Lights Out Again

Day 67: This is us, Merry and I, in the dark again. Power went out some time between 3:30 AM when the Toe Attacker started trying to rake me out of bed, and 5 AM, which was how long I managed to convince him to sleep in, using the foot as a pillow instead of a game. He's getting better about that, but some mornings, he forgets his manners. In any event, when he woke me up again at 5, the house was dark. We got up by flashlight, turned on one of the "pocket light switches" (switch-operated, battery-powered LED light), and I navigated out to the camping cupboard where I took down my backpacking stove and made myself a cup of coffee. I was smart enough to make an extra pot yesterday in anticipation of this event (and for the record, I will drink coffee in any form except sugared or moldy). That part of morning taken care of, I turned on this "sparkle light," played some word games on my Kindle, whupped it at a game of chess and then decided that there had to be some fiberart I could do in the nearly-dark. By putting the pocket light switch in my lap so that the light was trained on the band, I managed to inkle about 18" of sheep, being extra super-careful that I wasn't catching any unwanted warp strings. Fried a piece of buttered sourdough on the camp stove for breakfast, thinking that would be a surefire way to bring the power back on. Nope, didn't work this time. Half an hour later, I heated up a second cup of coffee, and just as I went to sit down in my chair with it, the lights came on. It's magic how that works! You must sacrifice a certain unstated amount of precious stove fuel to the Power Gods before they will deign to consider your request for light. I think it's going to be a rough winter. And I keep telling myself, "It's almost Solstice. The Light is returning."

Rainbow Sheepies

Day 66: I have been diligently pecking away at old projects, and after finally freeing up all three inkle looms, I decided it was time to reward myself with something which had been in the back of my mind for ages: krokbragd sheep on a rainbow background. Part of the problem was motivation, to be sure, but another factor was that I kept hoping WEBS would restock their 10/2 cotton because I wanted to make a lighter band. I had six of the seven colours I needed for the design, but was lacking magenta. A friend passed along a box of yarns and weaving threads she'd been given by a friend, and lo and behold! There was a magenta cone in the lot. However, it was unlabelled. It seemed lighter than 8/2, but perhaps a little heavier than 10/2, a problem which sometimes arises when threads come from different mills. "Eh, close enough for gov'mint work," I said, and set myself the task of finishing the three languishing inkle projects. As for the other items on my list for polishing off are the bands on both of my Scandinavian band looms, one on the floor loom, and of course completing the remainder of the Autumn Oranges quilt (nearly done!). But just because I still have projects to finish, it doesn't follow that I am forbidden to start new ones. As much as I love weaving krokbragd on the inkle loom, the sheep won't take long, and I also started my first "Memory Wreath" quilt block last night.

Lights Out!

Day 65: There was a brief "island" in the middle of our latest atmospheric river in the afternoon, so I thought I'd take a quick walk up the road to see which tree had taken out the power lines earlier that morning. Kevin had just missed it...or rather, it had just missed Kevin. The tree fell about five minutes before he was passing my house on his way to work. It blocked the road, so he turned around and came back to my place. The power was out for two hours. So, as I said, I wanted to see for myself, so I took advantage of a break in the rain to walk up, camera under my wing. The central portion of the tree had been hauled away, but the part which had broken the power lines lay in several long sections on the verge. The trunk had snapped about 5' up from ground level, and the sections were roughly 16" in diameter, and were no longer the PUD's concern. They will disappear bit by bit over time, sawn into manageable chunks and carted off by locals who never pass up free firewood. You never see the "harvesters." Some day, it just registers with you that the roadside is log-free again. Funny how that works.

 

(Kevin's photo)

 

A Decade of Blackwork

Day 64: This is by no means the only blackwork I've done in the last ten years, but it has taken me a decade to complete the triptych. All are 12 x 12, and are mounted in identical frames. I put the final stitches on the Bird last night. It was a "bucket list" project I never seemed to get around to embroidering until now. The pattern is shown on the front cover of "Blackwork Embroidery" by Geddes and O'Neill, but I used different filling stitches throughout to personalize it. The Maze was made in 2016 from a "Stitch'nspiration" design, but again, I changed up the fillings. The Dresden Plate (from Buell's "Blackwork", also using different stitches in the blades) followed along in 2021. I stitched a pair of overlapping plates for a friend at some later date, and dubbed it "Eclipse." It felt good to put in those last few stitches last night, to have the Bird "done and dusted." I mounted it in the frame this morning, and now all three are hanging on the wall.

Shift Change

Day 63: A changing of the shift has occurred. I can't pinpoint the last day I saw a Rufous Hummingbird, although it's been a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. A few Anna's were in the neighbourhood at the time, and I remember thinking that the changing of the guard was close at hand. You see, Rufous is the dominant summer resident, with late spring and early fall being shared more or less equally. There will be the odd Anna's now and then in the summer, but they are scarce, and are usually only females. The males show up again in the fall, at which point the Rufous crowd vacates the premises. Anna's owns the winter, and will often be as numerous as their counterparts were in the summer. For the last several days, two (perhaps more than two) males have been vying for possession of the feeder outside the front window. Merry has become used to hummers, only occasionally offering commentary when one sits close to the glass.

Making Tape

Day 62: It has taken an inordinate amount of trial and error and a healthy helping of my father's tractor-starting vocabulary to work around the design flaws in this particular model of tape loom. Primarily, I was struggling with warp tension because the brake can only be engaged in one position. One hand must be free to release and re-engage it while another hand holds the wound warp tight to the roller so it doesn't unwind. A third non-existent hand seemed to be necessary to hold tension on the warp, and a fourth appeared to be needed to turn the crank. Since I am not an octopus, this was challenging. To make matters even more difficult, the warp beam is round and smooth. It has no gripping capability whatsoever. Once tied on, the knotted warp simply wouldn't wind, so I taped the loose ends to the roller. I found that if I "pre-curled" the separator papers, I could wind on by turning the roller with my fingers, bypassing the need for the brake entirely. It's still not the easiest thing to warp with even tension, but as you can see, I managed to make a nice little 1/4" tape (11 threads of 8/2 cotton) from some of my thrums. Before there was scotch tape, packaging tape, masking tape, etc., this is what "tape" meant. And like today's sticky tapes, it was used to hold things together. The average household used a lot of tape, and this was how it was made.

Footnote: I just discovered that those bag clips don't snap down very firmly. I was able to put on a new warp using the clip as a tensioner, freeing up both hands for the winding-on process!

Consult the Strawberry Book

Day 61: I got a very early start with horticulture when at age two, I was introduced to the "Strawberry Book" by my dad. It became known in the family as such because one time when no one was looking, I took a crayon to the line drawing of a strawberry (my favourite of the illustrations). I was firmly chastised for the error of my ways, and thereafter was only allowed to peruse the Strawberry Book with supervision. The book passed to me when I reached adulthood, and despite its dated nature, has still proved to be a valuable resource for my horticultural experiments. Some things never change, like the fact that gooseberries can be propagated by soil layering (purportedly "easily," although that remains to be demonstrated). It was to the Strawberry Book that I returned when my weaving partner Ed bought property and wanted to begin putting in a garden. He so loves my gooseberry jam that he asked me for starts from my plants. After the twigs had lost their leaves, I scraped off the harder outer tissue to expose the cambium layer, treated the wounds with rooting hormone, staked the twigs down and covered them with soil, essentially the same method I used to propagate from my contorted filbert. Gooseberries certainly won't be as challenging as that was!