Tag Archives: San Francisco

Farm Club Retreat in San Francisco – 2024 – Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Here is the Part 1 blog post. I just realized that I got the timeline wrong. That restaurant dinner was on Friday night. The library visit was Saturday. We ordered dinner to be delivered from Kung Food on Saturday and had enough left over that some people had it for lunch the next day as well as taking some home.

Both evenings and during other parts of the day we arranged ourselves in the parlor and working on projects. The parlor is the room that we were surprised and dismayed last year to find out there had been severe water damage and it was closed for repair. The floors and ceiling had major repair work. The difference this year is that there is no carpet and some of us commented on the different feel to the room. It is still a lovely place to hang out. We were able to leave our “toys” there the whole weekend and come back to them when we felt like it. That empty end of the green couch is where I set up shop. I wove two rigid heddle scarves and spun on the e-spinner.

Some people knitted, some spun, and some just relaxed. Deborah used the time to finish the fringe on a v-shawl that she (and I) wove in one of my classes last year.

Sunday morning I decided that after all that food and a lot of sitting I’d better go for a walk. I love seeing these old houses. (One here serves as a church.)

Some of the houses are maintained remarkably well, but I noticed some as I got farther from this neighborhood that need work. I can’t imagine how much it costs to keep up the paint job and the window repairs on these houses.

I took this photo a couple of blocks from the Home. Now I wish that I had investigated at the time and we had gone back. I assumed that “made while you wait” would mean that someone has a circular knitting machine and they crank out acrylic beanies. NOPE! I have looked at the website, www.hampuihats.com, and these are felt hats, among others. The website is impressive and the process is interesting. I encourage you to look at it.

A different kind of home decoration, still beautiful.

I wasn’t able to get much of a photo here because of the angle. There is a cow in there (not real, but a good size). You can see the face between two of the bars in the cetner and the body between another two.

Isn’t this a wonderful house?

Buena Vista Park is across the street from that last house. I walked into the park and up and down paths through and around it. I came out with this view. Now that I’m looking at a map I see I was at the south side. I saw Sutro Tower and thought that it didn’t seem that far and I may as well head that way.

I walked along streets going in the general direction. Every so often you see a stairway that cuts between properties and takes you from one street to another.

I found another small park at the top of one hill and looked beyond it to Sutro Tower. Hmmm. Not as close as I thought. I knew I could still walk there but maybe I shouldn’t spend the time. I turned around and went back taking a different route through Buena Vista Park.

From there I looked to the north and saw the Golden Gate. You can see the towers just below those distant hills.

I got back to the Home and many of our group had gathered in the dining room. We finished off yesterday’s pies and spent more time in the parlor visiting and spinning before we headed home about noon.

What will next year bring? If the weather is good I plan to walk to Sutro Tower and maybe through some of the other parks in the city.

Farm Club Retreat in San Francisco – 2024

Posted on by
Reply

From looking back at photos and blog posts I figured out that the first Farm Club Retreat was in 2011. That would make this the 13th retreat, but we had to skip 2020 through 2022. It was fun to look back through that post just now and see the origin of some of our traditions.

Entering San Francisco from the north we drive across the Golden Gate. It was gorgeous weather for this visit.

The Native Daughters of the Golden West Home is on Baker Street. It was designed in 1928 and built for NDGW. Now members and their guests can spend the night in SF in a spacious yet cozy and friendly space. One of the long-time Farm Club members told us all of this in 2010 and that’s when we began the tradition of our Retreat weekend. It used to be just for one night, but we enjoyed it so much that now we make it for two nights.

We were the only guests there for Friday night and we all had our own rooms. Room 401 was a new room for me. Each bedroom is decorated by one of the Parlors (chapters of NDGW) and has it’s own style.

There is a bakery across the street that used to sell pies. We began the tradition of lemon pie for breakfast. Some of us started to bake our own pies and that’s a good thing because the original bakery is no longer there. Saturday morning began with pumpkin pie, lemon pie, apple pie, and plum cake.

I pulled up the live YouTube for Hayes County (TX) Livestock Auction in which my granddaughter was “selling” her Champion bunny.

This is an auction to support all the 4-H and FFA youth who win champion awards in the show. It turns out that the entries go home with the kids but the bids are for real money that go into the bank accounts to help support future projects and college funds.

After watching Kirby we gave our new Farm Club members a tour of the building. This is part of the museum collection in one room. These are gowns worn by some of the Grand Parlor dignitaries. (I can’t remember their designation.) This made me think of watching the movie of the recent Taylor Swift tour with Kirby and DIL Meryl right after Christmas. Taylor had a bit more sparkle but these ladies were very sparkly for their time.

We decided that our destination for the day would be one of the SF Library branches. There are so many fascinating houses.

I’d sure love to see inside some of them. Look at that gorgeous detail.

It was about a mile to the Presidio Branch. Why the library? A California resident can get a SF Library card by showing up in person. That card gives access to all the digital and audio materials from the library and a lot of us make good use of those.

After getting our library cards we split up and two of us walked to Golden Gate Park. This was a unique art structure not far from the park entrance. These are LED cubes that change color I think. If you search for Entwined in Golden Gate Park you can learn more about this art installation that has been in various locations for four years.

Our destination was the Conservatory of Flowers, visible behind the Love alphabet blocks.

The Conservatory originally opened in 1879.

I took photos of some of the extraordinary plants we saw. The variety is fascinating.

The sign here says “The Fanged Pitcher Plant may look sinister, but in the wild colonies of an ant species called diving ants live symbiotically with this plant.” The ants dive into the pitcher part of the plant to consume pests and in turn fertilize the plant with their droppings.

The common name for this plant native to Peru is Lollipop Plant or Golden Shrimp Plant.

Beautiful shades of green on these leaves.

When I saw this I thought that now I know where candy corn is grown!

We walked a few blocks to a restaurant where we enjoyed a great dinner. In this photo we have moved onto dessert. After dinner we went back to the Home to spend the evening working on projects and enjoying the atmosphere.

Week in Review – SF, Sheep, Weaving

Posted on by
Reply

So much for my one blog post every day routine. It’s been a week. I think I had a set back last weekend. I often work on the computer in the late evening. Last Friday I went to bed earlier than normal because I had to get up early for the next day’s event. That backfired. I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep.

Charlene (Integrity Alpacas, creator of Gardener’s Gold, and my down-the-road neighbor) and I left at 5 a.m. for San Francisco to be part of the Fibershed booth at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market.

We arrived at dawn and some people were already setting up. It had been raining and continued to rain and drizzle off and on all day.

This is the opposite view from our location.

A few Fibershed producers arrived, and we finished setting up in time for the market to open. There were twelve producers represented at the booth.

Do you recognize any fabric here? Gynna (creator of Soil to Soil Market is using some of my woven pieces to create earrings! (FYI – Soil to Soil Market is open, there are still only two of us listed while there is more behind-the-scenes work.)

This was a cold, wet day. Thankfully we were able to pack up when the market was over at 2. When Charlene went to the parking garage to get her truck she found it, along with six other vehicles, had been broken into. Her rear passenger side window was shattered and the truck had been searched. The next day after, a night of freezing temperature, the front passenger window had shattered and you could tell where it had been hit first but hadn’t yet broken.

I didn’t feel warm until that night in bed (early). I’m ready to stay home.

Back to farm life.

This is SilverSun, one of the March 2023 lambs. I changed coats a couple of weeks ago. Its always a gamble to figure out which coat is big enough to give room for more wool to grow but fits well enough to stay in place. I had bought some new coats last summer and I they fit a little differently. She had probably got a back leg out of the strap and then the front was loose enough to get a front leg through. Eventually the neck opening was around her middle and she was trapped with the coat dragging underneath. The other sheep were harassing her and she couldn’t do anything about it.

Here she is in one of the old style coats that has been patched. That’s a better fit.

Ewes (and a goat) in the small field behind the shop.

I’ve been focused on weaving…all the weaving that I wish I had done earlier in the year to be ready for the holidays. These are three wool shawls now at The Artery in Davis.

I’m also creating other pieces using odd bits of handwoven fabric. These pillows are at The Artery.

At Spinners Day Out on Friday a friend who had harvested our pomegranates brought me a treat of pomegranate soda!

Also at Spinners Day Out, our youngest friend, daughter of one of the original Farm Club members, went to the barn to visit with Jade. (That’s a stuffed kitty snuggled in her clothes.)

Back to normal work–weaving, website, sheep, etc.

Farm Club Retreat in SF

Posted on by
4

Since 2011 Farm Club members have spent a weekend in January or February at a fabulous house in San Francisco, designed by Julia Morgan and built in 1928 for the Native Daughters of the Golden West. We haven’t been there since 2019 because in 2020 I was still recovering from the 2019 accident and then there was the pandemic. We had scheduled a retreat for January 2023 but the unusual California weather was enough to keep some of us from wanting to leave the farm(s). We rescheduled for May and this was our tenth retreat.

The “Home” is not the corner building, but the one on the left. There is a street level entry with a pioneer library, a museum, and a large meeting room. The second floor is the parlor and the dining room and a big kitchen for guests’ use. The third and fourth floors have bedrooms with shared or private bathrooms. There is access to a small garden in the back and there is an underground walkway and basement rooms with storage, laundry, etc.

We were shocked and dismayed to find that the parlor was not useable. It has been under renovation for over a year. The story is that a fourth floor toilet broke and by the time it was discovered water had severely damaged rooms on the third floor, the second floor parlor and water was running into the street. We usually spend all our free time gathered in the comfy seating areas of the parlor with our spinning and knitting projects. We settled on the dining room and had taken over several of the tables by the time the weekend was over.

This is in the entry way on the first floor. Right now the large meeting room in the shadows is filled with the furniture and paintings that had to be moved from all the water damaged rooms. A “silver lining” of the damage is that there was a discovery of what had been painted over years ago. Look at the next photo to see what was originally under those arches and on the columns.

The original design.

Yet another shock to our plan was that the two eating establishments we counted on were not what they used to be. The “pie place” across the street was a different shop, selling doughnuts but no pies. The Mexican restaurant at the end of the next block was now a place with squid and squab on the menu. So we found a different restaurant more our style within walking distance.

Saturday morning I got up and went for a walk. I took photos of some houses that I admired or because I wanted to remember the paint color. Before my son and DIL moved out of what is now the Weaving House they had started painting. The trim is black but they didn’t have time to do the rest of the house before they moved. I noticed this black trim on this building.

I love the look of these houses and would sure like to see inside. I also think of just how much maintenance there must be to keep these old houses in decent shape.

Saturday morning breakfast. Our traditional breakfast was lemon pie from the corner bakery and then some of our members started bringing homemade pie. Fortunately I made an apple pie and a couple of other people brought pies as well…tradition intact!

We hadn’t decided on a Saturday activity. When we planned the weekend the ideas ranged from visiting the Presidio, the SF Library, or the Botanical Gardens to staying in PJs and hanging out in the parlor. The night before at about midnight the Levi’s Experience popped up in my email. So that’s where we went.

Levi’s is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 501 jeans. This is a 40,000 square foot venue.

From the internet:

The 501 jean is celebrating a major milestone in its hometown this week. From May 19-27, Levi’s is taking over San Francisco’s historic Skylight at the Armory to fete the 150th anniversary of the 501. The popup 501 Experience features an archive museum, factory, marketplace and opportunities for customization. The museum, called Chapters, brings to life the 501’s place in history and its cultural impact. The exhibit demonstrates how the 501 “went from workwear clothing of hardworking laborers and cowboys to a product that mirrored the course of socio-cultural history around the world and transformed fashion,” Levi’s stated.

I have included just a few of the many photos I took. To some of us the 1970’s doesn’t seem that long ago. I remember that my best friend through high school had embroidered the American flag on the back pocket of her cut-offs. I don’t know if they were Levi’s.

In case you can’t read the fine print: “To conserve raw materials during World War II, the back cinch and rivets on the small front watch pocket were removed from these 501s. The famous double stitching on the back pockets was printed to save thread, and eventually rubbed off. The watch pocket rivets and back pocket stitching returned after the war.”

Who besides me didn’t know that that little pocket inside the main front pocket was for a watch?

I have been to Huston Textiles located in a hangar at the old Mather AFB near Sacramento. Years ago I supplied some yarn so they could try out some of the fabric ideas that used our Northern California Fibershed based yarns. They are still using the old looms they started with but this fancy new loom with it’s associated technology is added to their line-up. The new looms will add some dependability to projects with serious time demands.

I don’t remember the details, but there are over 4000 threads in this warp, at 56 ends/inch, and the loom weaves a yard in two minutes. They were running this at 40% speed. I don’t remember if that yard in two minutes was at full speed or for this exhibit. There are separate selvedge threads on those spools above. The orange spools have two threads that are twisted at the edge of the blue yarn so that the selvedges can be cut off and the fabric will be intact.

We spent a lot of time talking with the mill owner and a supporter of the mill. They showed us some of the innovative work they are doing in the local textile production realm.

Huston Textile Company has high tech knitting machines as well to create zero waste garments.

The 501 line-up through the years.

The sign tells the story of these jeans being used to tow a broken-down car home. The jeans and attached rope were sent to the Levi company with a letter about the story.

This is the corner of the Home that we took over. One advantage of working in the dining room is that we could have food out at all times and there was plenty. (Food is not allowed in the parlor.)

This was a great weekend and I look forward to next year.