Tag: woodworking

Two Trips to Saint Louis

Since my last post in April I have taken two trips to Saint Louis. I went the first time for the Midwest Fiber Festival and it was fantastic! I already signed up for next year and can’t wait to go back.

One of my customers from the show contacted me about some wood they had if we were interested. She sent some pictures and it looked promising, so we emptied out the trailer and drove it back up to their place just west of Saint Louis. We got there in the early afternoon and spent the next several hours loading up the trailer. We stayed the night in Saint Louis and then headed home. Here is some of the wood after it was unloaded and sorted in the work shop.

It’s hard to tell yet what this will all end up as, but there is for sure quite a bit of usable stuff. It does take a bit of time to process because it’s mostly cut offs, but that works for some of our products. A lot of it was mahogany, with some walnut, oak and a little cherry.

So, once the trailer was emptied again we had the job of reloading and restocking the trailer for our next festival. That is where I am right now, actually. I am near Saint Paul, MN for the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival in Lake Elmo, MN. I will be setting up the booth today. The festival is Saturday and Sunday.

It’s a long haul to come up here every year but it is worth it. A bonus is that I get lots of audio book time while I’m driving. I finished Kristin Hannah’s Firefly Lane and am starting the sequel Fly Away I am also reading Justin Cronin’s newest release The Ferryman. I got hooked on his writing when I read The Passage trilogy. So good!

I also have done a tiny bit of knitting. I haven’t had much down time inwhich I also have the desire to pick up my needles. So, when I do reach for my knitting it has been my sock that gets the action.

It’s almost ready for the toe shaping. I will be switching back to the green for that. With any luck I may get this done over the weekend. I have a couple hours this morning before heading over to set up. Speaking of which, I better get busy. See you soon!

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Shop Work

I have made some progress on my afghan recycling project but am saving that for my next post when I have a chance to get a decent picture . Today I thought I would share what we have been working on in the wood shop.

Naked nostepinnes :-)

These are some new Nostepinnes we finished up over the weekend.

Cherry Nostepinnes
Walnut Nostepinnes

What a difference adding that finish makes, huh? It’s kind of like blocking your knitting. :-)

We even found a bit of Mahogany laying around from quite a few years ago. These are all on the Website for $25.

So today we started working through some wood that needed to be roughed out into blanks for turning. These will probably end up being mostly more Darning Eggs and Nostepinnes, but you never know. This is from various trees around the property that needed cut down or trimmed. I think it’s a mix of Cherry, Maple, and maybe some fruit trees.

Okay that’s it for today. I’ll be back later this week with a knitting post.

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Quarantine Life

How are you all doing today? We are getting through alright here. We are excited to report that we found actual toilet paper for sale in Kroger on Thursday! We were allowed to purchase two packages. My faith in civilization was restored just a little bit. LOL!

Making bread today

So, lots going on here at home to share with you this week. First of all we were notified that Jerry’s truck damage from the tornado was deemed a total loss. We thought it was going to be repaired all this time but the repair shop discovered after they began working on it that nearly everything was worse than they could determine at first. Mostly it was due to glass, probably not the glass from his truck but flying in the atmosphere. There was a huge debris ball and I suspect that was the culprit. Fortunately his truck was worth more than the payoff so we were able to get a replacement. He decided to go with something a bit different. He likes it a lot. It has a pretty awesome sound system!

2019 Nissan Frontier Pro-4x

I have made some progress on my Honeydew Lace Square fingering weight edition. I have five more rounds of the inner border and then it’s on to the edging.

We are trying to make the best use of our time during this quarantine/safer-at-home time. Jerry has been out in the shop a lot in the last week. He did a lot of tidying, re-arranging and de-cluttering. After that he got back to work on a big batch of Yarn Boxes that were all ready for sanding. We have some available on the website now if you were planning to pick up one at a festival this spring.

sanding, sanding, and more sanding

I have not been idle either. I have been cooking and baking more lately as is evidenced by the bread baking above. I have also been out at the dye pots a couple of times this week. New Era Fiber Mill has been keeping my busy (gainful employment which is appreciated more than ever about now). Here’s a batch I did the other day using my new work space, which I love, BTW. Did I mention my husband is amazing? Because he is. <3

Okay, stay well, and safe everyone! Make good use of your time and search for the silver lining! There is always something to be thankful for.

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