Rug-Making Workshop

This weekend I attended a rug-making workshop at Legacy Lane Fibre Mill in Sussex, New Brunswick.  The majority of rug-making events in my part of the world are about rug-hooking, which is a technique in which wool fabric strips or yarns are pulled in little loops through a backing in order to make a rug with a particular design.  I have tried rug-hooking, but it's not something I do very often.  My weekend workshop was a completely different type of rug-making technique based on felting. 

We used very bulky corespun yarn (spun at the mill) in our rugs - it was about the diameter of one of my fingers - so really thick yarn!  Before the workshop, we had to choose colours that we would like in our yarn.  I chose turquoise, blue and grey.  The yarn is made by wrapping fibre around a 4-ply wool core.  The colours slowly change through the skein.  We had to get the yarn wet and then we created spiral circles with the yarn on the surface of a large felting machine.  Each participant had a space of about 2 by 3 feet on the table.  I didn't take any pictures during the process of making the spirals, but here you can see the felting table surface.

After making our spirals, alpaca/wool batting was placed on top of the spirals to form the rug base.  The felting table has a large, heavy top, which is closed to squeeze out all the water and to begin agitation of the wool, which starts the fulling process.  Fulling is a step before felting, during which the fibres begin to lock together.  After 10 minutes on the felting machine, the lid is lifted and you can see here the backing fibre which has been compressed and fulled against the spirals.  Twp rugs fit on the press.

The rugs were then transferred in a 'sausage roll' format into a spin dryer.  They did a normal spin cycle in an old top-loading spin-dryer before being put outside in the sun to dry.  Fortunately it was a beautifully sunny day with some good wind to get the rugs drying quickly.  Here's my rug along with another one when it first came out of the dryer.  You can see how the spirals adhere to the backing felt, but at this point, with a little effort, you could have pulled it apart.

While the rugs were drying, we learned how to do blanket stitch on a small sample rug, since our rugs will eventually be blanket-stitched all the way around to keep the edges nice and sturdy.  The resident mill cat, Cookie, supervised from her own blanket throne, although she did do some sleeping on the job!

After the rugs were mostly dry, we had to cut them roughly around the edges before they could go into the needle felting machine.  The needle felter pokes hundreds of felting needles into the surface of the rug, and as it felts, the rug begins to shrink a bit.  Keeping the edges wide ensures that the shrinking doesn't go too far.

The rugs get passed through the felting machine ten times in total - five times per side.  Each time you put it into the machine, you vary the angle so that the needles don't always go in exactly the same place.  Here's a couple of rugs being fed into the needle felter.

Here's mine coming out the other side after one of the passes.  The needles compact the wool each time, making the colours more vibrant on each pass.

After the ten passes through the felter, the rug is ready for final trimming, which is done much more closely to the edges of the spirals.  The last step will be blanket stitching the edges, which I haven't yet done. 

All the rugs were beautiful.  This one looks like it belongs in a spa.

Lots of pretty colours.

Some prior rugs we were shown as examples demonstrate how you can use just natural fleece colours if you wish, like this one from 100% alpaca. You can see the blanket stitching on this one.

Here's my final rug at home, with my foot in the picture for scale.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and I think I'll use it in the bedroom or bathroom.  It's so soft on the feet!

Freshly Fledged

Here's a really quick blog post in the midst of busy times - I just had to share!

This morning I awoke to the hairy woodpecker making quite a racket outside my bedroom window.  He's not usually that vocal and I wondered what was up.  I watched him for a while and nobody was chasing him or causing any distress that I could see.  Then I wondered....does he have a baby out there?

I went out quietly to let the chickens out as usual, and sure enough, the woodpecker was still there, chirping loudly at something.  I ventured closer (the male hairy woodpecker lets me get very close when he's on the feeder so I wasn't too concerned).  Sure enough, there on the ground was his wee son, all wet and bedraggled. 

I used the zoom lens so as not to disturb him too much.

After watching Dad feed him a few times, I moved him, because I'm worried about the neighbor's cat.  I put him to a higher location, up on the post where I keep my clothespins and weather station components. 

I continued to watch Dad bring him insects.

Learning to climb is tricky for young woodpeckers!

"Dad!  Dad!  What did you bring me?"

"Yum!  Thanks Dad!"

I hope he learns to get up off the ground quickly and go on to live a long, insect-fuelled life!

The past week, abbreviated

It has been a busy week with my work projects ramping up again, and lots of hours spent at my desk.  Here's a quick synopsis of the past week though, mostly from last weekend.

I did some new raccoon proofing of my bird feeders, because I was tired of this (my picture from 2017, we don't have leaves out here, yet!):

The seeds were disappearing at a great rate and the poles I had in place were often bent, which was getting very frustrating. I had a regular raccoon problem with several visitors - caught groups of up to 6 of them feasting some nights. I determined that my baffles on the shorter feeder poles weren't working in some cases because the raccoons could grab the undersides of hanging feeders.

So, I bought a metal ground spike for a 4x4 post, and a 7-foot long 4x4 post. I installed the post using the spike, and then slid 3 lengths of stove pipe over it. I used the 7 inch circumference pipe in 2-foot lengths. I read that some raccoons have successfully climbed 6 inch circumference pipe, so I decided 7 inch would be best. After the pipe was in place, I had a foot of the post exposed at the top, to which I added cross-pieces to hang the feeders, with little grooves for the hangers to keep them in place in the wind.

It's been a week and no more raccoons. My seed is lasting much longer, my feeders aren't getting dragged into the woods, and the birds are happy. I do still have one pole with my original baffle that has my tray feeder. I think it doesn't hang low enough for the raccoon to grab it, so the stove-pipe baffle is still effective on that post.

Speaking of bird feeders, the number of birds over the past week has been incredible. I've routinely had at least 15 American goldfinches at the feeders, with several purple finches, juncos, pine siskins, blue jays, grackles, mourning doves, and white throated sparrows as well. It's been very busy for them. I also have a pair of robins who started to build a nest under my eaves but the bits blew down in the wind so they may choose somewhere else.

Here are some synchronized goldfinch feeding team tryouts.

The female goldfinch is impressed, I think.

A whole lot of pine siskins with goldfinches in the background.

My running class took place on Tuesday and Thursday. I didn't go on Tuesday because it was snowing. Sometimes I really dislike our climate! More spring already! I went on the elliptical machine in the basement instead.

I did go on Thursday, even though it was raining. Marginally better than snow.

Our running takes place in the Sackville Waterfowl Park, but I can't take my camera for the runs, so I made another visit to the park with the camera last weekend. I was pretty excited to see a common gallinule, which is not at all common for this area. Here he is peeking out of the rushes.

All the way out!  Look at the colour of his legs - so vivid!

A lovely treat to see this unusual visitor.

This coming weekend is a long weekend here in Canada, but it looks like it will be raining for most of it. I'd like to get out in the garden soon but it's been really cold, and we had a frost warning yesterday, so it's too soon for most things. Fingers crossed it will warm up soon.

Saturday Morning Walk

My second "couch to 5K" session on Thursday wasn't too bad.  I didn't get drenched with rain, which was the best part.  I'm still the second slowest of the group, but that's OK I guess.  We did walk-one-minute-jog-20-seconds for the full length of our trail, which wasn't too bad, although by the end of it, my chest was feeling a bit tight and I was definitely out of breath.  I hope that will improve.

This morning I went for a more leisurely walk in the Sackville Waterfowl Park, which is one of my favourite places to be.  It's a beautiful park and so many birds make it their home - I feel really lucky to be so close to it.  This morning there were vast numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers (formerly named Myrtle Warblers) all over the park.  They're so cute and quite bold, so I can get relatively close to them.  I took a lot of photos, but they just captivate me.  I really liked this shot with the cattails from last year, even though he's not looking my way. 

The perfect little models, they are!

Imagine this one with a Scottish accent, saying "Och...the wind's blowin' up me kilt!"

 
Lady, can I have a little modesty here?  Please?

There are also Palm Warblers around - it's so good to see them again now that spring is finally here.

I love their little rusty coloured "hats."

A good number of sparrows are also out and about.  Some are bold and others are more shy. Here's a song sparrow—and they do have a lovely song!

This is the back end of a swamp sparrow who was being really reticent about having his picture taken, so I had to take him in two halves!

Peek-a-boo!  The front end of the swamp sparrow.

This one is a Savannah sparrow.

Of course, none of those birds are waterfowl.  Here's an actual waterfowl—a green-winged teal.

I'll leave you with a whole series of tree swallow photographs, because I couldn't decide which ones to share.  They were being especially helpful with posing today! 

 
This one sat for a while just a few feet from me on the boardwalk railing.

There are houses on posts in the lake that they prefer for their nest boxes.

 

Some of them have a more distinct dark chest spot.

I think this one is my favourite shot - it's a swallow pretending to be a small, grumpy penguin.

Couch to 5K

I recently signed up for a recreation program here in my town called "Couch to 5K," which is a learn to run program for sedentary folks, like me.  I signed up for several reasons:

1. I'm a bit of a slug.  I don't leave slime trails, and I do have a sit-stand desk, but I still sit for a lot of time every day, and all my hobbies are seated, so I feel it's important for me to try to get more exercise. 
2. I turned 50 recently, which sort of makes you think about your health and your overall fitness level perhaps a bit more than you did before.
3. I could stand to lose a few pounds, like 50 or so, and sitting isn't accomplishing that.
4. I looked at the picture of a former "couch to 5K" class and there were people who were clearly even less fit than me, so I figured I would not be the worst of the bunch, and that was, admittedly, somewhat encouraging.
5. It's good for me to get out and do things, because I tend to be a hermit.

So, I was pleased this morning when I woke up to a lovely, sunny day.  "Good," I thought to myself, "this will be a good day for my running program."  As the day progressed, there was a bit of a breeze, and I lay in my new hammock for a few minutes around lunchtime and thought about how that was a good thing, because it would be nice to have a bit of a breeze when running, in case I got a bit hot.

I planned my supper early so that I wasn't too full to go to the class, which started at 6 pm.  When I was eating, I noticed it was clouding over a bit, and I thought to myself "Well, that's OK, because it won't be too hot." (not that it was particularly hot in the first place, but one tries to see the bright side). 

So  I put on a light jacket of a sort of velour type fabric and headed out. I drove into town and went to the park where we were meeting, and I noticed on my way that it was quite a bit chillier than it had been and that there was quite a wind now.  "Well, that's OK," I thought "because I'll be warm as we are running or trying to run, and the cooler air will feel nice."  (bright side...but slightly less bright than earlier)

We met the young, exuberant and bouncy instructor, who is a 3rd year kinesiology student and I would be willing to put money on the fact that she has never in her life felt overweight, arthritic, uncoordinated, or slug-like.  I look around at the other people and realize that... oh dear, maybe I actually am the worst of the bunch.  I listened to the instructor do her spiel and tell us our route today, which was going to be mostly walking, because it was the first day.  I thought to myself, I can still do this.  So we head out onto the path that goes to the Fundy trail and it was right around that point that I felt the first raindrop.

Off we go, down the trail, with Ms. Exuberance giving us helpful tips about running, which I'm sure were helpful, but the sound of about 20 people's feet on gravel is noisy, and the wind is really quite blustery by this point, which made it hard enough to hear her because we're all in a sort of jumbled pack, and then, of course, the skies opened and the rain began in earnest.  So there I was, puttering along, shivering in the cold wind, drenched to the skin because velour-type jackets are not waterproof nor warm when wet, not hearing much, and thinking about how amazingly appealing my reclining chair would be at that moment, with a nice warm blanket and a bit of knitting and a hot cocoa.  

So our half hour walk (with a tiny bit of a jog in the middle) was essentially a wind and water bath and I arrived back at my car looking like a drowned rat (drowned slug?) and feeling utterly miserable.  Don't get me wrong, I'll still go back on Thursday.  It's twice a week for eight weeks, which is supposed to be enough to form a habit out of it.  But on Thursday, I'll bring my parka, my umbrella, a box of tissues, galoshes, and a personal flotation device, just in case. 

Not an auspicious start to my exercise program, but at least I did it.  

A few improvements

I am in a brief lull between major projects at the moment, so I have taken some time to make a few improvements for the summer season.  First of all, I purchased and assembled a handy plant stand that I plan to use for hardening off my transplants before I put them in the raised beds.  It has 4 shelves so there is plenty of room for me to use.

The entire stand is covered with a reinforced covering that has 2 zippers down the front.  You can roll up the middle section to have access to the shelves, and then close it to give them extra protection overnight.  I'm sure it will be useful at other times of the year as well.  I will probably bring it inside over the winter and use it in the basement as added storage space for garden pots and such.

The next improvement I put in place was to construct some pea and bean frames for vining peas and beans.  They aren't exactly works of art, but they serve their purpose! 

I used 2x4 lumber for the uprights and 1x3 for the cross supports.  I used deck screws to attach the cross pieces to the upright frames and sandwiched the netting in between.  Now I have great vertical space for my peas and beans.  I actually planted some peas as well.  It's early, but they can be sown as soon as the soil can be worked. 

My contractor and general construction guy brought new soil this past weekend to fill the raised beds back up to the top, since they had subsided a lot over the last season and then the winter.  Now they are ready to go.  I had planned on using some of our own compost pile but it isn't well composted enough yet.  Next year. 

Then, I needed to think about outdoor relaxation, so my final improvement was to assemble this fabulous double hammock on a deck stand.  The instructions were fairly simple and although it said you should have two people to assemble it, I managed just fine by myself.  The slightly hair-raising part was when I had to balance the overhead cover supports on my head when putting in the first screws.  Fortunately, I have a hard head and a decent sense of balance, so I managed to get it done quite quickly. 

I have already had a couple of rest sessions on the hammock.  It does take a wee bit of coordination to get in and out of it, but I'm getting the hang of it.  I think this will be a lovely treat during the warmer weather.  I do plan to get a mosquito net for it.

Soon the weather will allow me to re-plant my deck containers and hanging baskets and then deck will be ready for summer.  I can't wait to get the raised beds growing again!