Romance!

I am embarrassingly interested in holidays. Even though I’m not religious, even though they’re made up or co-opted or just plain ridiculous. I like Valentine’s Day, even though it is probably a rip off of Lupercalia. I love it for all of the sappy romance, the beauty and sentimentality of antique Valentine’s Day cards, love it for the rows of pink and red in every department store. This year I am planning to bake some beautiful heart shaped confections and deliver packages of them to the local businesses I frequent. I am also going to have special sales on Etsy! The first week will feature the pinkest colorway I make, Cotton Candy, at 20% off….get a skein for a paltry $16! The next week I think I’ll feature Bronte, which I absolutely love.

Because, of course, I had to order that Interweave magazine special “Jane Austen Knits.” It’s a visual feast. Speaking of visual feasts, I have been indulging in a ton of fiber and knitting porn lately. I want this:

A four yard motorized skein winder from Nancy’s KnitKnacks. Only a wee bit over a grand, I’ll have to try Santa next year. I also watched this lady:

Fastest knitter in the world. She holds her yarn in a much different manner than I do, doesn’t pop her left index finger upwards at all. I can see how it would make pick knitting even faster….

Also, I watched the fastest crocheter in the world. There’s no way to be subtle here, so I’m just going to toot my own horn and say that I am very very fast at crochet. Quite. When I saw the video with Lisa Gentry, I was surprised to find that it didn’t seem that fast to me. I took her “challenge” and I did worse than I thought I would! She uses triple crochet which is the stitch I use least often (of the common stitches that is). I just found a site for crochet competition that gives a certain number of points per stitch type (4 for dbl crochet, 3 for turning stitch) and I think I’m going to give it another whirl.

So…yeah…fiber porn. Must be the winter.

Owls!

Here goes…I’m just about to start making matching owl sweaters for my girls. I bought the pattern on Ravelry here http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/owls-2 and I also bought the child version. Although the adult version seems a bit more complex with the shaping, I think I will make Violet an adult version since she’s just about too big for the kiddo size.

Violet is growing up. She was always stick thin, underweight as a toddler and child even though she was a whopping 10 1/2 pounds at birth. During the last year or so, she started putting on weight as is normal for a girl getting ready to start puberty. Although she definitely has some unhealthy food preferences (what kid doesn’t like the white food group?) we eat 99% organic, and she’s gluten and dairy free so it’s not like she’s eating a bunch of junk. We went shopping yesterday to spend her holiday gift cards and I saw a very familiar look on her face as she tried on clothing in front of the three sided mirror. As a child I was always a bit round and it caused me serious grief, especially as my parents didn’t really know how to deal with it. I started officially dieting in the 2nd grade, and shopping trips for school clothes were always stressful-often resulting in a bunch of outfits purchased a size below what I actually wore. This was to “encourage” me to lose weight before school started. Ugh. Anyway, our household is very body positive and my kids have access to all manner of healthy food. Thankfully, because all we really have to do is to remind her to make good food choices and encourage physical activity instead of making some kind of massive change in household food or worse, singling her out and making her eat something different than everyone else (been there). We have been talking to her a lot about growing, puberty…how the round tummy will morph into round breast and booty, how she doesn’t need to lose weight but rather just pay attention to how she’s eating so that she maintains her weight as she’s still growing. Sufficed to say, I do not want to knit a sweater and wind up with something ill-fitting or tight. I am determined to raise my girls to have the resources to eat in a healthful manner and to love their bodies throughout all of the phases, changes, and conditions we find ourselves in.

So..matching sweaters. Owl sweaters! I want one! I actually ordered yarn for these projects and bought a pattern, so this had better be good. I didn’t want to use handspun (I may have already mentioned that Violet LOST her last handspun sweater) and I found a good deal so it wasn’t going to save that much to order ecru yarn wholesale and dye it myself. If all goes well, I’ll post photos along the way.

I am doing more spinning but the weather has been so dreadful that I can’t even take photos! I had to miss my knitting machine lesson and first club meeting because the snow was still keeping us in the driveway. Now all we have is rain, slush, mini-icebergs, and mud. Lots of that.

I want to find some local (Seattle-B’ham) knitters who want to host a yarn party. I love doing yarn parties (think Tupperware but with yarn!) and I think they’re my very favorite way to peddle my wares. Any takers? Host(ess) gets 10% of party sales in shopping credit! I bring games and prizes!

Snowed in!

That’s right folks.  Can’t leave the farm. Those of you who don’t live in the county have likely missed out on this experience.  In my opinion, it’s grand. At least for the first few days. We usually get a week or so of deep snowfall once a year and a bit more here and there throughout the season  but overall our winters are mild. More rain than cold.  Sometimes we have a long period of heavy snow, like four or five years ago during what is now known locally as “Snow-Pocalyspe.”  We were basically snowed in for over a month that year, managing to get out in a huge 4 wheel drive truck a couple of times to replenish supplies.

I heard that Seattle got 6 inches of snow. This is a lot for that area and I imagine everyone fancies themselves “snowed in” as 2 inches will cause school and bus route closures in Seattle.  This is not snowed in. I don’t know if you can really be snowed in while residing in an urban setting unless there is a bona fide blizzard happening.  Might be too risky to drive, but you can always walk a few blocks to restock dinner supplies.  When we’re snowed in, we literally can’t get our vehicles out of the drive.  We can certainly walk, but to where? It’s miles and miles to the nearest grocery store.   Before we had the internet, we would rely on our observations to predict the weather.  Sometimes it just smells like snow.  Now that we can check weather forecasts, we have a little advance warning and can make a trip to stock up on goodies,  pet food, and dish soap.  I remember one winter, about 15 years ago…I guess I was 22… we were living in a tiny cabin in the woods, way off of the beaten path and at a higher elevation than the farm we live on now.  Our oldest daughter had pretty severe asthma as a young child (still has it but is much easier to manage now) and we needed to get her to the hospital.  The ambulance couldn’t make it down our drive, so my parents drove their big 4×4 truck about 15 miles to the main road junction to meet us and we hiked out–my sweetie carried the car seat over his head as he blazed the trail through four feet of snow, I carried our girl behind. Drove 40 miles to the nearest hospital and she recovered nicely.

That’s snowed in.

Thankfully, everyone is healthy so we’re just enjoying ourselves and are happy to be snowed in for a few days.  I am making lots of yarn and we went sledding today.  Here are some photos, first of yarn and then of our outdoor adventures. I’ll also include a few photos of our lovely wood and stone cottage.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

One more thing…an amazing 10 year old friend died in a tragic accident last week. I can’t even being to tell you about this bright star of a boy, but you can read about him all over the internet.  His family is also amazing and our community is hoping to help them with the massive medical bills-if you want to help, please click on the link.  http://calebkors.chipin.com/caleb-kors

 

 

Art yarns! Plus, my daughter is a soap making genius!

I have just listed some gorgeous art yarns on Etsy. My personal favorite is this one:

I kind of just want to wear this around my neck as jewelry. I swear, my Aunt wore something like this as a necklace with a giant sweater dress back in the 80′s. If you don’t like the bronze look, I also have some yummy Valentine’s Day yarns!

In my local village, there has been a small craft gallery of sorts for the past few years. I declined to get very involved with it–there were lots of lovely artists and some friends–but I knew that anything I had to offer would either be unpopular with tourists (probably very few yarnies looking for handspun in the summer months) or unpopular with a couple of the artists involved (my kitschenqueen line for instance, you can’t really have intentional kitsch next to unintentional kitsch). I left some yarn for them to display on consignment and promptly forgot about it. The gallery closed at the end of the year and a handful of skeins were returned to me. They were a blast from the past! I make so very much yarn these days that even a skein from 12 months ago seems ancient, forgotten. Foreign color combinations and everything is bulky. I can’t believe I used to even sell skeins I’d hand-processed from raw fleece! I must have been making….$2 an hour? Ack. Here are some photos of those forgotten skeins.

My other news of the day…wait! There are two bits of news. Oh! Three!  The first is THIS:

I bought it and it is mine oh mine! I found this knitting machine on craigslist for $200, bothered some Ravelry members for their advice, made a 4 hour round trip (and ferry ride) to pick it up, made another four hour round trip to Seattle a day later to meet with a very nice Ravelry member who sold me a stand for it (she’s located on the other side of the state but happened to be passing through Seattle). She looked it over, made some suggestions, and gave me a brief intro on setting it up and basic knitting. The machine wasn’t really dirty but had a small area with rust and overall was incredibly dry and tight, having not been used in probably decades.  I took it home, gave it a good scrubbing with denatured alcohol, and practically soaked it in gun oil.  The moving parts are actually moving smoothly now.  However…even with a video of the nice Ravelry lady setting up the machine, I could not really get it going. I set it up without any trouble (I think) but the truth is that I am missing some key bits of information about the basic mechanics of what a knitting machine actually does.  Knitting, I know.  But there are like 65416354747634158 parts to this sucker and although I can conceptualize something basic like knitting a flat piece of fabric, I don’t understand what/how certain parts combine to make decorative stitches, tubes, tucks.  I spent some time online searching for a local teacher but apparently my darling Swiss machine is drastically different than standard Japanese machine and not very many teachers are available for this style of knitting machine. Finally though, a lead came through and on January 21st I am going to Seattle to meet up with a Passap knitting machine group (!) in the morning, and staying the afternoon for a long private lesson with the coordinator of the club.  Hooray!  More on this later… I have decided that I’m not even going to try the machine until then because I’m probably wasting my time trying to self-teach in the interim plus, as it turns out, I think it may be possible for me to break needles by setting up the sucker incorrectly.  The last thing I need is to break something on a complicated machine that I have no idea how to operate, let alone repair.

But 2 hour socks and 4 hour sweaters are nearly within my grasp!!!

Next bit of news-I have decided to make the girls matching sweaters and my goal is to have them finished by Valentine’s Day.  The sweaters are darling and the pattern may be found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/owls-2

I have actually ordered commercial yarn for this project, something that I never do. But Violet lost her last handspun sweater and I’m a little more hesitant this time around.

And finally…Willow’s Etsy shop is up and running! I spent hours on this yesterday, taking and editing photos, writing descriptions, creating listings.  She’ll have to take care of it after this but I offered to get her set up. Turned out to be a bigger job than I was expecting, since the soap descriptions were so arty.  Her soap is so lovely, I hope she does well and is able to have some extra income from her labors. Everyone should definitely take a look at her work here: www.sevensinssoap.etsy.com

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New Yarn!

Some of my latest endeavors:

I have also become the proud owner of a Passap Duomatic 80 Knitting Machine. I’ll admit, I’m totally overwhelmed by the mechanics of it but am driving to Seattle tomorrow to meet with a woman who has promised to sell me a stand and show me some basics.  Hooray!

 

I made it

The school sleepover went quite well actually, and aside from being somewhat exhausted I seem to have made it though unscathed. I did have a major setback about three hours before the event while baking the gingerbread house components. My carpenter sweetie was teasing me about being a cookie carpenter and I was just congratulating myself on making the dough come out exactly even (not a spare gingerbread man’s worth) when I realized exactly why it is that he builds houses and I don’t. I had somehow forgotten to make the walls for all 8 houses.  I made the roof pieces and each of the ends, but no walls. Drat!  I flew to the local grocery store to get more molasses, rushed home and made more dough, tossed it into the freezer to chill, and turned off the oven to let the last two pieces finish baking as the first students arrived. Whew.

The houses did pretty well.  I should have made twice as much frosting though, and will remember it for next time. They definitely held together well-that Royal Icing stuff is ridiculously cement like-and the kids were thrilled with the results. Here are some photos, starting with humble beginnings  and ending with a couple of photos of our hot cocoa mix project.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We were quite prolific. I had the kids from 2pm until 10 this morning and we managed to needle felt a small creature (finch, pig, hen and chicks, dog, bat), create a layered candle, make two mugs of hot cocoa mix, build and decorate gingerbread houses, eat supper, play White Elephant, read the entire book of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” watch three holiday movies, eat tons of cookies from the cookie exchange, sew a hat and scarf set, and actually get some sleep.

I am supposed to be working on the dreaded holiday letter instead of writing another blog post.  I have had quite a bit of fun with holiday letters over the years but every idea this time around seems contrived.  For several years I wrote a full page of outrageous lies–that our 12 year old had received a restraining order from a famous musician for stalking, her younger sister was training for the beauty pageant scene and had to use the curling iron in the outhouse since we don’t have indoor plumbing. I said that we had joined a cult, that Robert had taken two more wives, we had discovered that we had been a sheik and a Celtic mermaid priestress in our former lives.  The more outrageous the better.  The first year I wrote a both a normal letter and a fake one and randomly sent them out.  Since our lives are quite colorful in reality, many people really did believe some of that junk and the rumors that went around our extended family and friends were priceless.

Then there was the year that I sent a holiday Mad Lib. Do you remember doing those as a kid? Mad Libs are a word gamewhere one player prompts another for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story, usually with funny results. Another year it was a holiday crossword, and the year after that I did a hilarious quiz.  Last year I said Bah Humbug and sent a regular letter. This year I toyed with the ideas of trading cards, comic book cover, and flip book but I just don’t have the time and energy.   I just wrote a draft of one and read it to my sweetie but he says that only rural living people will get that it’s a joke. Here’s an excerpt:

“Dear Friends and Family Members-

This adorable note is being sent on paper I made myself (from wildcrafted nettle fiber, silk cocoons which we raised ourselves, and recycled plastic bags which I don’t use but gathered from our unenlightened neighbors) to tell you what we have all been up to.

Since we are self-employed, I had the time to get up early this morning and make a new sofa with reclaimed barn timbers and glue made from local tree resins. After hand carving traditional Salish designs and decorating it with pigments made from aronia berries I gathered on our property, Violet got out her loom and wove a tapestry cloth in crimson and chartreuse.  We covered the sofa with the fabric using upholstery tacks we made ourselves in our charcoal fired blacksmith shop. Yes, we even make the charcoal.

By then, it was time to start setting the table for our standard farm breakfast.  Willow accidentally broke a place setting the night before, so I collected clay from the local creek and made another set of dishes, stamping them with an elaborately handcarved woodblock I’d created before bed.  We prepared a delicious porridge made from home grown oats, our own dried blueberries, honey from our bees, and wildcrafted hazelnuts.  The girls milked the goats and prepared a fresh chevre-as we’re vegan we don’t actually eat animal products but a farm breakfast just doesn’t look right without a tray of cheese and fresh butter!  We ground our own flour (by hand) from our no-till wheat field and made fresh bread using the sourdough starter that has been in our family for 389 years.  We got out the 200 pound press and squeezed out some fresh apple cider using heirloom apples that we grew from trees which we grafted ourselves using cuttings from local abandoned orchards.  Robert took his handsaw and cut a section of an alder tree which we harvested in accordance with our eco-forestry plan.  He carved our family name onto the board which he used as a smoking plank for the freshly caught salmon he brought from the creek.  The “Goforth” salmon was served with fresh dill grown in our own handblown glass cloches out in the garden, and topped with roasted homegrown chestnuts.

After dressing in clothing made entirely from natural fibers which were handspun, hand dyed, hand woven, and hand tailored, we went to work.  Willow is attending her 2^nd year of college but got up a bit early before class to make 375 bars of handmade soap which she will sell at the local farmer’s market. Violet is busy with her homeschool assignments but she also raises a flock of 23 ducks, manages a local children’s garden, weaves and sews all of her own clothing, and makes the family supply of toothpaste. Robert spends his days as a carpenter and timber frame builder, but he also makes time for his specialty horticulture garden, and his travels in his handbuilt, woodfired hot air balloon.”

Ugh. I’m not usually a drinker but perhaps a hot toddy would make this letter writing go a bit quicker.  Any suggestions? On the letter, not the drinking…

I normally refrain from ranting or proselytizing on this blog, but I can’t help myself at the moment. I was in the grocery store about an hour ago and listened to an older woman loudly complain to the cashier about those idiots in the city outlawing plastic grocery sacks. She uses them, darn it! What in the world is she going to do if they stop allowing them in our community? How will she line her small trash cans? The cashier pointed out that they will still offer paper sacks but she vehemently stated that she has no use for paper and that they go straight into the trash. I didn’t want to, but out it came…the continent of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean and how many cities/states/countries are banning plastic shopping bags because there are just so many of them and they ultimately wind up in landfills or Texas sized trash islands in the ocean. She was undaunted and still absolutely righteous about her right to consume as many plastic bags as she desired. At least the cashier seemed relieved to have someone else dealing with the lady and her ignorant and selfish opinion.

Don’t you ever wonder sometimes…come across someone new and think…how is it possible that I share the planet with this person?

I think that people forget that we did perfectly well before plastic garbage bags.  We managed to keep ourselves hydrated before plastic water bottles, we fed ourselves before the invention of fast food, we found affordable goods from local shopkeepers before Walmart.  Heck, we were dandy before microwave ovens, cars, malls, and drive-through espresso.  Different, but dandy nevertheless.  When you don’t have the option any longer, you discover that most “necessities” are actually luxuries.  That’s a silver lining of this economic depression.  Just like people are discovering that they are still lovely without the monthly $200 haircut, that lady at the grocery store will find that she can rinse her trash cans out after emptying them or even…dare I say it?…reduce her waste stream and get rid of the little suckers all together.

I have to get back to my latest endeavor: 8 Gingerbread Houses.  Why in the world would any person need to make 8 houses made of cookies? A better question would be “Why would a sane person invite their elementary aged students for a sleepover/craft day and happily volunteer to tackle gingerbread houses for everyone?”  I will post photos tomorrow, the class will be here in just two hours!

Dolls!

I have been making Waldorf dolls again! It is so much fun-I love to see their personalities come alive during production. I sometimes feel that the world is divided into two kinds of people-those who believe that dolls come alive at night and those who don’t.   I remember getting into huge arguments as a child, being forced to choose one doll or stuffed animal to accompany me on a trip.  It wasn’t that I loved them all so dearly that I couldn’t bear to be away, but rather the fear that the un-chosen dolls would hold a grudge.  Shudder. I cannot even fathom making scary art dolls. I cannot even fathom having scary art dolls in my house, I’m already slightly afraid of the nice looking vintage ones we have here already.

These Waldorf dolls are different though.  Even if they do come alive at night they will not attempt to injure or murder me in my sleep. These dolls are too sweet and cuddly.  I’m going to paste some photos below of the latest dolls, plus a few shots of my booth space at Pacific Arts Holiday Market in Bellingham. I’ll be there two more weekends.  The last photo features the display rack of Willow and Violet’s products–Willow has her 7 Sins Soap line and Violet is peddling her lip balm and healing salve. Such talented daughters!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We’re going to have to get our tree this week. I am just not feeling the holiday season. The weather has been super weird and it just seems like it was July a few weeks ago. I think quite a lot of people are feeling this way, there seems to be little or no shopping and traffic insanity when I’ve been out and about.  Even though I could use a rush of holiday crazed shoppers at my booth or on Etsy, I am truly grateful for the silver lining of the current economy. We’re all at least a little poorer, which means that we consider each purchase a bit more.  We are more conscious of the implications of shopping at Walmart and relying on cheap imported goods and more people are choosing to buy local, buy handmade, and buy less. I like this.

 

 

Just a quick one…or maybe not.

Don’t forget..one more sale day left!  10% off with coupon code buynothingbutetsy and free shipping, both ’till midnight on November 27th at www.yarnarchy.etsy.com and www.wickedwenchdesigns.etsy.com

Thanksgiving has thrown me for a loop. I spent a year on Weight Watchers-didn’t go to the meetings for the weekly dose of public shame, er, accountability, and I’m too cheap to pay for the online option so I just bought books from Ebay and did it at home. I lost quite a bit of weight the first year, about 50 pounds but during the last year I’ve just maintained by choice.  I haven’t really been writing down my points as I did for the first 6 months but I do tally them up in my head daily. I have definitely been making more exceptions in the past couple of months but this Thanksgiving thing was ridiculous. First of all-I really like to cook. Really. It’s one of my favorite things in the world and probably the number one reason I was at least 50 pounds overweight.  My love of cooking feasts has been the most challenging thing about Weight Watchers.  I particularly love big feasts with lots of guests and high pressure expectations.  I have done lots of catering and I totally get in the zone.    We’ve been vegetarian for almost 18 years which wasn’t so difficult to transition into from a culinary arts perspective, but we started cutting way back on dairy a bunch of  years back and then went vegan gluten/soy free about 5 years ago.  I am not willing to eat boring food just because of food allergies, so I took that change as a personal challenge.  Took a little trial and error, but eventually I managed to make a feast that even our carnivorous, butter loving, wheat gorging, friends and family are shocked to find that they totally enjoy.  Here’s what was on the menu this year:

Baked Artichoke and Green Chili Dip/Chips

Cornbread and Rice Bread Dressing with Chantrelle Mushrooms, Shallots, Golden Raisins, and Cranberries

Carmelized Garnet Yams with Walnuts, Coriander, and Crystalized Ginger

Vegan wheat-free Gravy (with Roux base made with oat flour and Earth’s Balance margarine)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Roasted Garlic and Carmelized Walnuts in a light Balsamic Reduction

Cranberry and Tangerine Compote

Homegrown canned Heirloom Green Beans

Homegrown Pickled Beets

Homegrown Red Saurkraut

Mashed Potatoes, Roasted root veggies, and Pumpkin Cheesecake were contributed by friends and family

Pumpkin Pie with Rice and Oat flour Crust made from fresh homegrown heirloom pumpkins

Pecan Pie with Rice and Oat flour Crust-secret ingredient: half a cup of whipped silken tofu and potato starch! No one missed the eggs and no one caught the tofu.

I also made a few Quorn products for the non vegans/wheat enthusiasts, along with Salmon Wellington of sorts–local fresh caught Salmon topped with a pate of Chanterelles and Shallots, then wrapped in a golden puff pastry.

I also grossly overestimated the size of everyone’s appetites because even after multiple helpings and plates of leftovers sent home…we were left with literally pounds of dressing, whole pies.  I have become a glutton. But finally, it’s gone. Solid gone. We ate for two days and shared even more and finally threw the dregs in the compost. Ahh. Now back to counting points…

Speaking of getting off course, I have become sidetracked making a series of Waldorf dolls that I hope to sell at the Waldorf faire in B’ham next weekend–I plan on listing the rest on Etsy.  I am having so much fun!  My hands are a wreck, splits and cracks everywhere from pulling button thread as tightly as possible. Tomorrow I’ll do some of the more exciting bits of doll making–adding personality!  Yesterday I made a prototype since I’ve apparently lost my other handmade pattern pieces during the studio move…she looked dandy, so I cut out 7 more.  Made all the heads (hence the hand injuries), sewed the bodies, and stuffed one of the bodies before I called it quits for the day.  Tomorrow I’ll stuff and sew each one together, and then make faces, wigs, maybe even clothing.  I will definitely post photos.

Another project: my sweetie’s new Etsy store!  Down To Earth Woodworks finally opened yesterday and he’s already had a sale! Visit at www.downtowearthwoodworks.etsy.com and peruse all of the amazing pieces!

Must go to bed if I am to start all over again at 7am.  Wish me luck!

 

Drowning in fiber, new friends, and studio news.

Hmmm… I decided to post at least once a week and suddenly my exciting life has become sort of boring.   What is happening in the world of Yarnarchy?  For one thing, I am quite literally knee deep in yarnarchy. The whole right corner of my main room is overflowing with fiber, yarn, spinning wheels and tools, and is a huge chaotic heap of color and texture. This will change today.  My family may evict me otherwise.

Some general news: We have had a sudden spike in farm members–three new renters, all boys ages 20, 37, 55.  Unfortunately, none of them like yarn but I’m sure they have some redeeming qualities.  My elder daughter Willow (17) has decided that she likes yarn again and has crocheted a couple of hats in the past week. I am really glad, because of course I want both of my girls to talk fiber with me but only the little girl has been interested for the past couple of years.  I am practically sitting on my fingers and biting my tongue to keep myself from trying to connect with her over yarn.  I have to give it a while longer, otherwise she’ll consider my excitement to be micromanagement and rebel by setting her hook and yarn aside.  Patience, patience…  I will be at a small local holiday faire this weekend- City of Burlington Holiday Fine Arts and Gift Fair, 11/18 noon-8pm, 11/19 8-4pm at the Parks and Rec Center, 900 E Fairhaven.  I don’t remember the last time I did such as small event but my landmate was going to do it and I thought that at the very least, it might be worth $70 to be able to dedicate the better part of 16 hours to knitting, spinning, and crochet. I love that I can bring my work with me.

One big bit of news is that I am almost, almost, almost finished with my studio move.  I have one more big installment to assimilate into the space and I’ll be through.  Granted, I still have a storage unit that I have to deal with but it’s a wee one (5×10) and 75% of it is comprised of items I want to part with but not for free. Meaning that I have plans for a third job as an Ebay seller or listing most as vintage or destash on Etsy.  Yeah, I totally have the time for that. As if.  Yet, I cannot bring myself to let go of it.  At least without compensation.  I choose to believe that I have inherited some thrifty depression era values and survival skills and not a hoarding syndrome.

After I get this last bit set up in my studio, I’ll post new photos but here are some that I took in the summer before I’d really moved anything in. The basic premise was to create a small studio attached to a two story building (12×14?), the bottom floor of which is Robert’s unfinished wood shop and the top is Willow’s room.  I wanted a steampunk studio and by both necessity and personal preference it needed to be built using entirely reclaimed/recycled materials.  I also wanted lots of whimsy, which is not really inline with Robert’s Capricorn thinking but he got into it and of course created something even better than what I’d envisioned.  The room is small, and has all sorts of nautical details-the recycled oak flooring has darker wooden plugs which give it a pirate ship look, the left wall has a bumped out alcove (running the length of the room and starting about 4 feet up) the roof of which is supported by a natural cedar pole with root wad sticking out of the front of the building. This helped form the shape of the alcove which curves outward in an arc and tips out, the ceiling of the alcove being maybe a foot further out than the base of the alcove. That side of the room contains the only plaster in the building and is finished with wood lath strips, add a brass porthole, and suddenly the whole side of the room looks like something out of a pirate ship or vintage steamliner. There are many unique antique windows throughout, and the rest of the interior is finished with old growth wood of varying types.  The right side of the building contains a custom shelving unit which holds a collection of vintage trunks, suitcases, boxes, and fabrics.  Each shelf pulls out for ease of access, and the whole look is pretty darn amazing.  A whole wall of gorgeous vintage traveling cases filled with buttons, fabrics, notions, feathers, and much more.  I’ll try to get the current photos up soon.  Here are those pre-occupancy ones:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.