Cedarburg Covered Bridge and Stash Enhancement

On my little trip to Cedarburg on Sunday, I stopped by a Historic Landmark. This is the last covered bridge in Wisconsin.  It is located just north of Cedarburg near the intersection of Hwy 60 and Covered Bridge Road by Five Corners.

I have fond memories being here as a child coming for picnics. Somewhere in the bridge both my father and my mother have their initials carved into it. Yes, it is vandalism and I do not condone marking up national historic landmark.  I can not control what my parents did before I was born!  LOL ....   I never let my kids carve on it, so that is a step forward in progress.

I walked back and forth through the bridge couple times looking for their carvings, among the many thousands of such marks inside,  but I didn't have a lot of time. I had to get back home to let the dogs out.

Here is a trip back in time..... a little 6 minute long video clip of visiting here in my old motorhome, a 1977 Winnebago. The Ultimate Behemoth.  This video was probably about 1992 or 93?  My brother and I took a vacation together with our kids. We brought our beloved Grandma Kafehl to the bridge to spend an April afternoon and have a little lunch. The first part is all the little cousins and our dogs, Akasha and Bonnie, playing in the park by the bridge. The second half is with Grandma inside my old motorhome.

I miss Grandma so much. 

I am glad that my own children got to know their Great Grandmother 

and love her as much as we all did. 

Once I got home from my emotional day... 

I had to unload my car.

THIS is why I went to Milwaukee and Cedarburg in the first place: 

This is called Stash Enhancement!

My friend Karen (yes another Karen) was moving items from her Wisconsin home down to her Florida home. In preparation of selling their Wisconsin home in Milwaukee, she had an overabundance of fiber supplies and decided to share the wealth with me. She made me a very good deal and it was worth it to go down to Milwaukee and load up my car. I may sell some of it to recoup my initial investment, but I will keep the favorites for my own fiber pleasure

These bags are roving. It is prepared from sheep wool that has been washed and then picked apart into loose fibery pieces and then run through a large commercial machine called a "carder". It comes out in one long continuous strip that can then be spun into yarn.

It's an expensive process to go from raw sheep fleece to these beautiful finished balls of roving. Karen, Katrina and I had a bunch processed all at once a few years ago at a commercial business. This is some of her leftover stash she didn't think she would get around to spinning into yarn.

Each one is about the size of a soccer ball. Look how many bags I have here. It would take me quite a while to spin this up into yarn.

When it is in this roving form, it is easy to handle and manipulate. It can be soaked gently in soft loose loops into a dye bath and create beautiful multi-colored wool before it's even spun into yarn.  Here is a pic of some of what I had dyed in the past.  WHEEEE what fun!

Back to the stash.....
This section here are a bunch of large cones of cotton yarn that I can use in weaving. Some can be used in rugs, others for towels or table runners.

This section is large amount of Loopers. Loopers are left over factory sock waste from making socks. They're kind of like those little loops that were sold with children's frame looms for making hot pads, remember those from your childhood?  The large bag on the left are white and natural, the bags on the right are various colors.

I chain these loops together to create long long sections that then I weave into rugs. They make the most delightful bumpy thick rug. I called them my "birch tree rugs"!

This last section of the stash are some skeins of yarn, all ready to be knit. Some of the beige yarns on the left are rather large commercial skeins of lopi yarn which is a thick single strand. I think I gave these to Karen many years ago --- and now I'm getting them back. I am all out of what I originally had, so I'm very happy to get some again. Full circle!

Karen had also gotten some Easter egg dyes when they go on clearance after Easter. Yes, the acid dyes of the food colored pellets are safe and non-toxic to use for dying. They do permanently dye wool if you add vinegar and salt as mordants to the dye bath water. This does not work for cotton or polyester, just on wool. I always grab what I can at after Easter sales and it was nice of Karen to share some extra with me.

Now that I've got it all unloaded, I have to sort through what I want to keep, and photograph what I'm going to list and sell.

Decisions decisions decisions