And on the sixth day

I have been relieved of cabin building duties and returned to the loom. I left Tim on the roof, the shiny metal roof, which lies on top of ceiling boards, strapping and felt paper.

I am the cutter extraordinaire (except I hate the circular saw, which has too much kick back for Ii’l ole me) so I don’t cut strapping or the metal roof. Mostly I am ballast at the bottom of tall, unstable ladders because I don’t climb on roofs either. Good help is hard to find.

So six days and 500+ weaver’s knots later, I am weaving again. I’m not sure if tying onto the old was a big time saver because I had a lot of repairs to do before all went smoothly.

They say you can tell how a weaving project is going by looking at the back of the loom where all the repairs are obvious. Here are mine.

The weaver’s knot came in handy on the roof. I used it as a sheet bend to tie two ropes together, which held the ladder on the roof. Life imitates weaving.

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Roofing 101

I’ve been hijacked from my knitting, quilting and weaving. Tim got a big boost on the cabin last weekend when Andre and Doug visited and helped figure out and lay the roof.

Then they left and he was stuck with me to finish up. I’m not much help since I don’t enjoy teetering off the tops of ladders or hanging from the rooftop.

Yesterday we were racing the weather. Sparks were flying.

Thunderstorms moved in and I didn’t think it was such a good idea to be on a hill, the highest point on our property, standing on an aluminum ladder while holding onto a tin roof. So I quit.

I have to admit, it was very cozy standing in the cabin, dry, while the storm moved through.

Today we finished up one side of the roof (check out Tim’s blog for photos) and I finally had a chance to play with fiber.

I finished a wedding quilt,

built a copper loom and had a chance to try tablet weaving. I borrowed the idea for the loom from another weaver.

Tablet or card weaving is so simple but can produce wonderful results I even had an aha moment.

Downsizing

After living on the other side of the world for the winter, my life has shrunk.

I bought this beautiful, dimunitive pie plate from my friend at the local farmer’s market so Tim and I can maintain our youthful figures.

Otherwise we would eat a whole pie in a few days. Now we start with 3/4 a pie. We just finish it faster

Tim is preparing to build a log cabin. I helped one day but there were mosquitoes and the logs were big and we were standing in water and (insert any amount of whining here).

Instead I vowed to build a model so we would know how many logs we need. It’s not done yet but coming along nicely. I’m counting on strapping young men and women to do the real work.

My projects are small but the insects are not. We had a swarm of dragon flies for a few days.

I grew up thinking mosquito hawks were the bad guys. They look so much scarier than mosquitos. They are enormous here. As big as the trees.

Log Cabin, Quilt

The comma belongs there. Today we visited the Adirondack Museum, specifically to look at log cabins and quilts.

They have an assortment of buildings on the premises including a cute cabin that is getting its finishing touches after three years. We were checking it out and had a few questions when we found a man working on the exterior. It turns out he built if for the museum and he knew every cut and log.

He had all sorts of neat toys (oops I mean tools). We saw a chain saw sawmill, log scribes and a lancelot grinder which he demonstrated on Tim’s arm.

Kids, don’t try this at home.

Next we explored the quilt exhibit, which had beautiful quilts from the 1800’s to today. Many were made of scrap material and one was made from old neckties.

I still have a long way to go.