Wet Weekend

Thursday was Opening Day of the Rainy Season here on the Oregon Coast. The rain started late in the afternoon and has continued, with high winds, thunder, lightning and hail, most every minute since. We were able to finish up some outside chores before the deluge and so are snug inside, fire in the stove and a stack of DVD's to watch while spinning. The dogs surround my chair, the cat mews imperiously from the desk and a paper sack full of carded Romney awaits.

Happy weekend!

Yes, this is still a Fiber Blog!

I haven't forgotten the original purpose of this here blog ;-) I actually made some yarn. Two batches of yarn, but they are both white, one slightly fuzzier than the other, and neither photographs well, so you'll have to take my word for it. One batch is Corridale from prepared pencil roving. It's dense and about sport weight, smooth (like you would expect) and has taken me about 3 years to spin up the 3 pounds I bought from a friend. (Elaine - are you still around?) The other batch is (IIRC) a lovely Shetland, white with strands of black here and there. Also about sport weight, but with a lot more air in the yarn. Lovely stuff for hats and neck warmers.

I've started hand carding the Romney for Dory-Man's sweater and it's next on the Spinning To-Do List. Now that we've made the switch back to "regular" time, the evenings get dark sooner - perfect for spinning beside a roaring fire and dreaming of knitting projects to come.

My first Mockery Sock is done past the heel turn. The heel flap and turn was all the Fiber Stuff I did on the Very Long trip North. It's not easy knitting something so fine in the Big Truck! I'll get back to them soon and will post snaps another day.

The Cold Water Wash is going fine for the Coopworth. I've changed the water twice now and I think it's as clean as it will ever get. The forecast is for more rain starting Thursday, so I will try to get the wool inside today and start another batch. It's a great method if you need to wash small amounts and aren't in a big hurry. Detailed post to follow...

Shearing is almost done for the next 12 weeks. Whew! Seems like I'm always shearing or getting ready to shear or trying to find a place to stash all the Angora baggies. I've listed some for sale in The Shop. I have bags and bags more, so if you're interested in getting your hands in some Very Nice Angora fiber, take a look or drop me a note (catmccall at gmail dot com) and let's make a deal! I would be very open to a trade if you have more stash than cash - don't be shy! A little bit of lovely Angora goes a long way and once you try some you won't be able to resist getting more ;-)

Changing the topic - we have ditched our Credo cell phones. While we've been very happy with the service and the helpful people at tech support, the fact that we don't have coverage at home has become a huge problem. Rather than carry on with a 2-year contract with another provider, we went with Net Ten pay-as-you-go phones. We actually get a signal at home! So, if the only number you have for me is a cell number, drop me an e-mail and I'll update you with the land line number. The new cell phones will be emergency/travel phones only. Not that anyone ever calls...

All Hallows Tradition on the Yaquina River

Dory-Man and I went rowing the Good Little Skiff Paku down the Yaquina River with a flood tide on All Hallows Day.

Dory-Man took a video of me rowing -


Rowing on the Yaquina from doryman on Vimeo.

He makes it look much easier, though -


Yaquina River Run-off from doryman on Vimeo.

I have a lot to learn about rhythm and pacing myself!

The water was smooth as glass (much like last year) and the sky was clear of rain, making for some lovely reflection shots -

We've had some heavy rains so most of the leaves were gone from the trees, but a few remained -

 
Of course I took some snaps of the big red barn -

 

I love the silhouette of bare branches against the sky -

 

I long for a better camera! These photos just don't capture the beauty of that day.

We've started our own All Hallows Day tradition. There's no place I'd rather be than with Dory-Man in his element - a wooden boat on a beautiful river. This may be the last trip for Paku  this Season, but maybe we'll get lucky...

Port Townsend Messabout

Friday dawned wet. Buckets of rain were falling from the sky in a never-slackening torrent. Loading the truck became problematic as we searched about for a solution to keep the dogs dry in their kennels on the back of the flatbed. The sky looked foreboding and we almost called the whole thing off, but we trusted Laingdon's weather forecast for Saturday and headed North into a gale.

Six hours later we were snug with friends in Olympia where the rain had stopped an hour or so before our arrival. The dogs were totally dry - seems the kennels just fit into the lee of the cab and they were happy enough. A run in the fenced horse arena and they were ready for a long nap.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, crisp but not too chilly. Back in the truck to travel another two hours to Fort Worden Park in beautiful Port Townsend, Washington.

We were so glad we decided to come -

The weather was perfect with enough of a breeze to make the sailors happy, but not so much that the rowboats couldn't go out. There were a total of 14 boats on the water -

A great slide show can be found at Dory-Man's blog.

Every boat there was just gorgeous, and every one of them got out on the water - no lookie-do this event! Everyone was there to show off their boats and try out the others.

Our "host" Laingdon sailing by the pier in Sparrow -

 Our other "host" Tom Regan, who seemed to be everywhere at once -

Tom built several of the boats at the event and each one is a beauty!

This guy refused to get out of the frame until I took his picture -

Of course Lamb Chop got her moment in the sun -

Before and After pictures of Lamb Chop later this week - she deserves a post of her own.

We're still pretty tired here and trying to catch up on all of the things that had to slide to get ready for such a long trip. Company tomorrow and then life should settle down a bit and I can post about all the other happenings going on at the Rockin' Red Rabbit Ranch.

She Swims!

Lamb Chop got wet for the first time in maybe 20 years late this afternoon. Dory-Man asked me if I'd like to be the first to row her out into the Yaquina River and what a treat it was!

She's come a long way in two short weeks. Dory-Man has been working night and day to get the weathered wood sanded down, oiled and painted, and she's a beauty! She's not finished by any means, but we're taking her to a gathering of wooden boat enthusiasts in Port Townsend, Washington this weekend.

Before and After pictures, as well as some under sail (weather permitting) next week.

Have a great weekend!

The Ditty Bag, Part One

A few months ago I posted a teaser about an Insane Project that I was embarking on, but I didn't name it or describe why I thought it was insane. Now is the time to unveil this hand sewing project. Some time ago Dory-Man bought this book -

The Sailmaker's Apprentice describes how to design and construct a traditional sail using both canvas and synthetic materials with many hand sewn details. As an introduction to the techniques used in traditional sailmaking Emiliano takes the reader through a tutorial making a Ditty Bag which sailors used to hold all of the supplies and tools for sailmaking and repair. Having no shortage of canvas scraps laying around and wanting to learn a bit of history, I embarked upon the journey to owning my own ditty bag and set of tools.

The finished bag will look something like this -

First, I had to gather the tools. Needles were rather easy - eBay had what I needed: triangular sail needles. They came from the Old Stock of a defunct sailmaking supply shop. They are steel, which means they rust without some oiling or an airtight container. What a pain that must have been for mariners! A green scrubby was added to the bag to clean the needles before each use. Steel wool will rust in a maritime climate, so it had to be plastic.


A sail palm was next on the list and proved much harder to find in my size. I'm still on the hunt for an old metal sail palm thimble so I can make a palm that will fit my small hand. What I'm using now was cut down from a Man's size to fit my small hand and it's not all that comfortable. The white plastic part *should* be rawhide.

Canvas scraps from the stash, a sharp pair of scissors, a fid and rubber mallet, assorted types of thread and beeswax round out the necessary supplies. My borrowed fid is part of a folding knife that Dory-Man has had for years. I long for a set of lignum vitae fids, one small, one large. Some day...

Rather than try to measure out a pattern I drew one up in AutoCAD (total geekery - I know!) using the sketch in the book. I envisioned some fancy embroidery on the bottom of the bag, but it didn't happen. I did add a series of three outside pockets.

::I have to take issue with some of Emiliano's instructions. I realize that the needles and stitches used to make a sail are rather large and it's a good idea to practice with the tools you will actually use, but I can't believe that traditional mariners would have made *anything* so sloppily unless they were just learning. They spent so much time with their "slops" and fancy embroidery projects that are still in museums today - they must have had a certain measure of pride in their sewing and wouldn't have tolerated sloppy sewing, even in such a necessary accessory as a ditty bag. I'm following the instructions on this bag (big surprise!) but I'll be making another that will be much neater and more in scale::

The cutting is rather clever, leaving selvage edges at the top where they will be exposed and not ravel.

First step is to sew the side seam (good info, easy seam, folded and sewn so no raw edges peek out.) This is the stage where I added the outside pockets, nice and tall, with a simple bone button and leather string to hold them shut. The top edge is folded over a piping cord to give it a firmer edge and stitched several times. Three vertical "seams" separate the pockets and hold them firmly to the main bag body.

The round bottom is sewn on next. Emiliano says that the raw edges won't matter on the bottom of such a small project as a ditty bag and not to worry about raveling. I think not! The bottom will get the most wear (I made mine double thick) and with tools inside the bag, constantly rubbing on the raw edges, it seems to me that a hole would be worn right at the seam - very hard to repair. A bag with a hole in the bottom is useless, no? So I cut a strip of the blue canvas, which is a bit thinner than the tan, and folded it like bias tape and applied it to the raw edges. Nice and neat!

The top is folded over and stitched in place. I really hate the looks of this seam. It could be so much neater, but the object is to learn a certain stitch and it's certainly perfect for that.

Reinforcing patches come next, and they were a total PITA to apply according to instructions. I used a thinner thread and smaller needle than recommended at this stage because I was getting frustrated with the *huge* stitches and holes in the fabric. I just can't leave a design alone.

Eyelets are made by hand from "tarred marline," eight in all. Not an easy task - these guys are *small* - the size of a penny.

And this is where it stands today. I have the bag, tools and instructions in one of those baskets that you see at all of the knitting events, the kind that can be reshaped by wetting it down, and will take it along on our road trip to Port Townsend, Washington next weekend. Maybe we'll have time to do a bit of shopping for sailmaking tools...

Mockery Socks

Autumn is here and it's time to get back to serious sock knitting. I have several skeins of Opal or Opal-like yarns that have marinated in the stash for years because knitting fine yarn with teeny-tiny needles bores me to tears. I've tried to buy socks that are similar in thickness, but it always ends badly and I long to have my handknit thin socks once again. I'm kicking myself for tossing several pairs that had holes in the toes, but there's no going back...

So I took a little tour around Ravelry to see if there was a simple, almost mindless pattern for Opal-type yarns that would hold my interest long enough to get a pair of socks knit and I found Mockery (Ravelry link) by Katie Grady. The pattern is subtle, the working of said pattern is simple and not quite mindless, and so far they are coming right along - I'm knitting on the heel flap of the first sock after only 10 days of very little (time-wise) of knitting. Dory-Man and I have a very long car trip coming up and we'll be taking the Big Truck so he will be driving and I'll be knitting and sewing in the passenger seat. I just love uninterrupted knitting time!

Something New...

There's a new addition to the Boat Shed, this cute little skiff called a Sheep Boat -

Designed by Pete Culler and built by Stephen Webster here on the Oregon Coast circa 1980, she's 10'-6" long and 4'6" wide and was built to be a tender for his schooner, Ruben. The story goes that she got trapped between the big boat and the dock and was crushed some years ago and Steve was heartbroken about the accident. He had her repaired and then let her sit in the Toledo museum for who knows how many years. Dory- Man claims that he first saw her there and wanted a boat like her even then, and while that may be the *true* story according to the "facts," I will assert for the purposes of this here blog that I saw her outside Steve's boat yard on the day we launched Sweet Sixteen right before the Toledo Wooden Boat Show. Dory-Man was preoccupied with getting the thistle mast up and preparing her for the sling (always a tense moment for a restored boat that has not been in the water for some years) while I was free to wander around taking pictures and admiring the boats sitting "on the hard" awaiting repairs or new bottom paint. I took a bunch of pictures and then asked Dory-Man if he knew about the cute little lapstrake boat over there. He asked Steve about it and negotiations began.

Pete calls her a wherry yawlboat and she's nearly identical to a boat designed for the caretakers of Nashawena Island, Massachusetts. Quoting from Pete, "The topography of Nashawena is such that there is much pasture land ending at high steep sand cliffs, which slide down to a narrow beach. A large flock of sheep is kept on the island and left to roam freely. It seems that in their grazing near the sand cliffs, the sheep have a tendency to lose their footing and slide down to the beach. Or so the story goes. The yawlboat was designed to rescue the sheep and bring them to higher ground. Because of this, the boat has come to be known as the "sheep boat."

I don't know how much of the story can be believed, but it sure seems to connect my Wool Thing with Dory-Man's Boat Thing in a lovely way even though coyotes greatly reduced the number of sheep living on the island and now the owners, the Forbes family, raise Scotch Highland cattle on the island.

I won't pretend to understand all of the technical jargon or the fact that the name is a bit misleading. I just really like the looks of this little boat. It's wide, so it will be slow, but that also means that it will be stable and hold a lot of stuff.

She uses a sprit rig (technical info to be found, as always, on Dory-Man's blog) and a hand sewn canvas sail. Dory-Man said that it would be bad form to iron the sail before the photo op and that the wrinkles will work out in the first hour or so of sailing. I hope he's right, 'cause it looks pretty sloppy right now!

She has a bit of damage still to repair which will mean a lot of sanding, patching, painting and oiling, but we're going to get enough paint on her to get her in the water and perhaps take her to a boat gathering in a couple of weeks. Ambitious? Yes, but she's so pretty and if we're going to try her out before the Rainy Season we'll have to get on it right away.

Anyone recognize this blogger taking pictures?

I really want to call her Lamb Chop...

Washing Day

Dory-Man: "That dog needs a bath," pointing at Sabu, who is laying spread-eagled on the rug.

Me: "She is rather dirty, isn't she?"

DM: "She's the color of a whore's bedsheets."

Me: Blink. Blink.

DM: "She doesn't smell any better, either."

Me: "And you know this how?"

DM: "Oh, you know, I'm just supposing..."

Here's proof that Sabu is, on occasion, sparkly clean and white -

She's quite the farm dog, not concerned about her appearance. She likes to roll around in the dirt and in any smelly, disgusting thing she can find. Joy. I'm thinking of giving her a major haircut before Mud Season arrives, which will be any minute now...

The Next Project...

Dory-Man has requested a sweater. Not just any sweater, but a handspun sweater. Be still my beating heart! I knit him a sweater a few years ago and he loved it, but the yarn was not a good choice (my bad!) and the arms stretched out (I shortened them) the lower hem rolled (I added some fancy overcasting with contrasting yarn) and the neck kept shrinking smaller and smaller so he has to tug on it occasionally to be comfortable. The whole thing came out a bit large so I tried my best to shrink it down a bit, but the yarn would not cooperate. Too bad I didn't make any notes about what yarn I used...

Anyway. He wears his sweater all the time, but it's not looking its best and it's time for a new one.

I recently acquired some fleece from a friend in The Valley that is a lovely shade of dark brown. I've washed a bit of it and hand carded enough for a sample. I only hope it wants to be a nice lofty yarn that will work for the pattern, which will be the Brooks sweater from The Opinionated Knitter by Elizabeth Zimmermann. I loved knitting the first sweater (it took only 2 1/2 weeks!) and anticipate the next will be equally enjoyable.

More info soon...