I am back!

It has been a very long time since I wrote anything on this blog, hasn't it. Life has been busy here at Pine Ridge Handwovens. First of all I had four new goat kids born. I kept two and sold two. This is Ailen. Our son named him. It is Irish for handsome. It is a good name don't you think? I always wanted a red headed, blue eyed child! Not exactly thinking goat when I wished that.

I was thinking I wanted a small loom for traveling. I chose the Schacht Cricket ten inch. Other than a tape loom I had not woven on a rigid heddle loom. I am not disappointed. This loom is very easy to warp and weave on and is the perfect travel loom. I highly recommend it. I have woven many scarves on it and recently cut off 20 mugs rugs. I have woven with rayon, cotton and wool and it is a great little loom!

Here are some scarves I have woven on the Cricket.

Well that is all I have for today. I hope I have not lost my readers by my long absence. Have a wonderful day!

Linda

The mowers are here!

These guys are terrific. I had them come three days this week. They come at the spur of the moment and I don't have to pay them. How good is that? They are always in a good mood and never grumble. When they have had enough they walk back home all by themselves. All I have to do is shut the gate.

I don't have a true farm. The animals are kept on a lot next to our home. They have pretty much eaten everything over there and with the drought things didn't grow back up like they should.  What I usually do is rotate them. Today they are in the back yard. I purposely let things grow so that the animals can eat it.

Isn't it wonderful how Max never leaves their sides? I am constantly amazed with this breed of dog. He is big and gentle. Unless you are a coyote, that is!

I have been working on place mats this week. I don't have a picture but I wove four yesterday. I can't believe it is August already. The next show is in two months!

Linda

National Harbor

Another place we visited was the National Harbor. You can read about it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Harbor,_Maryland It was filled with shops, restaurants and at least one hotel. There is a small beach area there with sand and a sculpture of a bearded man. I thought he looked like Posidon.

Unusual, isn't it? There were children playing on the sculpture while we were there. Some even climbing into his mouth!

If you look at the left side of the second photo you can see a piece of cloth stretched out. On the other side of this was a stage. The evening we were there a boy of about ten or eleven was juggling.  The sometimes show movies there.

I was told this was a new place. It is worth the visit. The shops are nice and the two places we ate at had good food.


Linda

Old Town

Another place we visited was the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee. It is on Oronoco Street in Old Town Alexandria, Va. When our son was about three I was able to take a tour of it but now it is privately owned. I told our son since we were so close we had to "see if the snowballs were in bloom." When Robert E. Lee left Appamattox he stopped by here to see if the hydrangias were blooming. The quote above is on a historical marker in front of the home. If you look at the center back of the photo you can see them. I don't know what the white spot is in the picture. It can't be the sun. It was an over cast day.

Old Town Alexandria is a great place to walk around. The river is there as well as lots of old homes. Just looking at all the different door knockers is fun. They even still have a couple of cobble stone streets.

I wanted to show our son some busy bodies. I had read about them many years ago in Southern Living magazine. Don't ask where they are at the visitor's center. They don't know. I asked them years ago where to find them and they didn't know what they were. I asked again on this trip because I couldn't remember which houses had them and they still didn't know. When I found some I wrote down the addresses and went back and told them so they could see. I would have thought they would know about something that is unusual in their area. Here is a picture. Several houses have them. They were used to see who was at the door and also who was walking up and down the street. They are mounted outside the second story windows.

Another unusual thing to see in Old Town is an alley house. This home was literally built in an alley! It is only seven feet wide.

Here is a view from across the street.

Here is an odd looking home. It is called a flounder house. I read, years ago, that it is an oddity to the area. This one has an addition on the side. Isn't it strange looking. I saw several buildings in this shape. Maybe space was at a premium in the 1700's?

There is a nice old tavern in Old Town called Gadsby's Tavern. My husband and I ate there years ago. It has been in business since 1770! http://www.gadsbystavernrestaurant.com/

There is a large building down by the river called The Torpedo Factory. It is filled with fine arts and studios of the artisians. On the top floor was an archiology exhibit. They had several broken plates on a table and visitors could try their hand at putting them back together. My son and I gave it a try. He went for the largest plate.

I went for something smaller. His plate looked old while mine was a plate by Johnson's Brothers that still can be purchased today.

There was a skeleton there. The diplay implied that it was old and was found with other artifacts in a dig. They wanted everyone to guess what it was. I kept thinking it looked like a medium sized dog but the display made me think it was something prehistoric. The woman there came over to see what we would guess. I said it looks like a dog but that I must be wrong. I wasn't! It was old but not prehistoric. I didn't think to take a picture of it.

Old Town is nice because you can park your car and walk. There is so much see. Restaurants, shops and lots of history. You can even go to Christ's Church where George Washington attended!

Linda

Touring Clinton, Md.

I have been gone for over a week. Hubby had a business trip to the D C area and after he had been gone a week our son and I joined him. We decided to be adventurous and give the Megabus a try. A friend of mine had taken it twice and really like it. I bought our tickets online and printed out our boarding pass. I have to say the bus was really nice! It was clean and not crowded. The onboard bathroom was a plus and the seats reclined. There is an electrical outlet for every two seats. There was also supposed to be free wifi but we couldn't get it to work. I saw a person across the isle trying to get on too but he couldn't. That was all right with me. I just popped a movie in my laptop! We made one thirty minute stop for something to eat. The bus driver announced exactly when the bus would be pulling out and if anyone missed the bus another one would be along in eight hours. Needless to say, no one missed the bus! We made another stop to pick up and drop off passengers but it was really quick. Not having to drive eight plus hours was really nice and the fares are very reasonable.

I like to research areas I am going to, to see if there are any historic sites in the area. This is what I found. http://www.surratt.org/ Our son had seen the movie The Conspirators last year and was excited that we could see the house/tavern. It didn't open until Wednesday but we were able to find other places to visit until we could go here.

The town is called Clinton in Maryland. It used to be called Surrattville but the name was changed sometime after the assination of Abraham Lincoln.

Here is a picture of the house.

On the left is the tavern side. It was also the local post office.

This was a nice tour to take and I would highly recommend it if you are interested in the Civil War. This next photo is of our tour guide. The photo after this one is of another tour guide. Aren't their clothes wonderful?

This bed is just amazing to me. It looks a whole lot like the one I sleep in! The legs aren't the same but everything else is.

A few years ago I happened to see a picture of the bed Abraham Lincoln died in at a house across from the Ford Theater. It too looks a lot like our bed! Before I bought our bed I had never seen anything like it. Now I know of three that are very close to being the same! All three are rope beds.

The table and desk in this photo belonged to Mary Surratt.

In this photo the decanter, tray and glass belong to her, too. Everything else in the house was of the period but didn't belong to her.

I have several more photos but I don't want to show so much that you won't want to take the tour. The story told here is so interesting. You won't be bored!

I will leave you with one last picture. This is Mary Surratt.

Linda

What is on the loom this week

This week I am weaving a scarf and also wound a warp for another. The scarf I am weaving on has an off white yarn with a gray and purple yarn in the warp. The purple and gray were plyed together. I was thinking I would use the gray/purple yarn for the weft but when I tried it it didn't look as nice as I was expecting so I switched gears and used a raspberry yarn. I am likeing the results.

This next warp will be narrow, only four inches. I have never made a scarf this narrow before! The dark color is green. It isn't showing up very well in this picture but it will in the next one. The red is the same raspberry yarn that is in the other scarf.

This is the green yarn. It sure doesn't look like this in real life but it you look at the wound warp at the back of the mill the colors are more realistic.

Linda

Oh no! They don't exactly match!

While winding the warp for the last 16 placemats I noticed something. The spools of rug warp didn't exactly match! I had bought all twelve spools at one time and looking at them on the shelf they look like they match but they don't really. Thankfully it isn't terribly noticable in the placemats. You have to know and look hard to see the color difference. Here is a picture of a new warp I am winding for more placemats.

If you look closely you will see a darker color on the bottom third of warp. If you were to look at it from the other side of the room you might not even notice anything. The light has to be just right.

Linda