The computer that holds the “brains” of the loom. This loom does not weave without me doing everything (for those people who think that having a computer hooked up means I’m not really weaving). It only keeps track of the pattern that I have put in.IMG_1028This is what that pattern looks like. It will be completely different after fulling.IMG_0307A look down through the warp threads to the cloth below.IMG_0305OOPS! I think I have this in an earlier photo and I haven’t told the story yet of what I did about it. That will still come.Poncho 1067-1Some of the finished ponchos.DSC_4987

DSC_5076Poncho 1067-4-3Talk about a versatile garment. I have grown to love the poncho. It’s really just a blanket with a hole in the middle for your head. Whether you’re at the computer late at night (gee, does that ever happen?), in the car, or trying to stay warm while reading in bed it’s an easy garment to throw on. And it also makes you look young and pretty! Just look at those photos! (Disclaimer–that’s really not me.)