Gratitude and a tutorial.

This cloud was way more interesting than my phone caught in this picture, but early morning .....say 5:30.......is busy.  No time to grab my camera.  Cats are hungry.  Miss Puss needs her insulin, Roy needs to go out, then he needs his medication, and I need coffee.

When I get in the shower, I come back to this.
Jinksie, Roy, and Sydney.
Miss Puss is not welcome.  She has a serious attitude.

I have a new toy.  I was trying to wind skeins to dye, on a regular old plastic swift.  It was a horrific chore.  I searched the web, and found all sorts of winders, manual and electric, as expensive as $550, which is a tad rich for my blood.
But I found this hand made cherry winder on Ebay, for $62, so I ordered it.

Can I just say this makes me very, very happy?

I found the table at a local used furniture shop for $25.  I had DH screw the winder to the table, put a cup hook on the side of the table, clamped the counter to the ladder, and off we go!!!!   It has a knob, that you can stick in any one of the holes  to turn it with.

But I find that I just put my finger near the center and spin it, so much easier.  And I can keep my elbow in close to my body, so my shoulder is not doing the work, my forearm is.

LOVE LOVE LOVE.
It's so easy to make me happy.

So now that I have all this cotton wound in skeins, it's time to dye.

For all you not so interested in this process, scroll right on down.


First off, wear a cover up.  Cheap, $2 at Ocean City Job Lots.

Do not wear sandals unless you want purple toes.  Do not ask me how I know this.

DON'T FORGET YOUR RUBBER GLOVES!

First step, soak your tied skeins in synthrapol and hot water, for about 30 minutes.  Then squeeze them out, wring gently, and put them back in the same pan, only this time with a soda ash mixture, about 1 cup soda ash per gallon of warm water.  Let soak while you mix your dye.

Here's my dye table.  First you have to make urea water, about 3/4 cups urea to 1 quart warm water.  This is the water you will use to make your dyes.  I mix 1 tsp dye powder  per 1 cup urea water in a mason jar, stir it well with a wire whisk, and use a funnel to put it into my  water bottles with spouts.

I keep each jar in front of my squeeze bottle, so I can remember what color is in the bottle, and as I use them I put them back in the same spot.  Otherwise, you will lose track of what is what.  Again, don't ask me how I know.
This is cotton, so I am using MX fiber reactive dyes.

By now, your skeins are ready.  Squeeze, gently wring, them out, and lay them on your table which you have covered in plastic.

Here's the fun part.......start applying your dye to the skeins....however you want.  Just remember that the colors do run into each other, so that you may not always like the colors that are made when they mix.

This is my second batch of the day, because...well, if you're already into it, why not?


This is organic cotton, in a beige.

Thank goodness, I have a big table.......purchased from Staples......ordered at the store, or online, so they deliver this to your house.  Way easier than dragging it home.  It's 8 ft long.

At this point, you cover it with plastic, and maybe something to keep the plastic from blowing off, and let the sun do its work.  Hopefully you have picked a nice toasty day.
You can leave it all day, or even overnight until the next day.

THEN, you rinse.  I put it back in the flat pan that I started with, and rinse with the hose.  When it is pretty clear, I dump the cold water, and put in hot water, and some synthapol, again, and wash.......then rinse, rinse, rinse, until it all runs clear, and no color is coming out.




NOW, all you have to do is wait until it dries.
And it's always a surprise to me how it turns out.

 I go to bed watching the lightning bugs outside my window, the most incredible fireworks of all, and I wake up gazing out at the mist over the fields.

Then I get to play all day, dyeing and playing with color, or weaving and playing with design.

To top this off, I have a great family, and great friends.

And this baby girl.

For as long as I have it, this life is amazing.

Yep

  My days are so full, I hadn't even noticed how long it's been since I blogged, until tonight.

Lots of weaving going on.
Stocked up on some more towels.

 Occasionally, I drive about a half hour away, for my Osteopathic manipulative treatments.    The ride is so peaceful and lovely, and I swear that my headaches ruled my life until I started getting these treatments last April.  I go about once a month, and it's so worth it to me.

Once I got the towels off the AVL, it was time for more baby wraps.  This one is "Raspberry Crisp".

Doesn't everyone carry eggs in their shirt???

 I had a little visitor the other day.  Here she is fresh up from her nap, ready to rock.  Can't you just see it in her eyes???

Miss Puss is better....up to 4u of insulin twice a day.   She goes back once a month, to check her   glucose levels.   She is definitely not as anxious, and seems more comfortable.

In my spare time, I do a little dyeing.

This enamel pan is so perfect for it.

Thanks Lois!!

 I love these colors......it is finally dry and ready to wind into balls.

I am working hard, but trying to balance that out with time for myself.  It isn't always easy.
I yam who I yam.

Morning thoughts.

I've had two students in two weeks, making my brain work.  It's a change from mindless weaving in a quiet studio.  I like it though, it requires me to pay attention, and the reward of having a new weaver born is so worth it.
My favorite part is when they throw that shuttle for the first time, on a warp that they have wound, sleyed, threaded, and beamed on.  Priceless.
And I get to meet new people, most of whom love being here.  That's a plus.

The garden is planted, and I have taken to getting out there at 6 ish every morning, spending just a half hour weeding and checking things out.  It always gets ahead of me, every year, and I have vowed that this year, it will not.

The idea of letting the lawn grow wild never panned out.  DH bought a second hand riding mower, and has taken over mowing the biggest parts of the lawn.

When I am up at the crack of dawn, I mow about 20 minutes.  That seems to be working.  The idea of not mowing a marathon appeals to my "neck" and gets the job done, a bit every day.   It seems like that approach applies to a lot of things, as I get older.   I take jobs that I would have done in one fell swoop, and break them up into doable pieces.  It means........to me.......that I won't pay the price with a slamming headache from putting my neck through hell.
Oh, how smart I've become in my elder years.

I am weaving on a towel warp, one that I do not like as well as the one before it.  That's always a challenge, to get through it, when it is not moving me.

They look much better on the loom, after the towels were washed, they were not as exciting to me.

Luckily, changing the dobby is not that hard.

For whatever reason, this moves me.

I guess that flower basket wore her out, cause she obviously needs a break.

Love that girl.

From dawn to dusk

I am up at the crack of dawn.  No kidding.

Part of it is just me, and all those years of working as a nurse and having to be at the prison 25 miles away, at 6:45 a. m.

And part of it is Jinksie.  She has taken to sleeping with me most of the night, leaving at some point, and coming back to my bedroom door to cry and cry at 5:30 ish.

Once I'm awake, I'm up.

 But oh, how I love early morning.

Miss Puss is on a 12 hour feeding and insulin schedule, so she is on me like glue as soon as I come downstairs.  She gets mean if I am not as quick about it as she would like, hissing and batting at my ankles.  Not a pleasant way to get up.

Once she has eaten, and gotten her shot, she takes a morning nap on the couch, at my feet, and you would think she was the sweetest thing ever.

In the studio:

My Circles baby wrap with silk weft is finished and off to NYC to its happy owner.

I enclosed a note, saying that I hope she loved the wrap as much as I loved weaving it, and I meant that.
It was joyful to me.

The two sides are so different.   I wonder when I will tire of this Circle pattern that I have come up with.
I have been asked where I found the draft.  The answer is that I didn't.  I just played around at the loom with the treading sequence until I liked it.
Half assed, my father would say.

I am still into yellow, it seems.   L and I just put this warp on the AVL for towels, and she threaded it through the heddles.

Weaving starts tomorrow.

Have to get ready for the Beekman Street fair, in Saratoga Springs, NY, on June 12th.

I just had my hip injected, again, so it is feeling better.   Not sure how much good it will do, but hoping for the best.

It doesn't help that there is so much work to do outside.  Trying to get the garden tilled and planted, and get things cleaned up out there.

I find that I am quite happy to stay home day after day.  There is just so much to do here, I don't have the need lately to wander off.

I was weaving the other day, and realized that the last time I felt such peace in the place where I live, was when I lived in my little farm house up north, 12 years ago.

It's a good thing to feel comfort in your home.   There's actually nothing that quite compares to it.

When I see refugees who have lost everything, and have no place to call home, it breaks my heart, and I am beyond grateful for my own place in this world, however humble.

I always think that I want to travel, but then I get on the road, and wish I were home.

I love it here, what can I say?

Change

It's been a while, and my only excuse is that I have been busy.
How did I ever work 40-50 hours a week as a nurse??

My 6 month dental deal is finally over, got my NEW BRIDGE at last.

And no, I have no idea why I was taking a selfie AND talking on the house phone at the same time.
Insane.

Roy does not have that problem.  He is the KING of comfy.

The nights have been cool, so the pellet stove is still in use.

During the day, Roy watches me  while I weave.

This baby wrap is on its way to London.

You probably know by now that I love to bake.

For 26 years I have been cooking on this old Tappan range.  I bought it for $75 from the estate of my 6th grade teacher.

It was an awesome stove, and I loved it dearly for all those years.

I thought I would always have it.

But lately, I have had to rethink it.   It always smelled of gas.  You can't buy the parts for it anymore.  The oven wouldn't stay lit.  Often, I had to get down on the floor and relight the oven.  The oven is small, and you can't fit a regular size cookie sheet in it.

I have always worked around that. 

But the other day, it wouldn't keep the oven temperature up.  It took three times as long, and a higher temp, to cook a tray of cookies.

I thought long and hard, and decided it was time.

So as pretty as she was, she is gone.

In her place, NOT SO PRETTY, but oh so much more efficient.

Convection oven.

Self cleaning.

Gas cooktop, with huge extra burner in the center.

LIGHT in the oven.

NO gas smell.  NO worry.

Don't hate me.  I already feel guilty enough.

The other night, we decided to take Roy in my husband's truck to pick up something.

He sat in the back, and he whined and whined.   

Finally, this stupid human GOT IT.

I got in the back, he sat in HIS SEAT in the front, like he always does when DH takes him for a ride or they go for a dump run.

No more whining, content, actually fell asleep on the way home.

But the look. O.M.G.

"Sorry, Mom".