Duo Fiberworks

Highest bidder

2010-07-25T14:00:07Z

This past Saturday was another Berea College Surplus auction. I know we've mentioned our compulsion to attend this event in the past. Much of the furniture in my house was bought at previous auctions... We got there early to scope it out. At first, I didn't really see anything I wanted:

I was looking for a little table that I could trim the legs of to make a kid sized table for the upcoming year's homeschooling. I thought one of these would be perfect:

I got out bid.

Then I saw a tangle of chairs that made my stomach lurch (in a good way):

Why yes, these are vintage Herman Miller designed by Charles and Ray Eames. They aren't in perfect condition, but totally fixable. Katie and I stayed at the auction till the sweat dripping end, waiting for these. During the afternoon, we realized another woman was also very interested in the chairs. I proposed we have one of us bid on the lot, and then divide up the chairs between us. This is how I was the sole bidder, and the one to call out "one dollar each!" when the auctioneer asked what somebody would give. I also bought a group of 4 of these earlier in the day, so we ended up with 18 chairs for $21. What an incredible deal, it may be our best ever!

When I got home and was looking up replacement parts, I came across a great post at plastolux on how to restore one of these chairs. I'll definitely be referring to it soon.

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2010-07-25T12:43:24Z

Friday was my mother in law Teresa's 60th birthday, obviously a party was in order. In preparation Katie and I baked 96 cupcakes-half carrot cake and half chocolate- with cream cheese icing.

Gift wise, I finally finished the little embroidery piece with Carina's lovely pattern, (check out her etsy shop here.)

(I didn't follow the pattern exactly, what fun would that be? I also added the "Take Joy".)

Friends, neighbors and family came with potluck dishes in tow, and the swimming, fishing, eating, birthday partying lasted till the moon was bright. What a fun night!

More Oven inspiration

2010-07-23T13:12:43Z

I'm still thinking about our trip to PA and Landis Valley museum, a living-history type Pennsylvania Dutch Village outside of Lancaster. We had the opportunity to visit and besides seeing the beautiful horses and great old buildings, it was a fun surprise to see some baking ovens!

Here's the first one I spotted. There were scraps of paper and spiderwebs inside so I figured that it didn't get used much at all. Later, my mom talked with one of the "villagers" and she said that this oven is the least efficient of all three on the grounds. But we could smell good smells, so we knew that there was baking going on somewhere....

Farther on down the trail, next to a little log cabin, I spotted another oven. I went close to get a photo of the cool inside bricks and immediately was hit by a wave of heat! This was the baking oven that was in use. Behind me was the fresh bread that had just been taken out of the oven.

I like that peel, I need to make one for my oven. Then, behind the tavern, there was the last oven to see-

What a great baking set up, with dry wood, work space, a roof and good tools. It was great to see these functional ovens still being used and enjoyed.

Hey! I made a shirt

2010-07-20T12:09:32Z

Back in March, when we went to NYC and visited Purl, I bought some fabric. Just 2 yards of beautiful, sheer and silky, Anna Maria Horner designed goodness.

(Oh, and a purl calendar...)

I washed it as soon as I got home, thinking I'd make something right away. This has not happened, it has sat prettily on my shelf for months. Well, until the other day when I stumbled upon Anna Maria's recent blog post. Using some of the same print I bought, she whipped up a sweet little dress. I only had 1 yard, but figured I could adapt the pattern and make a shirt. It took me a bit more than then the one hour (ahem) she made hers in, but, it was an easy, enjoyable project, and last night I was able to wear it to our weekly stitching group.

(I altered her directions in a minor way-I don't have much elastic sewing experience, so I made a casing for the 3 rows of elastic, it seemed less scary than sewing on elastic while you are streching it to fit. I never feel totally successful with elastic when doing it that way.)

Stuck on Spoons

2010-07-19T12:46:51Z

I haven't been doing much crafting at all lately but when I work on something, I work on more spoons. Before I show my new spoon progress, I wanted to show the finished spoon I made for Abby and Josh. See here for the spoon-making process.

When I got to PA for the wedding (told you it was last minute!) I did the final clean-up carving and sanded the spoon smooth. I carved in their initials and oiled the spoon with walnut oil. It really soaked up the oil over several days, so I kept adding oil until it didn't absorb any more.

Then the spoon was done.

I didn't get any with my hands in the photo, but this is one big spoon- almost like a ladle. I think it will be great for serving soups and stews. It was my first time carving anything decorative into the surface, I was fairly pleased with how that carving turned out- it's tricky to carve like that!

See how the bowl is resting flat but the handle is twisted towards you? The spoon has a bit of a twist in it, but it's perfect for left-handed use, which works out well because Abby is left-handed.

It is very light and the bowl is thin but not too thin. I think I could have refined the shape of the handle a bit more, but eventually I had to call it "done." The elm finished nicer than I anticipated, and it was supremely satisfying to go from tree to spoon using only hand tools. I hope Abby and Josh get a lot of use out of it.

Before we left my parents' farm in Pennsylvania, my dad and I cut down a large sucker from a birch tree by their pond and the chain saw and chop saw came in very handy there. It was fun to work with my dad, here's the tree after we cut the sucker out- there's still lots of tree left!

With a trash bag full of spoon blanks and wood chunks, we headed home to Kentucky. The birch is really nice to carve even when it's dry, it feels like money in the bank to have a bunch of it around.

Yesterday I finished a little spoon that I made from a piece of that birch- it's for me!

Michael teases me because I eat soup with a teaspoon, I don't like big soup spoons. This spoon is small and perfect. Avery was really hoping the spoon was for him, so I will probably make one for him next.

If you haven't had too much spoon talk already, take a look at the lovely spoons at Peter Follansbee's blog. I wonder if I will ever have a rack of spoons that I have carved for my family. I hope so!

Cooking in the Earth Oven

2010-07-14T15:57:23Z

We are back home and settled in, though I can't say all our trip laundry is put away... Even though the oven is waiting for its final coat of plaster, I was hoping to try out the oven as soon as we got back. On this past hot and sticky Friday I decided to try to fire it up for the first time. I scraped out the coals too soon though and it was not hot enough to really cook pizza well. I did manage a couple loaves of bread and some roasted veges, but I could tell that we hadn't let the oven fire long enough.

Sunday was cooler, in the low 80s, so Michael fired up the earth oven in the morning. He kept feeding it fallen tree branches and old pallet wood for a good 3-4 hours as I tidied up the backyard and planted some new plants. It was fun to watch the fire.

The oven got super-hot, but pizza was our goal, so that's what we needed. We scraped out the coals after Laura's family arrived with pizza toppings and in the process burned clear through both the wheels on our Weber grill. Otherwise, the grill worked great for catching the ashes. It was intense to be working so close to something so hot- but I had good boots and leather gloves, so that helped.

Then I set up a little workstation by the oven (need to build a little counter soon!) and made pizza.

We made 5 all together- 2 white, 1 regular, 1 regular with roasted veges and 2 pesto-

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to slide the pizzas into the oven, I don't have a peel yet but used a cookie sheet.

Laura helped with ferrying the cooked pizzas into the house and onto everyone's plates, it would have been really hard to do all the steps myself, it was great to have a whole team- from Michael doing the fire building to Laura's cooking help.

The first couple pizzas cooked in 5 minutes or so, then the last pizza took about 12 minutes. I put a pot of beans in to cook overnight, the oven was still warm in the morning when I took them out. - A very satisfying start to using the oven!

pink ink

2010-07-05T16:00:55Z

We love the children's book author Steven Caney. Katie and I grew up with Kids' America, (it is also heartily enjoyed by our boys):

Despite the stressful cover photo, (Stressful for me, maybe innocuous for you) this book is awesome. It is stuffed with tons of American history and activities-how to make old fashioned food, clothes, and toys. My favorite-deciphering hobo sign language.

Finding blackberry vines in our new yard inspired us to try the berry ink from Kids' America.

Push 1/2 cup berries through the side of a strainer. (We used a tea strainer)

Add 1/2 ts salt and 1/2 ts vinegar.

Add a tablespoon or two of water if the ink seems too thick.

Apply to paper! Now, the book shows you how to make wooden pens and quill pens. We used newfangled store bought paint brushes with great success.

My experience with dying fabric with natural dyes leads me to assume this ink/paint will eventually fade to brown, but for now it is pink!

Every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be

2010-07-04T16:00:00Z

Getting reoriented to life in Kentucky after our trip to my parents is proving difficult. It is always hard for me to leave Pennsylvania. On top of that, we are in an odd time of transition as we wait for our house to sell. It would be much nicer stay away and not think about things like our budget with a mortgage payment and rent, or what we are going to do with all the junk in our sheds...Anyway a few things eased my transition this week. Being just around the corner from one of my favorite places in the world:

Finding a bag of yard sale goodies I bought the day before we left and promptly forgot about, including a handful of cotton bandanas from Japan and a precious box of tiny origami paper:

Going out to our house to mow and check on things and finding one of my all time favorite plants in full bloom:

(This is Meadow Rue, I don't know its Latin name. It prefers part sun/ part shade and grows to be taller than I am with masses of these nodding violet and yellow flowers. The foliage is similar to columbine. I have it in a foundation planting with hostas and the combination is perfect...)

Finally this week has been frekishly cool for Kentucky in the summer. Nighttime lows of 50 degrees?! No humidity! It is a wonder what this kind of weather perfection can do for my mental state!

Then comes marriage

2010-07-03T15:06:46Z

Well, I am reluctantly back from Pennsylvania. Abby and Josh's wedding was idyllic. From the food to the band everything was perfect. My parents have spent months cleaning out their barn for this event. We got there early to help with the final scrub down:

I set my camera down during the rehearsal the night before and didn't think to pick it up again until the whole thing was over. It is just as well, Allison Conklin, a photographer friend of Abby and Josh did a stellar job documenting the day. Check out her photos here. (Really, you must.)

On the down side, a yucky stomach bug hit just about our entire family. We all made it through the ceremony and reception, but sickness did rule out my usual favorite thrifting and eating haunts!

Despite the bug, I'm glad we all got to spend so much time together preparing for the wedding and celebrating the big day.

Earth oven- almost done!

2010-06-21T17:49:45Z

Though it's been oppressively hot for the last couple weeks, our backyard is shady, so I have been able to keep chipping away at the earth oven project. Laura came over a couple times and helped me mix cob and apply it to the oven. It's definitely more fun to work together!

I am so pleased to have made so much progress in the last week. This morning I carved out a door and scooped out the sand form. It was really cool to see the perfect dome-shaped void left after the sand was removed.

I still need to add a coat or two of plaster, but here's what the oven looks like so far-

And here's a bad, flash shot of the interior- the newspaper was laid on the sand form to avoid carving into the cob wall when removing the sand. It will burn off. Also, there are firebricks under the sand, I still need to clean all the sand out of the interior. The oven interior is 27" in diameter and 17" tall- big!

After reading and researching so much about these ovens, I can't believe I have one in my yard now. It was a big project and a lot of work to gather the materials, but it's also been supremely satisfying and rewarding. I am hoping that it will dry when we are in Pennsylvania for my sister's wedding, then when we come home it will be pizza time!