Homestead Life - Lots of Chores and A Little Weaving

This past few days has been a whirl wind of chores here on our little homestead.  All three gardens are tilled and now have begun to be planted with the first round of plants.

Up first up is our little garden, I planted 24 tomato plants, 5 rosemary plants and an entire flat of marigolds in this garden.  If a lightening storm passes through I wonder if all the steel tomato cages will draw the lightening bolts!  Quick way to make fried green tomatoes....

Second up is our big garden in this shot you can see 4 of the 5 bean bamboo tee-pees I set up to grow heirloom beans along with some blue lake and kentucky wonder beans.  In the foreground you can just see the onions and garlic growing merrily away.  On the left hand side of the picture is one of the lattice systems my dear husband made for me to grow cucumbers, squash and pumpkins on.  Growing those crops vertically saves room in the garden and makes harvest really easy.  Personally I think they are kind of cool looking too.

Here is a shot of the grape arbor my husband built for me. These vines are my very first attempts at growing concord grapes they even have tiny little grapettes on them already.

Grape Arbor

Here is my supervisor Sam Wise resting in the shade of the workshop while he guards my Mother's Day presents.  Hubby made me the wooden trellis and bought a lovely climbing rose to grow up that lattice for my Mom's Day present.  I think it is so nice to have a present that will be around for awhile don't you?  The other small green plants you see are a nice variety of herbs and young asparagus plants.  When we moved into this place last November I discovered about 20 red brick edgers in the storage shed.  Decided that they would be perfect to edge my herb garden.  After spending several days digging the edgers into the ground and hauling many loads of dirt from our big garden I had a nice bed to plant my much loved herb garden.  Here you can see the results of a whole lot of hard work.

This is a shot of my brand new chicken coop.  I found the weather vane on etsy - www.etsy.com/shop/swenproducts - the flying pig is wonderful and adds a bit of whimsy to the coop.  In a few more weeks I will have baby chicks to brood and shortly after that they will get to live in their new house and run.  These girls will be my first venture into chickens and I am most excited about it.

Another chore around the homestead in the warmer months is something I just love to do - hang laundry on the line outside.  The smell of fresh clean wind blown sheets on your bed at night in the summer time is one of life's little pleasures.  We set this little laundry line up last week and this is it's maiden voyage.

Not to be forgotten, is my weaving studio where I am working on a Monk's belt pattern that I spent several days working out by hand on graph paper.  So far so good, I think I like it.

My newest toy for the weaving shop is a 4 hole angel wing set to hold my lease sticks.  This is my very first time working with this contraption and I have to say it is working really well.  Had to wait almost 2 months for my order of angel wings to be delivered - Purrington Looms is backed up and Bruce the owner is swamped with orders.  It was worth the wait, the angel wings are made well and do the job they are designed to do.  All in all money well spent.  Oh and before I forget, just ignore the dangling threads....not sure what to tell you about that over estimation of warp....you guys are weavers I am pretty sure you will understand.

Hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather and getting outside to work on your gardens.  

Until next time,

as always....

Happy Weaving!

Different "Treadlings" For Different Folks

Finally got around to weaving the checkered stripes towel that many weavers have been weaving lately.  As usual I didn't like what everyone else is doing, don't get me wrong the towels are pretty but they just aren't my thing I guess.  Ended up weaving two towels on this warp and cutting the rest off the loom.  Yes, it was wasteful but if I don't like a project I just can't make myself sit at the loom and weave.  I have to be engaged and looking forward to every pick of a project to make the time I put in at the loom "worth it".  This project turned out nicely, but it just isn't my kind of weaving.

Next up are some E. Worst Linen towels I have long been wanting to weave up.  Put a nice long warp of natural cotlin on the Gilmore and played for several days.  Now this is my idea of fun.  Think the pattern below looks somewhat like lace flowers - don't you?

Played around with the treadles a bit and decided I love the look of the lattice in the towel below.  Ended up weaving 3 in this color combination of cotlin and 1 more in a cocoa brown version.

This is the cocoa brown version, I think the darker color weft makes the towel look softer.  Same yarn just different colors sure can make an impact on the finished look of a towel.

The final towel was a lot of fun and an exercise in making my limited supply of natural cotlin yarn go as far as possible.  Played with the treadles a bit and came up with this version.

Spring has finally decided to show up here in central Illinois with some much needed rain.  This weekend I plan on working in the big garden and getting some gifted heirloom roses planted in the yard.  Roses are not something I have ever been good at growing but I have been reassured that I will have no problems with these....time will tell I guess.

Happy Weaving!

Huck Plaid Towels

Wow, three posts in as many days...that just about never happens around here.  Just finished a long warp of 8/2 cotton huck weave towels.  Ended up with 9 towels measuring 17" x 25" and one jumbo towel that is 17" x 30" (think I was day dreaming when I wove that one).

I have woven these towels several times in the past year or so.  They are popular in my little etsy shop and sell quickly (hope I didn't just jinx my sales).  Although they are a bit time consuming to weave with all the weft changes they pretty easy to weave up.

Each towel is slightly different than the next because I vary which shuttle I pick up to weave with.  Don't the  bright clear colors remind you of fiesta ware dishes?

Off to warp and thread a new project on my looms.

Happy Weaving!

Looking For Light In All The Wrong Places

A few days ago I read on Lynette's blog http://dustbunniesundermyloom.blogspot.com/ that she was starting some seedlings for her garden in her master bath.  I had to laugh because it seems she and I had the same idea.  While looking all over my house for an out of the way place that has enough natural sunlight to grow seedlings I decided that our master bath met that very criteria.

 Trying to make the most of every beam of sunlight I covered a large piece of board with foil hoping that will help sunbeams reflect on the plants.  The foil covered board is sitting on top of one of my weaving benches and the whole contraption is sitting in our whirl pool bathtub.  Now that is what I call making do!

In our kitchen are some more plants for my herb garden.  Now I ask you, what kitchen window sill doesn't have seedlings growing on it this time of year?

Instead of weaving today I am going out to explore the local area antique shops.  Have been hoping to find a treadle sewing machine cabinet that is in good shape and of course doesn't cost me an arm and a leg.  

Enjoy these warm spring days and as always---

Happy Weaving!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter To All
Hope everyone has a wonderful day with family and friends.  


Now, back to my homestead chores...
it is a beautiful day and the birds are singing

Homestead Chores & Weaving Waffles

Spring is officially here in central Illinois and with the warmer temps I am able to finally work outside on our new homestead.

If you look on the right hand side of the picture above you can just make out several piles of red paving bricks.  These bricks are the foundation of my raised bed herb garden I plan on installing next to my husband's wood working shop.  The side of shop gets a lot of sun every day making it a great place for herbs.

While this might not look like much yet it is the very first step in building my chicken coop.  We had to use a sod cutter to remove the grass where the coop will be built.  

With the same sod cutter we expanded what I call our little tomato garden area.  In about 5 weeks or so we will be able to plant 20 or more tomato plants in this area.

This is my large garden as you can see I have already started a few things.   The three straw covered areas are 2 rows of onions and 1 row of garlic.  I am aware you are supposed to wait until October to plant garlic, but I wanted to try planting some this spring to see what develops over the summer.  Also planted are peas, lettuce, radishes and heirloom beets.  As the weather warms more things will be planted in the garden.  

The barn swallows have already started building a mud nest in our loafing shed.  Isn't this the nicest nest? I am looking forward to seeing the babies when they hatch.

Not to be outdone by the swallows, a family of house wrens has begun a nest of their own in the overhead beams of the loafing shed.  Mother Nature is certainly busy this time of year.

Welcome to my great potato experiment.  After pricing grow bags in the seed catalogs I decided that I could try sewing my own.  Half hour of cutting and sewing and ta-da - grow bags. 

The four grey bags you see are made from landscaping fabric I had on hand from last season - each bag has about 6 inches of soil and a few wisps of straw in the bottom of them.  I placed 5 seed potatoes in each bag covered the potatoes with a bit of soil and a few more pieces of straw.  As the potatoes grow I will add soil until finally the plant reaches the top of the bag, flowers and hopefully grows potatoes for harvest in the fall.

 The three tall piles of straw are another potato experiment.  I read that it is possible to grow potatoes in a bale of straw.  Not having a whole bale of straw to use I improvised.  Using some old tomato cages we inherited when we bought the homestead.  I stuffed some straw into the cages, added 5 seed potatoes to each cage and stuffed the rest of the straw in.  The potatoes are supposed to grow just fine in the straw. Of course that remains to be seen as we wait for them grow and hopefully harvest in the fall.

On the loom I have almost finished weaving some dishcloths using a waffle weave pattern.  I used up a bunch of bobbins of leftover wefts from various cotton projects I have woven over the winter.  What a great way to use up left overs!  

Hope your spring chores are delighting you and that your gardens are starting to shape up too.

Happy Weaving!

Making "Lemonade"

What do you do when a project from your loom does not exactly work out as you planned?  Why you make "lemonade" of course - or maybe I should say adapt and overcome.

Had a warp of cotlin on the loom warped for a customer's special request - she wanted me to weave a few more towels for her church using an overall overshot pattern.  These towels were to be smaller than I normally weave.   Having worked with this particular yarn and this overshot pattern many many times I felt safe not doing a test sample.  Yes, you guessed it I paid the price.  The towels are way smaller after wet finishing than I like.  Rats!  Waiting to see if the customer will be interested in these towels or not.  I have decided that if she decides not to purchase them I am going to gift them to her church anyway.

Used the rest of this short towel warp to weave what I was thinking were going to be fingertip towels.  Hah, the best laid plans of weavers who don't sample....  After wet finishing these particular towels they are way too small to be considered a towel.  Hmmmm what to do.  After considering and pondering I decided to create ta dah.... complexion wash cloths.    How is that for creativity?  I ran into this type of wash cloth while several years ago, they are very popular in Europe and England so I figured why not try it out.

I present my lemonade solution to my problem of too short towels...

For the overshot portion of the wash cloths I used up some of the various bobbins of yarn I have in my studio from other projects.  Waste not ... want not as my Grandmother taught me.  

Speaking of waste not want not while working on finishing the above projects I decided to pull off a warp of towels that have been sitting on my table loom for the last 3 years.   Found three nice size towels and a portion of a fourth sitting on this little loom.  Tried to salvage the rest of the warp but after two long distance moves it was not worth the effort.  Think the towels are okay, not sure what possessed me to use purple as the weft!  Must have had some sale yarn, can't remember.

Off to go and find a new project to weave.  

Happy Weaving!