Orchard House

The new film version of Little Women

so beautifully done and so full of joy

 I had to rush home and capture it

I'll spare the worst of my sketchbook

sketches and great right to the drafting of 

an embroidery project.

Many hours and a very messy sewing box and it is finally beginning to look like Orchard House.

Of course this would be when I realize my proportions are off....

Finished embroidering, then comes the scary part....cutting out the embroidered section to mount it to a background of winter themed fabric....adding some vintage lace trim....once I had it stitched and layered and ready to remove from the hoop I was stuck on what to do for a display...Joe saved the day by coming home from church with a beautiful gift box which had once held some biscotti, perfect size, perfect color, perfect frame...

There it is, my own Orchard House. 

I'll be sitting in the garret scribbling away.

The Crofting Life

I have this moving to Scotland

Outer Hebrides or Shetland Islands

Living on a croft dream

Where I raise sheep and Highland Cattle

Live off the land with the wind and the sea
Outside and a warm fire inside.

It's a distant and unlikely dream but a dream nonetheless.

In the meantime I'll make my own village out of rustic bits of wool

While sitting by my electric fireplace heater next to the Christmas tree
Hoping for snow

Here is my basic Croft recipe
It's a great way to use up bits of yarn

Cast on between 18-25 stitches with worsted weight yarn on size 7 US needles, stockinette for as tall as you want your croft to be, switch to the roof color, stockinette for 1/3 - 1/2 the height of the front wall, do one knit across a purl row to make the peak, then stockinette to make the back wall match the front.  Another row of knit a purl row to turn the edge for the bottom then about 1"-2" of stockinette for the floor depending on how tall you made your croft.  Pick up stitches on the left and right "floor" edges to make the sides stockinette stitch until they're just a bit longer than the height of the house.  Stitch all of the seams, the chimneys are wrapped around the edges of the roof as they're stitched, this is all four layers of chimney and roof with the chimney wrapped around the roof like a taco.  The windows and doors are duplicate stitch.  Some of my crofts have more detailed stitching, that's because my duplicate stitch has become increasingly tidy so I can now add detail.  Next round I think I will add more embroidery, perhaps some flower boxes. Enjoy and stay cozy!  

Longing.

Another Outlander inspired piece...

My original sketch

My intention was to make an embroidered piece. Until I went through my fabric stash and found this beautiful scrap that looks like a sunset.  The fabric is dyed this way and looked like a stunning and somewhat foreboding sunset.

Tea and planning and more planning.

All the fabrics are scraps from sewing projects, in particular here a cloak (the plaid) a shirt (the pink linen) a bag (the yellow and green) and last but not least an old sheet.  The challenge was making the pieces fit into a landscape with the sizes and odd shaped.  

Placement decided and placed in an embroidery hoop.

The fabric is all held with embroidery stitches to look somewhat like flora and inspired by many pictures of Scotland on Pinterest.  The figure is felt applique, mostly because I was at a loss of how to effectively trace out the shape and embroider over the appliqued fabric.  The skirt and the bodice/head are two separate pieces.  I embroidered the stitches for the tartan and the shawl before appliqueing the pieces to the background...and the hair...I'm pleased with how it came out for a first attempt, just don't look at the back.  The stitches for the hair are just under then wrapped over the flat piece so that non of the felt shows through and to give it dimension.

I decided to leave the stones and the house out of the finished piece because the sunset fabric captures that feeling of being alone, longing, and looking toward uncertainty much better than the rather literal representation of the standing stones and the warmth of the house.

For the full feeling hum the Skye Boat Song.

Veronica the Voter

With the election only a month away out greatest hope lies in voting.  It's hard to maintain any sense of optimism in the face of a government which has such hatred toward so many of its citizens.  We choose our government at the ballot box.  

Today's bit of craft activism is the a young women I've named Veronica. Veronica Votes.  She's old enough to remember her mother and grandmother voting for the first time.  Like my father's mother she is bucking expectations and choosing to have a career. My grandmother worked as an administrative assistant in a factory right out of high school, and against the expectations of the day for a middle class women she chose to go back to work after my father was born. She would continue to work until retirement age, at that point she went to work for my dad as his bookkeeper. In retrospect not only is her choice amazing to me but so is my grandfather's unequivocal support of her choices. She is my feminist icon. The woman who I remember behind the counter in my dad's shop, who taught me to love romance novels, and how to bake a perfect apple pie. Who taught me how to know whether an antique plate was authentic or a reproduction. To say nothing of letting me learn to type on her Smith Corona. She worked for most of her adult life, not out of financial necessity but because she loved what she did. 

My mother's mom, my Nana, worked on the floor in a factory, a single mother raising three young children on her own her story almost the polar opposite of my Grandma. Her fourth child, the eldest girl was raised by relatives from birth, the product of a rape so traumatic that she never realized she was pregnant.  She married some years later and had three children with her husband. He died in WWII, leaving my Nana to raise three young children alone.  She went to work in a factory that made electric components such as switch plates and lamp sockets.  As she struggled to keep a roof over the heads of her family and food on the table she watched the men she worked alongside, doing the same work, be paid enough to buy homes, afford a car, and all of the other trappings of middle class life. Paid more solely for being men. Eventually the second eldest was also sent to live with relatives who were more well off.  My grandmother walked five miles to work nearly every day until she retired because the bus cost too much.  For all that she never made us aware of her poverty. I spent nearly every weekend growing up with her, reading and rereading the Little House Series, watching wrestling and the Rockford Files.  She was the person who taught me to sew, how to use coupons, and how to make Portuguese kale soup. Only 4'11" tall she was nevertheless a towering figure in my youth

In my imaginary narrative Veronica is one of the younger women working in that factory, in the office, strong, independent, her ambition mentored by other women who believed she should have choices and opportunities and a career of her own.

I'm grateful to have had my grandmothers and other women of their generation in my life, the front-runners of modern feminism even if that wasn't what they called themselves.   Be like Veronica. Honor the struggles of the women who came before us with your the best way possible.  Vote.  

The Persistence of Beauty and The Resistance of Cute

The last week has been a low point for the women and girls of America.  If we have learned anything it is that sexual assault survivors are treated and viewed no better now than they were thirty or forty years ago.  How do we look at our daughters and explain that we have not come so far, in fact we are falling backward at a dizzying pace. 

It has also made realize I have to stop directing my rage, my disappointment, my frustration at random strangers on social media.  Not that I will cease to step in when I really feed the need, but no more engaging with the toxicity that provides a temporary release of anger without accomplishing anything meaningful.
With that in mind I've been spending more time reading for pleasure - yes, kids, that does mean I re-read the entire Harry Potter series again, next up, revisiting Little Women and maybe some Jane Austen.  Stories shape our world, they give it life.
My other approach has been to spend more time making things, specifically pendants and pins that feel like little talismans to me.  Tiny fiber shields against the darkness swirling around us.

They are not political in and of themselves, yet.  I have a tendency towards pretty and cute when I am making. I struggle with the idea of what place that tendency has when what I feel is so ugly, what I see happening is even uglier.  I don't have an answer yet. I may not get one anytime soon. What I will say is that humans crave beauty even in the darkest places.  To create something pretty, to make someone smile and feel uplifted is its own act of resistance. 

There is also room for the occasional silly self portrait.

World Wide Knit in Public Day at Slater Mill Historic Site

Slater Mill was opened in 1793 as one of the first industrial cotton mills in the US.

It sits along the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, RI.

In addition to two historic mill buildings there is a colonial era house and garden.

The garden features vegetables as well as medicinal plants and plants used for dyeing fibers.

This is the inside of the Wilkinson Mill, which still has its original water wheel and the mechanisms the power the machinery seen here.   Only one floor is currently set up to run with the water wheel....it's deafening and the the floor shakes, I can't imagine what the creaking, groaning, and thumping would have been like with three floors operational.  Part of the exhibit let's kids use a water powered lathe to make spools for thread.

The guide gets a comfy and particularly picturesque seat between tours.

This is the waterwheel.  It's massive and has an impressive array of controls to help regulate water pressure.

The outside of the Wilkinson Mill with the local spinning guild holding demonstrations. The weather was perfect, warm with a touch of  humidity to give the air that soft summer feeling, but with enough of a breeze to make knitting and handling wool in fine.  

The Blackstone River, the source of power for both of the mills on site. The Blackstone played an important role in the Industrial Revolution for much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  It's a wonder to behold, one of our summer goals is to take the boat tour that explores the rivers history.

Of course there was yarn bombing on some two hundred year old industrial machinery.

The purple pompom was my contribution.

The interior of Slater Mill which was one of the first cotton mills in the US.  There are spinning machines, drum carder, etc...representing the mills over 100 hundred year history as a working mill.

The loom that sits in the colonial era house on the property.   We were able to buy some samples of fabric that had been woven on this loom.

The lovely, sunlit dining room.

If I had this machine I might actually manage to knit a pair of socks.

Part of the WWKIPD event was a yard sale, my 12 year old managed to purchase a pair of wool breeks and a cotton shirt for reenactments for $6!!! He was very excited, they need some alterations so we are going to do them in the period correct way for children's clothes by inserting drawstrings rather than making permanent alterations.

He is going to be training to become a docent at the Nathaniel Greene Homestead.

Later in the day he found a chemise for me for $1...I think the women at the yard sale table were charmed by his enthusiasm for early American history.

This lovely window is in the waterwheel room.  I'd wished I could sit there with a good book or my knitting.   The windows throughout the stone building are gorgeous.

If you're ever in RI check out this gem of a place.  They have many events throughout the year including a fiber festival.  The grounds are a lovely spot to stop and enjoy the river.  It's one of our favorite spots.

Oh, as for knitting...I didn't get a whole lot of that done. Everything else was perfect. 

We Miss Christmas!!!

We miss Christmas, or at least some of the trappings of Christmas.  Mainly Peppermint Mocha coffee creamer....so today we made out own....

1/2 Gallon Half and Half
One can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 tablespoons cocoa powder mixed with three or tablespoons of hot water until it is chocolate sauce consistency.
Pour 3 cups of the half and half into a mixing bowl, add all other ingredients.

Whisk until ingredients incorporate.



We made enough to refill a creamer container and most of the half and half container.
Verdict, perfect for grownups, not quite as sweet as commercial versions so my daughter added a bit of sugar.

Joe declared it perfect in his cup of cocoa.

Merry taste of Christmas and Happy Drinking!!!!

Round and Round

This spring I am going to be teaching a fiber arts course for 3rd & 4th grade kids, some with special needs.  So far plans are for printing on fabric using potatoes and fabric paint.
Dyeing yarn with natural dyes made from flowers and vegetables.
Sewing bags and pillows from the potato print fabric.
And first, and last circle weaving....first on old CDs, and embroidery hoops

.....then on hula hoops to display along the fence of the schoolyard.  Eight weeks to prepare eight weeks of classes...I'll be trying some techniques out at my daycare job. 

This Icy Winter Chill

Hello from my poor neglected blog.  It's been a rough sort of year watching my country be torn in two as white supremacists and misogynists have come crawling out of their holes, like angry bears who slept too long and woke up too hungry.
My year has been one of political engagement and involvement.

Last January I started a knitting group, the Nasty Knitters, to make Pussy Hats for the Women's March, this January I will be knitting some more.  As a group we also began a project making blankets with and for recently arrived refugee families. It was an act of solidarity and defiance in the face of our president banning refugees from our shores.  Eventually the families will take the blankets home to their homes and hopefully feel they are indeed welcome and wanted, in the meantime we meet once a month or so to create and join knit or crocheted squares, to share food, and company.

I couldn't make it to the Women's March in Washington DC or the local March in Providence, I did make a couple of dozen knit hats which I sent to friends across the country.  I will never forget the pure exhilaration of running to the living room when my mom and kids started yelling.  The sight of that sea of pink, knowing that some of those hats on some of those people were mine made me feel connected in a way I wouldn't have thought possible.  I'm not ashamed to say I cried.  Later that day the kids and I wore our hats to the beach (along with my mom, who isn't in the photo because she stayed in the car out of the cold) Two women who had been at the March came over to talk to us, share hugs, and take this picture. My oldest was at the Providence March and agreed the tone of the day was one of love as empowerment.

  

This year will end as last year began, with me making Pussy Hats in a variety of shades and not all pink.  With family and friends getting ready to take to the streets.  We are now saddled with a government which wears its disdain for the poor, for minorities, LGBTQ people,  women, and immigrants, as a badge of honor.  It glories in vulgarity and divisiveness.  And it threatens us all.  This is not the country or the future I have imagined for my children, and it isn't one I will leave them willingly.

Half of the country has been plunged into an icy winter chill and our government has cut funding for heating programs.  Out west fires rage and go without aid or even acknowledgement from the White House, and over 100 days after a hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Isles Americans in those territories are still without electricity or potable water supplies.  Our government has abandoned it's duty to its citizens in favor of greed and hate.  All I can say on this freezing cold last day of 2017 is that 2018 must be the year we reclaim our nation and it's promise for all of its citizens.  

Simple Pussy Hat for non-knitters

Knit or crocheted pink hats are the most visual form of connectedness and protest at the upcoming March for Women in Washington DC, and across the country.
Time is getting short and request for hats has absolutely exploded in the last few days.  Need exceeds the speediest of knitters.

Here is a simple solution made out of polar fleece, or any knit fabric with some stretch.
Pink is the suggested color, but not one particular shade.  I've made knit hats ranging from bubblegum pink to a deep purple.



For non knitters,  the hats are a simple rectangle.
Take a piece of pink fleece that is 10.5"×16"
(The diagram says 9", but that was too snug when I made one,  your best bet is to measure your head and add one inch to allow for seaming)

Fold it in half right sides together  and seam up the sides
The fold is the top of the hat.
Roll up 1" at the open end and stitch it in place
This is the brim.
Turn it right side out and voila!  Pink hat!

Simple straight stitch

Up the sides

And along the hem for the brim.

Flatten the side seams as you sew the brim

And give the fabric a good stretch as you go so the stitches won't break when you pull it on.  Or sew in a zip zag stitch.

Same directions apply for machine stitching,  keep the fabric stretched as you go.  Fleece is very forgiving and doesn't unravel, so if you prefer you can simply roll the brim up.

                       Finished hat inside out

                    

Finished hat on my cooperative son