Trampled by Geese is a reminder to myself to look at the positive side of life and to endeavour to only write about things that inspire me rather than focus on what is negative in the world. Kirkegaard once wrote, “Being trampled by geese is a slow way of dying, but being eaten to death by envy and greed is even slower and more painful”.
Distaffs (or distaves) are used for all sorts of different fibres. It's basically a third hand that holds the fibre while our other hands are busy spinning it into yarn.
Distaff Day is on the 7th of January and is the most important holiday in the spinner's calendar. Well, I say holiday, but it's actually the back-to-work day but we do it with great fun.
This year, I dressed distaves in flax fibre for spinning linen yarn.
What unexpected yarn has fallen into your life? Do you have a go-to project you love to make with found yarn or do you wait to see what the yarn says it wants to be?
About a year ago, I stumbled on some free yarn, leftovers from the now closed local mill. Talking to people who used to work there, this was part of calibrating the spinning machine, so it contains a lot of different fibres from a variety of farms. Most of them are less than a day's journey away.
So I made a thing. And I made a video about the thing. And the yarn. And deep thoughts about the yarn, fibreshed, and my personal textile history.
The most frustrating thing about recovering is trying to find momentum. But I'm working on it, building a bit more each day. Finally got into a routine with making coffee and having an hour of craft time while listening to an audiobook or lo-fi girl each morning.
Mostly I'm working on my sewing, trying to make a block pattern. This is a map of my body that I can use to make my own sewing patterns. I need this because my body is now a massively different shape and it could open a huge world of possibilities to me - and save loads of money in that I don't need to buy new patterns each time I want to make something new.
Winters here are dark. Far darker than you think for our latitude, but with the clouds, rain, and oppressive conifers hemming us in on all sides, we can go weeks needing the lights on in the house at noon.
It's also very hard on the animals. We have lights in the hen house our they forget to wake up and eat. It's always a battle to keep everyone healthy - critters and humans alike.
Basically, winters on the farm are dark. But what makes them bearable is spring and all the new life it brings.
A while back, I put an advert in the local UsedAnywhere seeking bummers. A bummer is a lamb whose mum is unable to feed it, either because the lamb is an orphan or they have too many siblings competing for limited milk supply or other reasons.
Well, I got a reply so I'm off on an adventure to meet some lambs.
It's a day trip and a ferry trip from home. But it's a lot of fun to see what's up in the Cowichan Valley. Enjoy.
Does anyone else get this obsessiveness? An idea in the head and the whole of life and cleaning house and everything cannot happen until that idea actualizes?
Just me then.
Well, I don't know where it came from but one morning I woke up needing to build a thing. I had no idea how to do it. But it infested my every waking moment.
So I made the thing and I made a video about making the thing.
It's not perfect. It's not even close. But I made it. I ate it. It was DELICIOUS!
It's amazing how much you can learn about a thing by making it out of gingerbread. It also inspired me to learn some special effects for the video.
I've always been a bit time blind, but lately, it's gotten a lot worse. I've been musing on what to do about that.
Many years ago, I had a job where we had to be on time within 10 seconds of the schedule. We had all the responsibility for making certain everything was on time and absolutely no control over the factors that caused things to be late. That kind of disconnect is demoralizing.
Not long after leaving that job, I stopped wearing a watch.
Now that I live on the farm, wearing a watch on my wrist is a fast way to destroy a watch.
Besides, the chickens don't care what fiction the watch tells us. The day begins as it gets light, and ends as it darkens. That means in the summer, my day ends at about 11pm and on Christmas Day it very seldom lasts beyond half-past two in the afternoon.
It happened there was a doctors appointment the day after Daylight Savings ended. And of course, the confusion;
"I thought you changed that clock."
"No, I thought you... any idea what the actual time is?"
Yep. The same old conversation.
I've been thinking of wearing a watch again. But a wristwatch is out. I'm resisting getting one of those smartphones. That leaves a fob watch (pocket watch).
I dug out my old fobwatch which is a cheap mechanical watch in a lovely umeboshi case that never kept the time. Now I remember I took it apart at the start of the year to find out why it was broken and if I could move noon to the 9 Oclock position. I figured out how it was broken, but I didn't have the skills to make it unbroken... and I ended up making it much worse.
My first choice would be to fix this watch. I really like this case, but I haven't been able to find replacement watch guts for it. I wish the only horologist wasn't all the way downtown as I only go there once every five years to get my drivers' licence renewed.
The second choice is to find a new mechanical (one I wind up every day as batteries only last a couple of weeks on me) watch I can love. I haven't found one in my price range yet. I will just have to wait until the time is right.
But there's also the issue of pockets.
Perhaps if I add watch pockets to all of my skirts, by the time I finish, the perfect watch will appear?
To that end, I found this awesome video on historical methods of putting watch pockets on skirts!
It's given me some good ideas I want to try.
I really like the information in her videos. The sound is a bit difficult, but the captions help.
If you like this sort of thing and want to see more of it, here are some things you can do to support me on my creative journey.
The boring obligatory bit about being away and back now. So glad that's over.
Why I left blogging?
1. It feels like monologuing. There isn't much interaction with others. Even though I'm an extreme introvert, I do need some feedback. There is something in me that is desperate to feel useful in this world. That I'm not a waste of space. I'm not cluttering up the internet with my natter.
That is why youtube is working well, I get measurable interactions. Thumbs up. Views. Quite a few comments. It's all positive reinforcement to keep on creating. That I'm adding something of (at least) moderate quality to the internet. For such a new channel, the feedback has been empowering!
2. Blogging used to be an individual, a keyboard, a journey.
Then suddenly, blogging became a business. A main source of income. And from there, popups demanding my email address, the top (odd number) best or worst whatever. Guests posts or a whole paid staff to produce/reproduce content.
That's not me.
The professional blogger has a place in this world, but I don't want to be that person.
I want to be the old-style writer, where it's a curated journal of things I find nifty in this world.
I worry that by being a blogger, I might fall into that trap. Somehow I don't think I will. At least I hope not. Although I do home to put some discrete ads on here to help fund my creativity. I'm unlikely to ask anyone for their email address - I hate writing emails.
So I've been fulfilling my need of sharing elsewhere. Forums get good feedback and keep the momentum going. Here are some of the adventures I've been up to. (hint, click "read more")
Have I forgotten you? Feel lonely? Isolated? Lost?
Yep, that was most of 2020 for me and many of my fibre friends.
When 2021 arrived, we thought "there must be something we can do to safely get together and help rebuild our fibre community." And so, the Virtual Sheep to Shawl was born.
The goal is to have fun, play with yarn and local fibre, support local farmers, and most of all, help rebuild a sense of connection while creating resources to inspire future fibre folk. That's a big goal, but a successful one I think.
Our visual component was a video. Actually, I made two because I'm silly that way. A bit of an experiment to see which works best for my youtube audience.
And here is our official submission with talking and more detailed descriptions of what we are making.
They were both a lot of fun to make. Almost as much fun as playing with my fibre friends.
If you enjoy what you see, please pop over to youtube and give a thumbs up or leave a comment or both. This helps fuel me on my journey to becoming a video creator.
If you like this sort of thing and want to see more of it, here are some things you can do to support me on my youtube journey.
I know, I'm terrible. I promised to blog for the Tour de Fleece, but it's almost over and no post. I almost feel bad about it.
Lots of spinning being done. Alpaca wool blend, 60% alpaca from my beautiful fibre boy Beau a giant rescue alpaca, and 40% wool from Salt Spring Island.
In other news, for some strange reason, I've decided I'm going to build a yurt. Still trying to figure out the details, but I set up a separate blog dedicated to my Quest for Yurt Love. I feel a bit bad starting up yet another blog when the internet is already littered with useless garbles, but maybe it will be useful for future yurt builders. I'm writing about my research, observations, evaluations, and soon my triumphs and failures.
There is also an ulterior motive to writing the Yurt Blog - I'm a person with a limited budget and a finite number of skills. I would love to make as much of this as I can myself with as environmentally friendly approach as possible, however, I'm having trouble finding the resources. Maybe someone out there might stumble on my blog and read about where I'm at. They might know someone's uncle who has a neighbour who just happens to have an excess of such and such a resource ... or there is a group of enthusiastic group of people who would love to help make giant felt cloths in return for awesome lamb feast.
Who knows, stranger things have happened.
I worry about appealing to crowdfunding so I can buy what I need. Two reasons why I don't like this - one, just buying the thing doesn't teach me anything new, and two, I don't want to beg for money without giving something back to people - but what? If I can think of some tokens I can give in thanks, and once I get a better idea of how much the whole thing will cost, then maybe I'll investigate kickstarter. But until then...
Other things going on here at the farm include saving seeds to return to the seed library, planting out winter veg, getting ready for fibrations fibre fest (which for some reason I've decided to enter as a vendor).
This lovely yarn has been hanging on my wall for a few weeks now. I'm trying to convince myself into selling it, but it's so pretty. I spun it with the intention of using it for warp. I simply fell in love with the fibre when I saw it in the shop, hand dyed by Ryan of Knotty by Nature. At roughly 40 wpi, it's very fine 2 ply yarn, strong and even, and I know it will be beautiful cloth...however, what would I use it for?
I'm trying very hard to limit my creativity to things that I can actually use or sell to fund my future sheep flock. So as much as I adore this subtle variation of purple, What can I make with roughly 800 yds that I would actually wear? I'm less than half way through spinning the fibre, so will probably have close to 2000 yds when I'm through. I'm not a shall person, so I don't have much interest in knitting with this. Weaving, like I said before, appeals. Use the bamboo silk for warp, and handspun cotton thread for weft... but then what? I'll have some ultra-gorgeous luxury fabric and nothing to do with it.
I could spin up a bunch of white silk and use this purple yarn as warp highlights, make enough fabric for a dress... but I'm not a white and purple dress kind of person.
When I look at all the angles, no matter how much I love this yarn, I just don't know what to do with it. Then I think how much I really want my new flock of sheep and how much more I want the sheep than the yarn, so I think, okay, tomorrow I'll list it for sale... but then I look at it again and think, oh that's pretty, I wonder what I could make with it.
The basement is full of fibre: alpaca, sheeps wool, all sorts of different fibres, most of them grown on my farm. It might just be time to open my etsy shop again, not just as a way of destashing (cleaning out the excess) yarn and fibre, but as an actual business, with a plan and proper name. Maybe even go to some of the fibre arts events as a vendor if I can get everything ready in time and find someone to help man the booth.
The goal is to raise enough money for a flock of sheep of my very own, and then keep making enough money to pay for their upkeep.
The first thing I want to do is to get a good name. Something inspiring and happy. I love Trampled by Geese as a blog name; however, the word 'Trampled' has a negative connotation, and if you don't know me, it might be offputting as a word in a shop name.
Some ideas I was thinking about:
Nacton Farm. This is the name of the farm I live on right now. It's small, only 5 acres, but we make the most of it. It's named in honour of my Grandfather who lives with us. It's the name of the house where he was born in the UK. The advantage of Nacton Farm is that it has the word farm in it. It also makes it part of the farm income which makes the paperwork easier and helps to pay for the animal's upkeep. The downside is when we move (a few years from now), we would have to change the name.
The other name on the short list is Zakuri Fibre Arts. Zakuri is the name of an old Japanese tool used for reeling silk. Since I hope to be raising native silk moths soon, I'll be using a zakuri on a regular basis. What I like best about this name is that it is fun to say. Za-ku-ri. Also, I can keep the name if/when I move. The down side is, it's not a word familiar to English speakers, the sound is fun, but strange. And people can make funny rhymes with it:
(said to the rythm of Hickory dicory dock)
Zikuri, zakuri, zock
the sheep ran over the cock
the hen crowd once
the sheep ran off
Zikuri, zakuri, zock
The first person I told the name to made this rhyme. Is it a sing this is not a good name for a shop? Or that it's a great one? I can't tell.
So what do you think would make a good name for my shop? The focus will be on locally sourced and produced fibre, handspun yarn and other textiles. With hopefully native silk - grown from a moth that lives wild around these parts.
I don't know if this venture will work or not, as things in my life have a habit of getting out of hand, what with health issues (mine own and others in the family), and other things. But I don't mind dreaming about it.
The advert called it Canned Ham! Or, more specifically, disassembled canned ham.
photo is from the add for the trailer
It looks a bit like a can of SPAM don't you think? I love it!
This is the photo from the add and what it use to look like! 'Every kind of animal save humans' lived in the trailer as it sat in the farmer's field for 30plus years.
Here's what the add had to say:
THIS IS A GREAT PROJECT FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN A VINTAGE CANNED HAM. THIS 1955 CALIFORNIA TRAVELEZE TRAILER HAS BEEN DISASSEMBLED AND IS READY TO REBUILD. THE PHOTOS SHOW THE SHAPE AND PROFILE OF THE TRAILER "BEFORE" IT WAS SLOWLY DISMANTLED. DOWN TO THE STEEL CHASSIS. THE CHASSIS HAS BEEN REINFORCED WITH EXTRA GUSSETS, SANDBLASTED AND SEALED WITH A DURABLE EPOXY FINISH . THE SPRINGS HAVE ALSO BEEN PROFESSIONALLY REBUILT. THE ORIGINAL ALUMINUM SKIN HAS BEEN SAVED AS HAVE THE RIMS, TIRES, WINDOWS, MISC ELECTRICAL PARTS. THE INTERIOR WAS TOO FAR GONE SO NEW WALLS WERE FRAMED UP TO IDENTICALLY MATCH THE ORIGINALS. THIS IS A PROJECT BUT NOT ONE I'LL BE FINISHING. I HAVE A HUGE NUMBER OF PHOTOS TO ASSIST YOU IN THE RECONSTRUCTION AS WELL AS ALL THE REMAINING PARTS THAT WERE STILL USEFUL.
It May seem challenging but it is exactly what I need. Due to my allergies (both food and environmental) travelling is virtually impossible. I'm allergic to the cleaning chemicals used in hotels and have to cook everything myself. Finding a place to sleep that has few chemicals, good airflow and a kitchen is impossible with my budget.
Likewise, most RVs and Travel Trailers are either new and full of manufacturing chemicals or used and full of cleaners, mould, &c. What I really need is a shell that can be stripped down and reassembled. Thank I can rebuild it and make it mine!
The add said it was in pieces... well, um...
The chassi has been reinforced, sand blasted and sealed with the sort of stuff you use on chassis. Everything to build (um rebuild) the trailer shell is there, but non of the innards. He's even built an entirely new frame from pine.
Believe it or not, that's exactly the condition that I need it to be in. Especially if one considers some of the changes I would like to make. I have most of the skills I need to put it back together and furnish it, I've just never put them together in one project before! How exciting!
Because of the fragile nature of the aluminium siding, I have ordered a large cube van rental for Wednesday when it comes home. I'm so nervous waiting so long to bring it home, but there is a tone of things that need doing here before we can make room for it.
So, full of nervous excitement. Can't barely sleep. Wonder if one can buy tatami mats in Canada and if so, are they light weight or heavy?
ANYONE out there know of any groups I can pester with questions about my trailer rebuild? I would really like to find original schematics or floor plan for this trailer.
My goals - my crafting, fibre arts goals that is - for the rest of this year look like this at the moment.
Spring
polish my etsy shop (especially banner, feel of shop, policies and profile). Get it established so that it can just sort of continue on at a moderate pace.
Wash and process fibre like mad. Maybe acquire a few more fleeces if something special comes along, but otherwise work through my stash.
Mostly work on the farm
Summer
Participate in the Tour de Fleece
Try and find some people for an indigo-a-long, either online or here in town. Really want to dye with indigo, but nervous about doing it on my own.
Play with some natural dyeing - whatever plants and such I can find around the farm.
Wash fleece like never before. Fleece dries quickly in the warm weather.
Spin like a mad woman
Fall
Spin yarns to sell in the local fibre arts shop: Knotty by Nature.
Participate in Fibrations
re-join the local Handweaving and handspinning guild, I let my membership lax due to health issues this year.
Winter
Learn to use my knitting machine!
spin away those long winter nights.
All this is subject to change of course. What are your fibre goals for this year?
Yes, it's a real yurt. It arrives Sunday and I have no idea what it's going to be like.
But I found the perfect place in the yard - aka, the warmest place in the yard overnight - for it to go.
I'm actually really worried about moving out of the house. Don't know if it's just for a week, but more likely two or more. Moving into the car (leaks/leeks?) or into a tent (summer tent) were not exactly plans that filled me with confidence. If you saw how heavy the frost was last night, you would understand.
Lucky for me, my mentor OB1 - the totally awesome person who taught me how to spin - has a yurt! The awesomeness is unending when it comes to OB1.
This makes me feel much better about the whole thing, and a little excited. I mean, YURT! How cool is that?
In a yurt I won't feel so bad moving in (out?) with the frogs, raccoons and wild geese. Definitely brining my camera.
I'm so pleased and it turned out far better than I expected.
I rather like writing zines. They are like an overly opinionated version of my blog, but longer and with drawings.
Usually, I try to limit my blog entries to 800 words. It's not easy, but 800 words tends to be sufficient to convey one compete idea. It's not enough for tutorials, and I quite like writing tutorials. A zine can have a great deal more words which gives me the freedom I need to go into more detail.
I also have a rather in-depth obsession with household management topics. Lately one of the provincial maid service providers asked me to write about cleaning with natural products. I didn't think they expected it to be so long.
When writing it, I realized (or possibly remembered) how easy it is to write about something I'm passionate about.
I see more zines in my future. In fact, I'm over half way finished the text for one about hand washing fabric, yarn and stuff. I didn't get much sleep last night.
For my first zine, Growing Plants from Scrap, I deliberately choose a subject that isn't too opinionated. I wanted to get my toes wet without stepping on anyone else's. I can't make that promise in the future.
Looking at all the other lovely zines online, I am reminded of Elizabeth Zimmerman and the knitting newsletter she use to produce. Elizabeth Zimmerman, that patron saint of knitting in the round, please guide my fingers as they fly across my keyboard and help me reach people in need of household management advice.
The fountain pen is not what makes this project steam punk. It's just there because I have trouble writing with a ball point.
This is a diagram of what I originally thought my mystery project would look like.
Okay, no I don't mean it's going to 'look like' as a final finished project. There's a lot of aesthetic elements I want to add. By look like, I mean this is how my brain thinks of electrical stuff. My brain wants to think of Section 'A' being the 'power in' section this same brain wants to think about it as being almost completely isolated from section 'B', the 'power out' section. Now I'm beginning to wonder if these two halfs are really that disconnected.
I am beginning to understand that there needs to be lines to indicate how these items connect together and items that go in between what I've drawn here. I am learning, albeit far slower than I use to learn new things. I'm beginning to realize just how much damage my illness did to my brain. Oh well, I'll keep worrying away at it until the neurons start making good pathways and I can see things clearly.
Sharing this diagram with you does not diminish the mystery of my mystery (increasingly steampunk) project. Lots of people have made things like this, like that cool system of how to use your bike to charge a battery that can run electronics that Natalie linked to in yesterday's comments. It's the aesthetics and materials that I hope to use that will make this project steampunkish and unique. As there is no coal or steam involved, it's hard to know if it will fit squally into steampunk but then again, neither does putting a brass pipe and some cogs on a USB drive (not that I'm saying anything against putting brass pipes and cogs on a USB drive - quite the contrary, I would love one of those, but I have to sell some more yarn first).
Yesterday was extremely rainy, so very little farming got done.
Instead, I spun a bit of yarn. This is creamy Corriedale I spun thick and thin, plyed with a very fine merino, 2ply yarn by Habu.
I'm really please with how it turned out. The muted orange contrasts the cream of the Corriedale beautifully. I'll put the yarn for sale in my shop just as soon as I can get some better photos of it.
In other news, the mystery project continues. I acquired this device that reads volts, amps and other electrical related things. Only thing is, I don't know how to read the dial.
Um... please help. I need to figure this out before I move on to the next step of my mystery project.
I use to be a totally awesome computer nerd! Don't let the yarn and treadle sewing machines fool you, I was totally into digital. But that was back in the day, when the world was younger and DOS was totally awesome. Then there was QBasic, then VBasic, then plus, plus, plus language, and then HTML. But the thing that really lost me was Java. It was horrible when it first came out. But that is a story for another day.
Over time, I lost my mad computer skills. Sure I can blog, and download photos from my camra, but to be honest, I can't do much else. I don't even know which of these programs to use to edit a picture.
And I really need to edit a picture.
My etsy shop needs a new banner. It needs to be 760 x 100 pixels.
This is what I would like it to look like:
Only, I wish it could look more professional. Anyone out there smart enough to help me out?
Oh, and here are some photos of the local geese is you need reminding of what they look like. It doesn't have to be a Canadian goose, I just don't know how to draw any other kind.
I'm really enjoying getting my etsy shop up and running (even if no one comes to visit me - pouts).
Coming to the realization that I have way more yarn related items than I could possibly use in my lifetime, has actually given me a new lease on yarn. I'm going through some of my best fibre and hand spun and putting it up for sale. Re wind the yarn, double checking I have the correct length. Washing fibre. Making labels. All this fills me with new motivation to get spinning again!
So I'm both encouraged and sad to put my hard work up for sale. (between you and me, I think I'll cry if someone ever buys this ultra fine lace weight Sheltand 2 ply yarn. But I'll get over it - I know how to make more!)
And now for the secrete sale code I promised you about.
If you make a purchase from my etsy shop in this month (March 2012) and include in the comment field one of the magic words below, I will include one either:
IWANTYARN032012 -One random oz of hand spun yarn, natural colours - may be all the same yarn, or a variety.
OR
IWANTSURIFIBRE032012 - one oz of Suri alpaca fibre (as seen here) from my beautiful fibre boy Major Brown
This prize is only for you special blog readers (and anyone you tell end up telling about it). Only one per purchase. Expires the end of this month. Must enter code at checkout.
At the very least, I hope some of you pop by and see what I've put up for sale. Any questions, please let me know.
And now I'm off wash and pick some more suri fibre! I might even get the combs out!
The most exciting thing happened to me yesterday: My Victorian Corset making kit arrived from Farthingales. It has the Laughing Moon Victorian corset pattern and everything I need to make it including fabric and bones and other stuff. I am super-excited about making this.
Farthingales added a little note with the kit with some suggestions. The kit itself is for the Dore version of the corset (the pattern has two different styles of corset in it and a whole range of sizes) and it is suggested that I use this kit as a starting point to learn how to make a corset and how to alter the pattern if necessary.
Apparently the Dore is easiest to make, but I think that the other corset, the Silverado is more what I need for my body type. Given that I want this to be for support rather than shrinkage, I am tempted to make the Silverado, but then again, this is a project for learning and I think both patterns will do the job.
The fabric included in the kit is true corset fabric. A tight herringbone cotton called Coutil. This is very strong and has virtually no give to it which will be perfect.
The fabric is also very white. There is a definitely need for decoration.
I was thinking that I might add some flossing to the corset. Flossing is not only very pretty embroidery, it also helps to strengthen the fabric at the tips of the bones so that the bones don't wear holes and start poking. Here are some exciting examples of flossing.
I wonder at what stage of corset making do I floss my fabric?
Sigh... As much as I want to get started, that's all plans for the future. Right now I'm working away at my very first sewing job. A local shop has very kindly given me the contract to sew the cloth bags for their store. They will then either paint, stamp, silk screen, or all of the above, their logo on the bags.
Isn't it wonderful when a local business gives the work to local craftspeople instead of ordering from some multinational corporation? Well I think they are just the cat's meow. Now back to my sewing machine. When I get these bags done than I can take some time and sew for myself.
