Winding Down the Weekend

Whew... what a busy weekend!  But it's slowly winding down now while we watch the Packer Game tonight on tv.  So far it's a winning score, and we are happy.

I thought I would write up another blog post....

Thursday evening, we unloaded the motorhome after leaving High Cliff State Park....   I didn't feel like cooking, so we hit our favorite Mexican restaurant 2 towns over in Kiel, called El Camino.  The food is SOOOO good, and Steveio had his favorite chicken fajitas and I have my regular seafood chimichangas (they are not on the menu, but they make them for me each time I ask)   They serve you so much food, I take half home and it's lunch the next day. Plus margaritas are only $3 on Thursdays....  link: El Camino Facebook Page

Our weekend filled up before we knew it.  On Saturday morning we got some house chores done, and Steve worked on the broken air horns on the motorhome.  Seems when I blasted them last time, I suddenly lost all pressure.  Steve determined it was some old bad connections, and got it all fixed up.  He also did a few other projects on the air conditioner shroud, fixed the sagging insulation in the engine compartment and I did a good clean-up and clear out of summer items from the rig.

Next camping trip will probably be Halloween at High Cliff State Park, which is a huge event to attend with the kids and grandkids.

Speaking of kids and grandkids, we got a happy surprise visit from our daughter Heather, son-in-law Jesse, and both grantots Jameson and baby Whitney!   Wheeee heeeeeee

I got in a LOT of cuddles, changed a poopy diaper, fed a bottle and played with the sweetie who is starting to smile back at us!  Big Brother Jameson got to pick a restaurant --- link: Penelope's Pizza Facebook Page

It was such a nice visit and we got to spend some time just marveling at how much she is growing in her short 6 and a half weeks.  Giving Jameson as much attention and interesting things to talk about is important too.  He got to ride in our car to the pizza place, and was doing double digit addition in his head.... and just started second grade!


Saturday night, our nice neighbors to the back had a party... and invited us over to hang out.  Crackling campfire, good laughter, and dogs hanging out looking for treats.  We are so lucky to have a bought a house near such great neighbors!

 We hung out till late, 

and then toddled across the yard to bed.  

Easy commute! 

Sunday morning started with fresh bagels and coffee on the porch.  The mornings are crisp and cool, but as soon as the sun comes in, it warms up and we are comfortable.  Soon Steveio hopped on the lawnmower and I set about knitting socks on my antique circular sockknitting machine. I have to get some inventory built up for upcoming shows and Etsy sales for seasonal holiday shopping.  I can do about a pair an hour, and am working up some bright colorful wool socks in blends of pretty yarns.

Cup of coffee

French vanilla creamer

Soft celtic music

and creative yarns! 

At noon, it was time to load up my sockknitting machine and head over to the Calumet County Historical Museum.  We volunteer there to staff the museum during their Sunday sessions.  Here is a blog post I did earlier in the summer about helping out there: 

working-at-calumet-county-museum

and their website:

http://www.calumetcountyhistoricalsociety.org/

I have been working on the Fiber Display.  Today I took care of spreading more Howards Feed N Wax on the rest of the fiber tools--- spinning wheels, yarn swifts, niddy noddies, and hand cards.  Even a big ol' treadle sewing machine got a good soaking in of preservative conditioner on the dried out greyed wood. It also repels insect intrusion with the natural orange oils. I am proud to say the display is looking quite fresh.

(this is only half of the fiber display) 

A fellow member dropped off some sheep-shearing tools from various eras in the past.  I went through the box to identify most of the equipment and decide what else can go in the Fiber Tools Display and which should end up in the Agriculture building.  We have a lot of different displays depicting early life in Calumet County, WI.

Once our chores were done, we set up for visitors.  We had a whopping 13 people stop by this afternoon!  Steve likes roaming and poking around in the agricultural displays with people, looking at old farm implements and small engines over the years. Someone came in and donated their dad's chainsaw, from the early 1950's.   It was fun to document the item and get it ready for cataloging.

I set up my sockknitting machine and kept working on socks while Steve visited with people and helped show them around the various displays.  My sock machine garnered attention all by itself... and is an antique from 1925, so it fit right in.

This is such a fun place to hang out. While there, I explore a lot of the old newspapers, photos and albums of scrapbooks that people have donated. I am learning more and more about our tiny community.

Admission is FREE

but donations are gladly accepted. 

Well, it's Packers half time now, so I will wrap up this blog and get it posted. Steveio is starting to make some popcorn for the second half of the game. The doggers will gather to beg their share.  He better make a BIG bowl! 

Hidden Valley Woolen Mill Sale coming up

I just wanted to give a blurb out for my local readers about the upcoming sale at the Hidden Valley Woolen Mill in Valders, WI (about halfway between Manitowoc and Chilton.)  Every year Carol Wagner hosts an Open House and has many gift items for your holiday shopping....

Link:  http://www.hiddenvalleyfarmwoolenmill.com/

Holiday Open House Sale

November 22 ~ 24, 2013

Friday: 1pm ~ 6pm

Saturday: 9am ~ 6pm

Sunday: 10am ~ 3pm

Address: 14804 Newton Rd, Valders, WI 54245

Phone:(920) 758-2803

Carol has a beautiful fiber farm and does wool processing.  

She sells yarns, spinning materials, weaving items and quilting fabrics too.

During her sale, she features gift items from local artists too. 

She lets me put up a few baskets on display for the sale... 

so I fill them with hotpads, hats and of course, my socks! 

I am wayyy behind on sock production lately, being sick for the last two weeks.  So this weekend I was cranking away furiously to get more socks finished.  For my new readers, I have an antique circular sockknitting machine and I make the coziest wool socks!  (if I say so myself)  I also make acrylic socks for those who don't like wool.  It takes me about an hour to do a complete pair.  The machine is fascinating to watch, and if you ever get a chance to see one in operation, do so.  

This is my 1925 Gearhart sockknitting machine. It's finicky, cranky, irritating and frustrating at times.  But it's also FUN!   I love the socks it makes, and I use all different kinds of wool yarns to make interesting combinations of colors in my woolen socks.  

I have had this particular machine for about 5 or 6 years now, but I have been cranking since 1997.  This one is slowly wearing out from my heavy usage, it's skipping teeth on the gears it's gotten so worn, and the hand shaft is wearing down and no longer tight so it skips. It is getting wobbly and loose and is not operating properly.  I am spending more time than usual fiddling with it.  ARGGHHH

Today Steve and I did a little "operating" on it. We examined it closely and determined three things that might help it function better. He ground off a tiny bit on the end of the shaft so the handle could ride in more closely to the gear wheel. The flat washer holding the handle on the shaft was running too tight, so we bent the washer in a concave shape and it holds everything much better.  Then for grins, I figured I was wearing out the slots on one side of the cylinder where I create the toes and heels... its like double the use of the slots on one side of the cylinder vs. the other side I unscrewed it and rotated it 180 degrees and I will start using the other side of the cylinder instead.  Voila!  All three fixes helped, and the machine is cranking smoothly again..... 

We pretty much laid low this weekend, and hunkered down for the snow fall.  I made some comfort food like beef stew and somemore bars.  I did manage one run to Walmart to replenish a few supplies.  Steve and I both are still down with the cold/flu/infection yucky stuff... but we are doing better.  Not 100% yet, but on the upswing. Finally.

We didn't get much snow this weekend, but it was pretty and soft and silent during the night.  I went out in the front porch to take this pic....

I know it's not in focus, so it's not the best picture.  I think it conveys the soft silent peaceful night in our tiny town as we got our first snowfall of the season.  It was special... and I am glad to be able to look out of my warm cozy home and see it and experience it.

We will see how I feel in mid-January when the Winter Doldrums set in! 

"LASTS" plus Sock Cranking and Visitors

Well, with only 20 days left to own a house, we are going through some "LASTS" here.  Like, Steve cut the grass down alongside the river and remarked it was probably the "LAST" time he will need to do that.

We were outta dishwasher packets and I was at the store.  It dawned on me that this was the "LAST" time I would need to buy dishwasher soap, and why grab the big 60 packet container???  I was only going to be using the dishwasher for less than 20 days.... so the 16 packet container went in my cart.

Steve hauled down the big bags of water softener tablets, the "LAST" time we need to buy those and haul them down to load the big water conditioner unit.   And he changed the two water filters on the lines coming in from the well... "LAST" time to do that too.

I am going to clean the oven this week, and perhaps get all the windows washed, and steam clean the carpet down in the loom room... all "LASTS" in my book!

They are not sad "LASTS" obstacles to overcome, but instead kinda poignant markers of the times leading up to the final days of owning this house.  Now it's time to look forward to the "NEXTS" !!!


Monday morning our sock machine group met for a gathering at Oconto Falls Library.  We were a small group this time, only 6 participants.  But that was okay, we had fun, laughed and cranked and shared and learned.

This won't be a "LAST" sock cranking gathering for me though, because we meet four times a year and I will make the trip back up here from wherever we are the next 10 months to attend.

We own antique circular sockknitting machines (but one gal has a new one now made by the Erlbacher Gearhart Sock Knitting Machine Company )    They are fun and funky and we love making socks and other items on them too.

 

On Monday afternoon, our good weaving friends Jim and Norma from Beloit, WI of http://www.paandmasrugs.com  stopped by on their way up to Canada.  We had a good gab fest on weaving stuff till Steve got home from work, and then we cooked steaks out on the grill.  After a little tour around the tiny town of Oconto, we headed back for apple pie for dessert (I whipped that up in the morning before sock cranking).  They stayed in our "Hotel Pfundtner" in the driveway, to awake refreshed and ready to head north on their second honeymoon!

After they were well on their way, we got a call from our RVing friends, Paula and Mel from Wausau, WI.  They own a Safari motorhome the same vintage as ours and we have a lot of fun camping together with them.   They had been camping just north of us in Peshtigo, and were heading back past our house on their way home to Wausau, WI.  They stopped in for a visit, and we tossed some brats and burgers on the grill.   Paula treated Steve with a pan of rice krispie bars (his favorite) and we sure had a nice time.

Steve and Mel solved all the Problems of every Safari Motorhome In The World during their gabfest, fixed the brake light problem on theirs, fiddled with the generator on ours, and just all and all had a good time.   

Paula and I killed a bottle of wine, and we shared lots of ideas and hints and tricks of motorhoming from a woman's point of view.   And we ignored the guys who were busy busy busy...  I had some things for Paula's quilting sewing room and I got rid of a few other things she could use.

Finally we convinced them to stay overnight in the driveway rather than drive back to Wausau (only about 100 miles) ... so they turned their rig around in the driveway and Steve held the tree back a bit to allow backing in easier for Mel.  Then they could plug into the power and have their AC running for a while to cool off their interior.

It was a SAFARI SLEEPOVER!!!!

By the time we headed to bed, it was well into the night, and I think the guys were gabbed out.  Steveio had to go to work today, but the rest of us will visit for a while longer before they head out this morning.  I have more stuff to sneak into their rig or their toad car, as we are still getting rid of things here in the house.

Only 20 more days...  

.

Fibery Day with Rugs and Socks and Yarn

I have been sorely neglecting my fibery blog readers here.... it's been SO busy around here with working on the house projects and 2 new grandsons and doing our open houses.  I heartfully apologize!  Thanks for hanging in there with me and waiting for something -anything- relating to fibery creations!

First of all, because of selling some of my looms, I had projects on them that had to get woven and cut off quick.   I didn't do much finishing of fringes until the other day, during our boring rainy Open House.

I started beefing up the fringed areas on these two rugs, so the fringes were colorful and thicker.  (the warp was natural white... not a good color to have as just all plain fringes on a colorful rug)

I beef up each section with doubled over strands of other colors to match the rug....  using a wide eyed needle.  Once the colors are added, I then tie the knot with one huge overhand which includes the original warp threads and the newly added colored threads.    So instead of all white fringes, they now blend in and match the header and the rug.

This woven rug is called a "3 end block weave" pattern, similar to double binding technique.  Here is the rug.. it's reversible and has the opposite pattern on the back side. I call it my "Ticked Denim" design, because the light areas are a heavy cream and blue striped mattress ticking, and the darker block blue sections are denim fabric.  I have done a number of these rugs, and am finally at the end of the fabric of mattress ticking.  It was a HUGE roll given to me by friends Norma and Jim Burkett of Beloit, WI.

The next set of fringes I worked on was for this rug... which is made with blocks of black/tan  and blocks of green/white.  Kinda wild, eh?  I added threads of green and black to the cream warp.

I also used this same fabric combination in a plain weave striped rug.  

They would make a cool pair! 

The above rugs were all cut off the bigger Newcomb Studio loom, right before I sold it to Ellen Houseward from Illinois.  When she bought the loom, she also got the rest of the warp that was wound on there, so I am hoping to see some pics soon of more rugs she made on that lovely loom!  

Speaking of Ellen, she sent ME a box this week.  Oh me oh my, it was like Christmas in May!  The box was chock full of sock yarns that she said would never get around to using!   Some were custom dyed and others were fancy commercial brands I can never, ever afford to buy.  It's hard to make a pair of $20 socks for sale when the yarn costs $15.99 a skein!  

I already started cranking some last night and got a pair of socks done and another pair underway.  See the pretty socks on the right side?  ooooooohh laaa laaaah!

 THANK YOU, ELLEN!!!!

A few weeks ago, I had cut off my last two Birch Tree Rugs from the Union loom before Rosie took the loom out the door and back to Missouri with her.  I finally got around to hemming the ends up.  Instead of tying knots, on these two rugs I did a hemmed edge. 

These Birch Tree Rugs take a while to make. 

 They are recycling at it's finest!  

Commercially-made factory socks leave behind a loop of knit material when the toes are stitched and the excess is cut free.  These loops normally end up in landfills!   But--- smart weavers soon learned we could loop them together to make very interesting thick and thirsty rugs!  My good weaving buddy Barb Barnett sells them by the pound. She hauls huge bales from the factory over to her NE Iowa Weaving Loom Museum in Plainfield, Iowa. She then bags them up and sells them via mail to weavers around the country.  Here is her website:

http://www.barnettsheepwool.com/

It's a messy process to prepare these loopers, so I chain them up outside.  I prefer the double loop thickness like in the photos, but some weavers like the single looping chain, making for a thinner rug.  I set the loom at 8epi and weave them up in no time flat.  The prep work takes the longest.



One of the last blankets I cut off the big LeClerc Nilart loom, before it went to it's new home with Lisa, is finally getting it's fringes twisted.  I am also "beefing up" the warp threads with another piece of the bumpy boucle yarn doubled over in the header area.  The photo of the basket shows the fringes on the left are already twisted, but the bottom tassels below the knots are not trimmed yet. I will do those after washing.

When I say "twisting fringes" I use this little device, made by LeClerc.  

• Clamp on the sections of yarns, 
• twist them up in one direction,  
• knot the end,  
• let it twist back onto itself like a little rope! 

Okay, this blog is long enough.  Time here to get off the computer.  Today is bill paying day, then finish up these socks and clean up the livingroom.  I am trying to keep the house "show worthy" in case we get more calls for private showings.  

This afternoon I am going to help my friend Rosie with her GoDaddy website.  We both changed over from the Office Live program for our websites to have GoDaddy host us instead.   We will work toegether over the phone and finish up all the business parts of changing over the domain and starting the new site on her nameserver.  

Here is mine I got up and running already

(just started it, I need to add more fiber stuff)  ....  

www.kareninthewoods.com     

I have our house for sale on the first page for now.  But I will add more of my rugs, socks, and other fibery things.   I have the About Me page done, and will hope to get it up and running with all of my things soon. 

I also sell my items on Etsy:  

http://kareninthewoods.etsy.com/

.

Sock Cranking Day in Oconto Falls, WI

Ahhh finally a post for my Fiber Readers!   Sorry, I have been so busy between grandbabies and house preparation that I have not been paying attention to my fibers.  Bad Me!

On Monday morning I loaded up my Tracker with my antique circular sockknitting machine, my tool box, my stash of supplies and tools that I sell, including a How To DVD in case there were some newbies at the gathering.

It was hot and muggy, temps in the 70's, as I was loading up the Tracker. I was wearing sandals, capri shorts and a short sleeved top.  I even turned on the air conditioning for a few miles to cool down the interior of the vehicle.   (I saw the weather reports of what was coming, but heck, they are usually wrong.  Right?) 


Four times a year, Ann Jansky  chuckann@ezwebtech.com  and Anncille Engle chuckann@ezwebtech.com arrange this gathering of sock cranking folks from all areas of the state, and some from nearby Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota!    You can contact either of them at their email links to get on the list of the upcoming events, places, dates and times.

We all trudged in with our sock machines, various stools or tables to mount them on and all our plans, patterns, tricks, tools and troubles.  Many of us have old antique machines that are finicky, persnickety and frustrating!

Ann lends a hand with new knitters, and Georgia was there helping people with the newest machines being made from the The Earlbacher Gearhart Knitting Machine Company   She is kindof a spokesperson and helped in their development. This company is now making new machines from the old patents (they are like the machine I use now from 1925) but with even more improvements and new materials. If anything ever happened to the machine that I have now, I would buy one of theirs!

Here is Georgia working on fellow cranker Victoria's table, making some adjustments.  Talk about getting into her work?   What kind of wonderful customer service is that?  Also the company called Georgia during the event, asking her to doublecheck something on Victoria's ribber device too.  They keep track of all their customer's wants and needs.  How nice is that?

Georgia did a presentation on some of the features of the newly made machines and showed some innovative devices still in development.  What a wonderful thing to see something being Made in America with good old ingenuity and skill.

We had 16 people come to partake in the day...  

and a lot of wonderful information was shared among the cranky people.  

Silly Jan dumped out a bag full of done socks!   They are connected one after another in a long chain, and later need to be separated and the toes closed off with careful hand stitching so there is no seam. 

She joked that someone should video tape her pile of socks... 

so I did!  Here is the Utube link:

I learned some new things, shared some other things and had a nice time chatting, cranking and learning.  Besides socks, some folks showed holiday scarves they can make on the machines.

A fellow cranker that I had met long ago while doing a demonstration at Rainbow Fleece Farms in New Glarus, WI came and said she so appreciated the help and information I gave her way back then.  She brought a newspaper article that had been done about her in the Racine, WI newspaper.  How cool is that?

Now... for the way home?  Remember the weather I was talking about? Just 6 short hours later, as I was attempting to load my items back into the Tracker, it was FREEZING!   Blustery winds were blasting, rain was stinging like needles against my face and arms and bare legs and feet!  (remember? sandals?)  The temps had dropped to 37 degrees and the winds were blasting at gusts up to 50mph!   I was frozen to the bone, and turned on the HEAT in the Tracker to get home.   Once I made it home, I didn't even unload the Tracker, I pulled into the garage, shut the door,  and hopped into a hot shower in the house.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh   Springtime in Wisconsin!   In case you are not familiar with our weather changes, we are known to get a foot of snow in April. Which happened exactly on this same date of April 18th, 2010!   See what can happen here?  This is why we don't plant anything till May.  LOL

It didn't get quite that cold on Monday as this pic, but it was still miserable, nevertheless.  

One final note:   Please vote for my RV friends Kevin and Ruth... for a trip to Austrailia... they are wise traveling folks on a budget and this contest might help them get there!  You do not need to register or give any personal information to vote.  They are at over 1,500 votes now and going strong.  You can vote once a day, so please mark this in your favorites, or keep on your desktop to CLICK CLICK CLICK them into the Land Down Under! 

http://aussieexperiences.com/contest/entry/red-centre-kevin-read/

Red Centre: Kevin Read | Aussie Experiences

aussieexperiences.com

Find deals, special promotions, vacation packages in Australia. Experience Australia and contact our specialists to book your Australia vacation and cruise.