Weaving Cobwebs

The cashmere scarf is off the loom and done. It was fairly hard to get it on due to it being so delicate. I had problems evening up tension and doing the last tie in the front. Very delicate stuff. The scarf itself though was worth the effort. Quite gossamer. I could probably pull it through a wedding ring. It's like holding down in your hand.

  Since I had put all my orphan bits and bobs together I had found some hand dyed mohair locks which I incorporated into the weaving with nice results I think.  I just love adding stuff that way, can't you tell! Someday maybe I'll figure out how to do a scarf with small somethings that as you find them tell a little tale. 

Anyway, back to the scarf at hand. The Habu cashmere warp as set at 10 epi and is fine enough to go to 20 epi assuming you wanted a heavier fabric. I didn't, however for the second gift scarf, which is for a man, I will probably go with 12 or 15 epi and skip the mohair. We'll see, that one needs a little more imaginary play time. For this scarf I used fishing line as a floating selvage, mostly to protect the edges from reed wear it was so soft. The fishing line pulled out just as planned and I didn't have a minutes problem with the edge threads suffering from abrasion at all.

I did get a few more rows done on the saddle blanket but it was hard to jump back and forth from beating a rug to placing cashmere in a delicate warp. 

On the farm news it appears that Puck has moved on. I haven't seen sign of him for at least four days. I didn't get a ride in but did manage to work with Imp who needed some reminding of lead line etiquette after a long winter off.  Something seems to happen to the adolescent male horse mind around the age of 3 and everything you've taught them seems to have packed its bag and taken a vacation to Rome. By 4 they have recovered some semblance of memory and thought and all those hours you think you wasted, pay off. In Imps defense it was awfully windy. Nothing gets a young horse going (or an old one for that matter) than having a wind blown day.  Nose into the breeze snorting, tail up and flowing, even the slowest horse can look like Pegasus waiting to take wing. You just don't always want to be on the end of the lunge line when they do!

And now, onto something completely different. We haven't been running the heat, which is a wood fired boiler outside named Rube if you need to know, as in Goldberg. Anyway, it's been a wee bit chilly in here a few mornings and I guess Rodger decided to be a kindly soul and help Peter out since there was no blanket available. They stayed like this for at least two hours yesterday morning. Peter put up with Rodgers kneading and Peter stayed cozy.

Bob is Great, Bob is Good

Some weeks just feel like you are shoveling the proverbial crap before the tide. This week was one of them for me at least. Outside I had so much to do I didn't know where to start. I skipped Monday cleaning...enough said on that front. ;-) 

First up really was attending to the paddock gate area. If anyone wants some nice horse manure, come and get it.  I've got plenty! Said manure producers ( I need the t-shirt that shows a horse pooping money) are always fascinated when Bob pays a visit into the paddock. Now, if it wasn't for Bob, the hay would have to be hand carted up a hill. If it wasn't for Bob, the manure would have to be hand shoveled. If it wasn't for Bob, the 8 stumps I removed would have to be hand dug and the list goes on. Bob was my constant companion this week in just about all my endeavors outside, even if it was just to carry tools for me. We love Bob and even though he has at times been called old, cranky or ....puny the farm wouldn't run without him. He sports his own burgie too.

Yesterday I took a big break from all the outside chores, got in my little Subaru and went to town, in a number of ways. I really needed a storage solution for all the bits and bobs of yarn. This is what I came up with. They live on the top of the big yarn cabinet and even if I drop one getting it down, it's unbreakable plastic. Everything is nicely visible so I don't have to go digging around the stash for a little something I thought I might have.

We also have a cashmere warp going on the Murphy loom, the first of the gift scarves.

The prayer flag wrap has been woven off and the flags for friends have already been delivered.

The saddle blanket is into the 3 color pattern and needs about another two hours of work to get off the loom. Might get it this weekend, might not. I want to get Mr. Pink Bunny-Ears out for a ride and see if we can get up to the snow line on a trail or two.

The weather is cold and sunny and just perfect to bundle up and conquer a mountain or two.

Finally, I wanted to post my favorite picture of spring!

Flowers may fade, but sheets hung out to dry after a long winter of being machine dried is just heaven.

A Soft Warm Breeze

Monday was indeed the day for hanging the prayer flags. 7:30 am found me out cleaning the area and sizing up where to put them. By 11:00 a.m Gene and I had measured and tied the flags onto the rope and up they went into dappled shade. Immediately a soft warming breeze picked them gently up and all the intent, the words, the thoughts, the karma so to speak began it's journey on the wind. As my words started flowing on that breeze, I couldn't help but wonder what thoughts and prayers it had been bringing as it flew over the earth from whence it came. I know not where it will go, but I do know some of what it takes with it. I hope today, Earth Day that many other wonderful thoughts will be carried on breezes everywhere.

Yesterday was spent picking up the car and running errands. Finally after two weeks I have wheels again. We still need to bring the overtired chariot to a transmission place for a much needed high powered flush. In the short term I'm thrilled to have the freedom to take to the road when I wish!

One of the errands was to pick-up new fly masks for everyone. The old ones, after three years, where shot and I tossed in the fall.  For those that might be reading this that have horses, Cashel makes the best darn masks and while expensive they do last. On a funny note, finding 5 in the correct size and all with ears in them proved challenging and one ended up being a mask done special with a donation going to breast cancer research. I would have bought  5 but there was only one. One of the boys was going to have to wear the mask with pink ears and a small pink ribbon. Cooper was it since he is kindest to fly masks, rarely rubbing them off or allowing another horse to pull them off. He loves his mask, comes over when I hold it open and puts his head down for me to fit it over his ears. Dandy does too. Nick, Boo and Imp think it's a play thing to rip off one another and carry around the paddock, just so I have to go search it out. I'll have to get a picture. They all look like sort of a horsey version of Darth Vader until you get to Cooper and he looks like he has Playboy Bunny ears on. I giggled every time I caught a glimpse of him yesterday, or should I say picked out the set of pink ears.

The Adventures of Ollie Osborn and the Red Rocket

Ollie Osborn was a bronc rider and I'll bet would have been an interesting gal to know!

She, along with many other notable women of the west, is honored in the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth TX. I wish I had had the chance to go there when I lived in Texas. These women, in their own time and way, broke glass ceilings by the sweat of their brow and the seat of their pants. Ollie is the only Oregon honoree.

The Red Rocket has been sitting in the back yard so to speak, just waiting to launch around on the trails. While Cooper is always the same, Dandy can be a bit unpredictable the first couple of rides of the season. We attribute it to his flaming red coat. Those bright copper penny horses are just a tad hotter than their brown or black counterparts.

In any event, we had an uneventful ride, not that Rocket Man wasn't on the lookout for horse eating monsters at every tree, he was and you could feel him coiled to sprint at any moment. We took it slow and relaxing, making him work some of that energy by trotting up the steep hills and going slow on the flats. It was a beautiful day, with a fine spirited horse. His tune-up time is short, maybe another ride or two and then he'll be ready for Gene or for other more mentally challenging work. He's always fun though with his gregarious personality. These pictures were taken after the ride as the moment I put butt to leather he was eager to be off. The second one is him getting a treat. Horses, just like people lose flexibility and treating from the saddle is a nice low key way to get him to really stretch his neck out in both directions. Dandy is right sided and has good flexibility that way, the left side needs work. Just like you trying to write with the opposite hand, horses have a dominant "handedness" too.

With the heavenly weather we are getting the prayer flags will go up today or tomorrow. The 23rd is listed as an inauspicious day for prayer flag hanging, so before that date and before the rain and snow come back to the mountain for the weekend. Over the weekend I gathered up the old flags for burning and will add to the pile with some twiggy dead fall around the area. It's almost too hot to work outside in the sun come 2:00pm.....almost. ;-)

Ride to Ruin!

And such that it was that I got sucked in (yet again) to the Lord of the Rings movies showing on TV on a Saturday afternoon.  Now I don't know about other riders but I can say that since the time I started to ride ( age 4) up until present day being on or around horses sparks the imagination. When I was MUCH younger my steady mount Russell patiently waited (and enjoyed standing- getting brushed is a lot less work) while I braided and combed and fluffed and literally played dress-up. I certainly didn't like dolls, but give me a horse and my imagination and we were princess and palfrey, Indian maiden and pony, jockey and derby contender. Rusty wore a lot of hats. Who says when you get into middle years you still can't use your imagination? As the saddle goes on the world of possibilities is just as open as it use to be. Don't think I don't amaze at all the glitter and sparkle young girls now have available for their trusty steeds! And some days we truly do ride to ruin in our own way. A nice long stretch of field or pine needle covered track, a click, a light kick and we're off, The horse asks the question, "Faster?" the answer is yes, give it all you got, find that last gear and we're flying.  A galloping horse will take your breath away.  Now my guys know it's not going to last long but they take full advantage and enjoy those few rides of abandon. The walk homeward for cooling usually finds them prancing, necks arching and wanting to go again having rediscovered the beauty and strength  in their own bodies. Asking and testing to see if I might relent again.

Yesterday I would have liked to ride but the chores had piled up and that sunny future day was yesterday. The morning was spent raking hay in the barn, cleaning and checking tack.

After that I stripped down to a t shirt and took the shedding blade up and worked on the 5 horses for a good hour and a half. By the time I finished it was almost 80 in the sun and too hot for an out of shape animal to be working in his clinging winter woolies. The cool mornings are best for that, we can condition without them getting too overheated. So in I came for a late lunch and some cold water and whoosh, there on the tube, I could at least get a little armchair riding in for the day. I do so like to look at those beautifully woven wool capes too!

Weaving wise, another prayer flag was completed, the saddle blanket moves slowly, but it does move. I was imagining how pretty it would look while I cleaned Cooper's saddle. Time to get it off the loom. Ride to Ruin indeed!

A Good Bunch of Boys

Yesterday we had a wonderful day weather-wise. While not really warming up as much as I would have liked, it was sunny. We'll take sunny and cool.  It was also time for all the boys to get their hooves trimmed. Morgan, our farrier, is a man of few words and busy . He is one of the very few good trimmers  that will come all the way up to our little mountain to make a meager $20.00 per trim since I keep my guys barefoot. Over the years other horse owners have started using him up here and now we have enough to make a day of it for him between the smaller farms. I am usually first on the schedule, so if we have any problems it makes him late for every following farm call.

From day one I've worked on all the horses standing nicely for the farrier. It's hard work and hard on the back. A horse that kicks, pulls away and insists on resting their weight on the shoer's knee makes a tough job harder. I don't blame any farrier for refusing to work on a horse. Plus I won't tolerate it since I'm cleaning out those hooves too before and after rides.  

To make things work faster yesterday I decided to try something. Rather than going up and back numerous times over muck and mud at the gate ( you livestock owners know it ALWAYS lands at the gate area) I put small flakes of hay out around the trimming area near the barn and driveway, haltered up all the boys and literally turned them loose. As hoped for, they all trotted down to those piles of hay and tucked in.I had visions of having to round up a running herd of five horses but I had nothing more to do  than walk a few steps and bring a horse over to Morgan, get the trim done, release and grab another. We were done with 5 trims in 45 minutes. Only Nick considered wandering off in search of greenery and we grabbed him first. He went back up into the paddock with his own little pile of hay when done. I was pretty happy that all the guys stuck around and calmly walked away from their hay pile, politely waited while they had their hooves made all pretty and ambled slowly back to the munching . I gathered them all up in twos and put them back, paid Morgan and sent him on his way to the next farm call.  I love being able to streamline a chore like that and I am also very proud of my sensible little band of geldings.

Weaving with Feeling

We all do that right? Pour our little hearts into the planning and warping and the weaving. Agonize over setts, tension and lets not forget color and fibers. Of course we do, whether we are knitting, quilting, painting, weaving or any other thing that we might be creating from scratch.

Yesterday I wove prayer flags and I have Sarah over at Woven Voices to thank big time for the idea. Now, she would (and did) say good ideas come from the cosmos and that's true enough, but I can directly trace my wanting to weave these right back to her, so Thank You Sarah!

For the last four days I have been writing both personal notes and letters and also prescribed prayers on fabric. Let me back up a bit, over the course of 2005-2007 I had to put 3 of my old girls to sleep; Sam, Lexie and Sammie-Bug. They are all buried in their own blankies out in a special area of our back yard. I'm not a fancy person, so they each got a cairn of stones, and I had found prayer flags with the Rainbow Bridge prayer printed on them. It soothed me at a terrible time. Now three years later, the flags really have given up everything to the wind and need to be replaced. What better way than to weave my own with my own messages to the Nuns ( none of this and none of that, they were funny old ladies that always traveled together).  The fabric I bought contained all the colors, yellow, green, red, white and blue. My warp also contained those colors in the prescribed order.

 Thoughts and words are intent and there was a lot to say to those 3 and some beautiful prayers people had sent and others I found.  Writing on fabric strips is slow

but I got it all in. The cotton strips hold my special words to them, the silk, prayers to the universe, the woven cotton shots between again in color order. The sticks are dogwood, the little medal in the middle is a Good Dog prayer ring. It would normally go on their collars. And of course, bells!

 The three special flags have been cut off the loom, there will be a few more woven on this warp, for friends. 

Along with the 3 flags you get a nice bonus shot of Pogo. It's pretty cute that every time he gets up to rearrange himself  his ears bump the bells.  We had a lot of bell ringing when these were first hung with everyone coming over for a sniff.

We will burn the old flags and put these up on an auspicious day. There won't be 5 inches of new snow on the ground, the cairns will be restacked, hopefully all the daffodils will be blooming, the sun shining and a good soft breeze will start sending all the love in these flags out.

Messin with Sasquatch Updated w/Additional Pic

Had I paid more attention when I purchased the beautiful Prism yarn, I would have realized that it was actually two yarns together. A sticky mohair and nylon carrier yarn and a very slick shiny rayon. It made for an interesting and time consuming warping process. The binder was not actually wrapped around the rayon, so keeping them even while measuring on the warping board proved challenging. Amidst mohair and insults flying it all got on the loom to be woven..eventually. I figured that while this warp could prove troublesome and end up as a dog scarf I would consider it "experimental" while on the loom. So I dragged out another something I've wanted to try to. Raw but clean Habu silk cocoons. I carefully pulled a few apart, attempting to keep the overall feel and rounded shape of the cocoons and woven them around the weft (alpaca and silk blend lace weight) as the mood struck me.

Needless to say, I was quite pleased with the result. The scarf is drapey and substantial thanks to the rayon, it has softness and a light halo due to the mohair and I love the little shiny cocoons woven in. While this was slated for the humane society I think it will be appreciated by a particularly wonderful and artsy friend and will be squirreled away until gift giving time arrives. I will make something a little more mainstream for the auction as I have no idea what people like at that event.

Sue: This second pic is for you. The really close up shots weren't worth posting.

Onto the curtains! I am sad to say my hemming job simply sucks. I dislike hand work of that nature and the iron, which wasn't working well, finally puffed it's last hot breath. It's been on the outs and I have been so uninspired to go iron shopping. So, the hems are not as even as I would like and will be redone when I get a decent iron to make a nice clean ironed hem line.

I so admire those bead and braid and do all sorts of beautiful finishes on their lovely hand wovens. It's just not me. Not once when entering any of those  3 Ashland bead stores did the siren song of a bead call to me. No way. Now someday I might feel differently and I might not. I may never get that particular call to fussy finishes. I also try not to compare my work to others. It's hard but it is also very freeing. I can love weaving and my woven pieces for what they are, the promise they show and for the enjoyment and challenge I got making them.

A word about the weather before closing. I want to know why the Rain God has decided to camp on our doorstep? As I write we are having a gully washer outside. I have more mud than I can possibly use, both in and out of the house. It is amazing what those little low riders we call dogs can bring in on their feet and bellies. They are truly earning their Grit Sponge title.  House cleaning is a futile ritual in the best of times, in these times it is sheer folly. I have but to turn around to put the bucket and mop away and in that brief moment of relaxed vigilance, someone has muddied up the floor...again. ;-) A glimmer of hope though, it looks like come Thursday we will have sun for 4 whole days!