It's soooo HOT!!!

We had two lovely days in the mid 80's.  A cool breeze made it so pleasant in the early morning.  The house cooled off inside and life was bearable.

Yesterday the heat came back!  I decided to sweat it out (literally!) and go to the hook-in at Grant Street.  Yes, it was a/c'd and the fan was running. 

I haven't been very attentive to taking pictures lately, so went with all good intentions of shooting some good ones.  Doris is working on the most amazing large rug with colorful flowers and leaves.  I wanted to make sure I got some close-ups of the shading.

I forgot to ask Doris, but I think the shading is done with dip dyed strips.  Aren't the colors great?

Just as I finished up taking these picture, my camera gives me the happy little message 'please recharge battery'.  So much for lots of pictures!!!

We had a new young person working on her first hooked project that she designed herself.  Her name (I think) is Jessica and she is in the tenth grade.  She has drawn up a design with seashells and will be doing her background in a lovely mottled blue and white, sky and sea.  Maybe next time I can get a picture of her work.

We also had a visitor from Winchester, VA who came for the first time.  Jane, I hope you come back and join us again!

Darn, this isn't any fun without pictures!  They sure are worth a thousand words!!!

But I do have a few kitty pictures.  (You knew I would)

Penny is climbing the window screen in pursuit of a fly.  By the time these kids are adults the screens will be shredded!

And look!  I just printed out a cute little Isabell.

Deiter is HOT!!!  But why would he be sleeping in the tent instead of in front of the fan???

As I am typing it is starting to thunder. 

Oh, good!  Here comes the rain!  I hope it cools things off.

You can see how thirsty our grass has been getting.

Aaaaah!!!  Water! 

The Rural Life

Every year our small community has a Rural Life Festival sponsored by the United Methodist Church.

The focus is to celebrate our farm life heritage through demonstrations of traditional skills.  This is a community unifying event, with people of different faiths and ways of living working together to share their knowledge.  Old time farming methods, sheep shearing, herding with dogs, milking a cow, making butter and homemade bread, spinning, quilting, and woodworking were domonstrated.

So park your buggy in a shady place before the parking lot gets full, and let's see what's going on!

This is the McCormick reaper.  Maybe you remember from school that Cyrus McCormick invented this machine way back when and revolutionized the cutting of grain.  Before the reaper, all grain had to be cut by hand with a scythe.

Making the final adjestments before taking to the field.

The grain then needs to be gathered onto the wagon and hauled in to be threshed.  The men are preparing to hitch the horses to the wagon.



And off to the field we go.

Next is the plowing demonstration.  Three different types of plows were demonstrated:  the horse drawn, the tractor with iron sheels and the tractor with rubber tires.  All were equally effective.

Snazzy machine!!!

While the men are working away in the field, the women are baking bread in the oven of the cookstove, doing the milking and making butter.

The bread table was quite popular. 

No electricity or gas with this stove.  Your fuel is right there in the bucket!  Thank goodness there was a nice breeze blowing.  It gets awfully hot working with a woodstove.

The Amish men and women are preparing chicken to put on their large portable grill.  Zip says it's some of his favorite barbequed chicken.

Zip was my roving reporter for the day.  He didn't get pictures of the milking or sheep shearing. 
He liked the alpaccas!

And the working sheep dogs.  These guys are amazing!!!  They are so intensely focused on their task.

He listens to whistles and watches the body language of the shepherd while keeping his eye on the sheep at the same time!

After the sheep are sheared, the wool is cleaned and the spinners take over.

These women are members of the South Cumberland Fiber Guild which meets at the Shippensburg Public Library the 3rd Saturday of the month.  They are all very good spinners, some are knitters and weavers also.

Check out all the different styles of spinning wheel.  Oh, would anyone like a bottle of water???

This is Jim, a long-time friend and expert traditional cabinetmaker.  He made the lovely child's high chair to the right.

Here is his beautiful table with a few smaller items on display.  The little wooden boxes have tiny carved animals knobs on their lids. 

 Rides in horse drawn and tractor pulled wagons were offered.  There didn't seem to be empty seats!

It's been a long day!  Come on, Zip, hitch up the buggy.  Let's head home.

It's All About Kittens...

A Wonderful Gift from Aunt Joanne
Last Thursday Mom went to the hook-in and brought home a gift for us kitties.  Aunt Joanne (Snippets and Scraps of My Mind) has kitties too and knows how much we appreciate fun toys.
Deiter was inside before Mom could even get out her camera!  Look at that fat behind!!!

Deet and I had lots of fun jumping in and out and on top of the tent.  We rolled it over a few times too!

Tippy got inside while Deiter and I were taking a rest.  She's wondering why we had so much fun and she's just sitting in there by herself.  Tipper is not as friendly as Deiter.  She hisses at me!!!  I don't think I'm ready to play with her!

We love our tent!  Thank You, Aunt Joanne!!!

What I do all Day
There are so many things for a kitten to get into!  I'm never bored!
Today Mom was doing some sewing.  That was fun!  I like the way the needle goes up and down real fast.  I'm hiding back here so I can pounce on it.

Mom says, NO!  NO! that can hurt you!!!  Rats, I thought it looked like fun!
I can play with the scissors instead.

Mom put me down on the floor to play with mousie-on-a-string instead.  Mousie is more fun if you can tangle him around some chair legs.

Once in a while I lay still for a few minutes in Mom's favorite chair.

But not for long!  More string to play with!  Oh, I'm so darn cute!  hehe!

Dad likes to hold me, but I'm awfully wiggly because I have places to go and things to do.

And finally I have to recharge my kitty batteries with a little nap.  I thought I heard Mom say something about 'leaving sleeping kittens lie'...

A Baby Sister
Mom and Dad decided I need a companion to grow up with.  They went to Mom's friend Diane's and brought home Isabell. 

Izzy is two weeks younger than I am and was kind of shy at first.  She likes to play with Mom's shoes.

Yesterday we both had a trip to the vet.  Both of us have had our FeLuke tests so we are free to play together.  Are we ever going to have fun!

We have been chasing each other all over the downstairs of our new home. 
Oh NO!  Here we are on Mom's computer desk!

We were pretty good to begin with, but we can't resist batting at each other.  Biting tails is fair game too!

And here we are having a snack together.  We have to eat to keep our energy!!!

So long for now, Penny ...and Izzy!

Wool Preparation

There was a question in the 'comments' from my last post about preparing wool for rughooking.

Patsy from 'Soap by Patsy' said she hadn't rughooked for many years but recently bought some wool skirts and wanted to know how to prepare them.  Do you use hot water or cold?  Dryer or hang them on the line?

I'm going to tell what I have done when I used recycled wool and also what I now do since I only use yard goods.  Disclaimer:  I am by no means an expert on this!  To tell the truth, Zip is the washing machine operator.  He usually does the wool. 

When I used recycled wool, the first thing is to NOT bring them in the house until you are ready to wash them.  If you already have a stash of wool, any moths or eggs that may (or may not) be in the clothing could contaminate your good wool.  Take them directly to the washing machine! 

From here on the directions are for either recycled or yard goods:

I use regular detergent and warm water.  If you have a 'soak' setting on your machine you can use it.  Or just turn off the machine after it's full and let the clothing soak manually.  Then turn on the agitation cycle to 'gentle' and wash for the shortest time possible.  You don't want to totally felt your wool!  Then rinse in warm also.

Then Zip uses the dryer on it's regular cycle with a dryer sheet.  It takes from 45 minutes to an hour to dry wool in ours.  Sometimes when I'm overdying and have only a small amount to dry, I hang it outside.  But the big benefit of putting the wool in the dryer is that it comes out so nice and fluffy!

Once again I will talk about the fiber content of recycled 'wool'.  If you have a cutter and do not want to dull the blades, you should be using fabric that is at least 85% wool.  How do you know?  You can check the tags, but they are not always accurate and sometimes missing altogether.   

Do a 'burn test'.  Take some threads from an edge and light them with a match.  If the burnt residue is ash that you can rub between your fingers, it's a natural fiber.  If there are little hard balls of black plastic, you have a synthetic.

If you don't mind using synthetics or other alternative hooking materials (this has been a big discussion lately!), they can be cut with scissors or a rotary cutter and pad to save the blades of your wool cuter.

A note on taking apart jackets and coats.  There is much more easily usable fabric in skirst and pants, but sometimes it's hard to resist a lovely wool jacket.  Interfacing can be hard to remove.  Picking it off in small pieces is labor intensive to say the least!  Most of the interfacings were applied with heat.  It is easier to unstick them if you iron over them and try to pull them off while still hot.

I know there are MANY ways to prepare wool for hooking.  Please feel free to add your thoughts or methods you use in the 'comments'.

The tiny picture is another little peek at my Forest Secrets challenge rug.  The shading is some of my dip dyed wool.  The picture part of the rug is finished.  I have half of the background to do yet.  Can't wait till the end of July when we can show them!

Happy hooking, everyone!

What!  No cat pictures???

Next time....