still more fitness and doggie - with flowers

1.2 km - Thursday

3.0 km - Friday - doggie was psycho, weather was fantastic

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No walk on saturday. We went to Oakridge Acres Fall Farm Day, and spent a ton in the store. Thoka went along for the car ride, but it was too busy there to let him out.

In the afternoon, we had friends over to build a bead furnace and they brought Bella. Bella exhausted Thoka, and vice versa.




Neil found building a bead furnace to be physically challenging, and Karen's only excuse is pretty marginal in that her sinuses are trying to kill her.

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We did a ton of housecleaning today.

2.5 km tonight. Thoka was relatively well behaved. Or I was channeling Ceasar Millan. Can't figure out which.

Karen

Bogenschutzenfest, the pottery, handspun on the loom!

This is one of my favourite pieces from the clay firing. It started out as a bowl, and collapsed, and turned into a small vase.



We made our yearly usual appearance at Bogenschutzenfest. I love this event. I don't really know why.



Maybe it's the archery, maybe it's the silly factor. You see, there's this styrofoam bird on top of flag pole..... and the bar opens halfway through the day.



On a more serious note, I have finally decided to weave with my handspun.



There it is, in mid-warp. I'm holding my breath. It's scary.



Karen

Trillium War, making beads, garden

So... we're on the eve of taking off for two weeks in Iceland, and I'm trying not freak out about not being packed properly or leaving a clean enough house for the house/dog sitter. I've decided to blog about the past few weeks instead. Just to take my mind off of it for a bit.

By the by, I'll be blogging from Iceland whenever the spirit moves me, and we have internet access.

Back at the beginning of July, we went to an SCA event called the War of the Trilliums. As is becoming usual for this event, Neil made a bead furnace and invited anyone who wandered by to try their hand at making beads.

This is the furnace.....



And these are some of the beads that people made.....



We got 1/3rd breakage rate - 12.5 beads broke, and 25 survived. That's a definite improvement over the years, but it's still pretty high. And those that do survive are often pockmarked with ash in the process. I don't think we have the hang of Norse bead making yet, but it's fun trying. :)

Our friend Steve gave us this fellow to take to Iceland with us - Snorri is the suggested name. I've called him Snorri Steveson in the Icelandic fashion. At Trillium War, he was guarding our camp.



Coming home to the garden, we have some lovely astilbes in bloom - they are shade plants.



The cosmos and the clematis are still in full bloom.



We had so much fun with working beads at Trillium War and managed to take the furnace home intact that we decided to do it again a week later with a smaller crowd so that we could test a few things - reheating an already existing furnace, and videotaping the tesserae method.

This is a still from the tesserae method of making beads. Rob is just lifting one of the tesserae pieces from a piece of flat new charcoal and starting to wind it around the mandrel. There's more information on the bead making process on DARC's bead pages and on DARC's blog.



This is a delightfully composed and poorly shot (it's not in focus!) picture of the beads that I made. One survived whole and one didn't - it's in the background in two pieces.

Last week and this week

Okay, I'm behind on last week's photos and getting ahead of this week's photos.

Chokecherry blooms and house - I really like the depth of field. I can't remember whether this is one of the wedding trees or not. I think so.



Okay....the weekend before last, we headed off on a new adventure in Peterborough. A friend arranged to have her teacher give a private class in wheel thrown pottery and a grand time was had by all!

This is the very first thing I've ever thrown on a wheel! It's not yet dry or even trimmed in this photo. It's a little lopsided.

But I love it. I loved throwing pottery! I came home from the weekend and started looking for classes/studio time here in town.



These are the hubby's hands doing his own thing.



We came home from the weekend to the neighbour, with a large branch of the maple that's just over the property line on her side down in her driveway. Close inspection proves it was a lightening strick! Neil volunteered to chain saw it and take it away. He's a sweetie sometimes. Or very politely deranged. Your choice.

And two fence sections torn out by the wind. Shame that isn't as easy to fix as a bit of chainsaw activity.

But on the bright side... two days away and I swear all the plants grew six inches!

First tulip of the season! (Don't worry, there will be many many more.)



Yellow Primrose....



Apricot blossoms with the church steeple in the background..... again, a beautiful depth of field.



And just for fun - my new view at work! After 18 years...... I finally have a window!

More on making Skyr at home

But first, a recap - here's a summary of all previous posts that mention Skyr, including the recipe that I'm working from, and previous results.

We get our skyr shipped from a small grocery store in Arborg, Manitoba, by the name of Palsson's. As far as we know, it's the only place in Canada that makes and sells the stuff. They make it in their dairy section.

When I have it, I keep trying to make some more. I just tried again yesterday - draining the results tonight.

*sigh* Let's just say I don't have the hang of it yet. 4 quarts of milk reduced to approximately 2.5 cups of something that only vaguely resembles sky and tastes ...... Neil kindly says "not bad". I didn't like it.

New stuff, by request

I've gotten poked by two friends. Vandy sent me email reminding me that I'd promised to put up some commments on Neil's recent bead explorations, and Nina left a comment kicking me to post up about my experience with spinning lessons.

So let's do this chronologically then and I'll throw in a visit to Peterborough as well.

First there was Neil's bead furnace experiment. He's finishing up his degree in archaeology at Wilfrid Laurier University and one of his courses asked for students to actually _do_ something in an historical manner. Neil made a bead furnace and made beads.



Neil made the furnace by himself, but needed an extra set of hands for the bead making so I pitched in.



Very ugly beads, eh? :)

His paper is replicated on the Dark Ages Recreation Company webpage, here.

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Later that same month we visited Peterborough to take in the Vikings exhibit at the Peterborough Centennial Museum. A friend of ours was the lead curator for this exhibit.




Our friend called upon DARC to donate some of our re-creations to supplement the exhibition, to make a simple panel presentation more 3 dimensional. That's Neil's shield in the picture.

But more importantly to me, is the loom that Dave made for his wife Anne, and then borrowed back for the exhibition.



I greatly admire Anne's disciplined approach to study and recreation in the Viking Era textiles. Look at the fabric she's getting here...




Now, she's all modest and doesn't think much of it, but I think it's great! I have trouble just getting started with the weaving.

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The most recent development has been that I've started taking lessons from Wellington Fibres. Specifically, in how to spin on a spinning wheel. My friend Vandy loaned me her Ashford Traditional more then a year ago, and I've been trying to teach myself off and on. I finally came to the conclusion that it just wasn't working.

Ability with a drop spindle doesn't seem to translate that easily.

Now, I realize that I still need to make some progress in consistency but I was pleased as punch when I made my first plyed yarn on the wheel.



Three skeins later, I'm a little more annoyed by the slow progress and a tad worried about how badly overspun my singles are. It makes plying very difficult. Let's just say that plying from a center pull ball is an exercise in frustration that I'd prefer not to repeat very often.



This past saturday was Dye day! Look at the pretty colours we got!



Now, these are all acid dyes and I doubt I'll repeat the experience very often unless I can visit the shop another day to hand paint some more skeins. I just don't have the equipment or space at home to handle acid dyes safely or comfortably. But that's okay, I'm good with natural dyes over the fire, like the Vikings did.

Now, this skein I'm pretty happy with. Very thin as a single, I could almost use it as sewing thread. Plyed, I don't really know what to do with it, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.



It's very pretty - 75% wool, and 25% acid dyed green mohair. Vikings didn't know what mohair was, but I certainly enjoyed spinning it.

Of course, they hadn't yet been introduced to the spinning wheel either (even though some version of it had existed in China at the time), but I'm sure they would have enjoyed it's production value if they had had it. :)

I've been busy

I made these...



... and yes, I am absurdly proud of myself.

Well, okay, I didn't actually _make_ the metal, but I did shape it. Hot metal, hammers, brute force. :)

Our friend Darrell, who is a blacksmith, opened his shop to some of his friends this past weekend, taught us the basics and set us free.

Neil made a Viking Era arrowhead replica. It's still unfinished.

Marcus made a knife. Sarah made a knife and a twisty Viking Era fry pan. Richard made two tools for gouging wood. Nancy also made S-hooks. Other stuff was made as well, but I only caught bits and pieces. The shop was very busy.

Darrell also teaches Blacksmithing courses. Go check out his website for more info.

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We finally got the front lawn leveled sufficiently and seeded. I think at this point, we're leaving the back yard damage until the spring and throwing money at it then.

Must get the spring bulbs in this week, and clean up the driveway so the snowblower guy can do his thing without impediment this winter.

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Some catch-up, upon rereading old posts:

I got busy, and neglected the green tomatoes. They turned red and I used them in the usual manner - pasta sauces. I feel most humbly lazy in the face of Anti-V's energetic posting of Green Tomato recipes on her blog for me.

The Verilux "Rise and Shine" light alarm clock. It's now been several weeks since we bought it and I promised a review.

It's OK.

The light bulb that came with it died relatively quickly, and replacements are quite expensive. I hope that isn't a normal thing for the life of the bulb. There's a strange 'whiney' noise that occurs when the lamp is first coming on....it can be quite annoying. And the time/setting display is quite bright, even on it's dimmest setting, and that can be kind of annoying.

But....

It's way better to wake up to then the jarring radio alarm. It's so much gentler. I don't wake up suddenly and swear at the lack of light outside anymore. It seems to gently and gradually push me toward wakefulness and when I open my eyes, I'm ready for it.

I'm not feeling particularly well rested... but I'm not feeling like my alarm has violently assaulted my senses anymore. And that's a good thing.


Karen

Kingdom Arts and Sciences

Clearly, I need to get out more.

There were lots and lots of wonderful entries at this year's Kingdom of Ealdormere Arts and Sciences Fair. They call it a Fair now, and not a Competition like they used to do, but there's still a large element of competition in the air. I certainly felt it.

The interesting thing is that after a full day of talking about my entries, and some lovely compliments on my weaving - I actually feel like finishing the piece that has been languishing on the loom for the past year.

Anyway, without further ado then, my entries:

Naalbinded socks. Naalbinding = Viking Era handcraft, similiar to knitting and crocheting, both of which were invented several centuries later.


Indigo dyed, combed and handspun from the fleece, skein of yarn.


This weaving, is a 2/2 twill, in progress....


....on this warp-weighted loom.



And some of these beads. They're made with modern lampwork techniques but they are very similiar in shape, size and design to Norse Viking-Era beads.

I also want to start making beads again. It's been awhile.

Karen

And I thought a day off would be restful

Silly me.

Okay, so I slept in until 8am (which is still an ungodly hour but better then the usual 6:30am), and had a leisurely breakfast of christmas candy, fruit and toast. But then I've spent the next few hours engaged not in the craftiness that flitted across my mind in the bath, but instead....
....housecleaning.

By the end of the day, I was having a mini little crisis of faith - so much to do, so little time.

There's still more housekeeping to do - I had to give up at some point - but I really need to get to work on my entries for the Kingdom Arts and Sciences Fair this weekend. For those of you not in the know, that's the big deal once a year for the historically minded crafty people who hang about with the strange people of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Which I do, so I guess that makes me strange as well as historically crafty. :)

So anyway, I have five entries, across 3 categories, which qualifies me for the Pentathlon - a special category for the truly exuberant among us. But I'm not entering Pentathlon until I'm better at what I'm doing. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, tempered by the reality of imperfection.

If I'm not making sense, it's the headache that won't go away.

My 5 entries then, because that was the point of the previous paragraph after all:
- a skein of yarn (dyed in the fleece, combed and spun on a drop spindle)
- my work-in-progress on the warp-weighted loom (which I've otherwise been ignoring for months now)
- a string of glass beads
- naalbinded socks
- and for display only, a book of dye samples

Pictures will come someday.

Karen

the weekend

Saturday - boring, cloudy, raining on and off. Hence, very little gardening. So, I made beads instead. Glass beads - gas torch, melting glass. You get the drift. Neil gave me the glass and setup for Christmas this past year, and it was the great occupier during January and February. I made dozens of wonderful beads and then when spring started arriving, I got busy or sick and just started letting it fall by the way-side.

So it was very good to pick up the glass for a few hours again. But I think I've lost whatever talent I briefly had. I need to get back into it more often, to keep my hand practised. I made six beads this saturday, and only one of them is reasonably pretty.

Sunday - mix of overcast and sunny. Reasonable temperatures. So... back to the garden.

We are almost done. Almost. Well, at least this year's major plans. And not including the ever-ongoing weeding.

We need another 4 or 5 yards of mulch to finish the new garden area. But it goes quickly when we do it. Neil did the part I was dreading - pulling out the creeping charlie where it's broken through the earlier batch of newspaper/mulch barrier and reinforcing it.

I planted a few more annuals and some new tomato plants that I hope will take this time. I took a page from Mark Cullen's book on Ontario Gardening, and planted them directly in sheep manure. Maybe this bunch won't die like the others.

But I still didn't get the lawn done. The ground was too wet to mow most of the day. Actually, it might have been fine in the evening, but I was too zonked by then.

After we cleaned up last night, Neil and I took a walk around and discussed next year's plans. :) There's another whole bunch of fence line garden in the shady area that I don't venture in very often because the mosquitos are so prolific there. But it needs some major weeding, mostly of creeping charlie, some new plants, some mulching, some gravelling, and some delineation between it and the grass.

And the lawn desperately needs professionals to aerate, weed, restore the sparse areas, even out the bumpiness and kill monster ant hills. My puny amateur efforts just aren't suceeding.

There's more flowers in bloom so expect more pictures later in the week. Maybe my ugly beads will find themselves on film as well. Or maybe not. One never can tell.

Karen