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Mazama House in the Woods

February 13, 2010 by Katie

Yesterday Rick delivered 2 beds to the house up in Mazama, for the 2 guest bedrooms.  They were built out of aformosia (spelling is correct according to our wood book, but there is some debate…)  The owner has a bed similar to this that he likes and so this is what he wanted.

Rick has been working on cabinets for this place since last summer.   He took some pictures yesterday and we thought we would post some of them to show friends and family.  There is a lot of other woodwork in the house done by the contractor’s crew, so I will try to point out the Swanson Woodcraft portion.  The woodwork throughout the house, including the cabinets, is white oak.

Library desk on the second floor – Rick did the drawers, the case and top were built by the crew:

Guest bedroom closets (identical in both rooms)  – Rick had Foss Furniture in Seattle build the closets, which he brought over and assembled in place, then he did the built-in desks.  There is a bigger closet with no desk in the master bedroom.

Master bathroom:

Sink wall in the kitchen – 22 feet long, he matched the grain across the drawer fronts all the way across:

Kitchen island:

Completely built in Sub-Zero refrigerator (on the left, the upper door is the main fridge compartment, with two freezer drawers underneath) with two pullout pantry units to the right of the fridge.  Also storage cabinets over the fridge.  There was also a built-in wall oven around the corner facing the sink.

The “snug” is around the corner near the kitchen.  The upper doors will  conceal the flat screen TV and drinks cabinet.  He matched the grain vertically across the upper and lower cabinets:

Laundry room cabinets:

The “water closet” or powder room on the main floor near the entry:

And finally, here is an exterior shot of the house:

Posted in woodworking | 2 Comments »

FO: Cabled Topdown Raglan

February 12, 2010 by Katie

FO = finished object, in knitting-specific internet speak.

Here is the sweater I have been knitting along with my class, and using to demonstrate different parts of the process along the way.  I washed it yesterday and it has been drying on the wooly board.  Today I will wear it!

Yarn: Rowan Magpie Tweed, 7 skeins.  Needle size 8 (5 mm).  The cable panel on the front and back is from “The New Knitting Stitch Library” by Lesley Stanfield (no longer in print but easily found on Amazon or elsewhere).  I used the same motif for cabled ribs on the bottom edge, sleeve cuffs and neck edge, with a simple rolled stockinette stitch edge as the final finish.

Yesterday was our guild meeting and the annual Fiber Exchange.  We run it kind of like a white elephant (draw numbers, go in turn, but something can be taken away from someone else up to 2 times).  The fiber is for weaving or spinning, although there were other fun things in some of the packages like chocolate!  It is supposed to be nice enough to be used in a project but not expensive or “too nice.”  Mainly leftovers from projects, or bargain finds that are being passed on.  Lots of fun!

Posted in knitting | 1 Comment »

My Wonderful Students

February 10, 2010 by Katie

Last night was the fifth meeting of my top-down raglan class.  Everyone had made great progress and were still full of enthusiasm for the process of designing their own sweater.

Juliet is making a child-size pullover for her friend’s son:

Deb is making a cardigan version with contrasting seed stitch bands:

Laurelle is making a pullover for herself out of wonderful hand-dyed Malabrigo merino yarn:

Darlene is also making a pullover for herself, and she was our least-experienced knitter.  She knew how to knit and purl and had knit a couple of scarves, but that was about it.  Brave woman!  She has learned a lot:

They all like the way you can try the garment on for fit as you go along.  Here, Laurelle had just finished her first sleeve and she liked the length and the fit:

Judith was AWOL but we will catch up with her at the end of the month!

//

Posted in knitting, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Early Spring

February 9, 2010 by Katie

It’s been kind of gray and misty around here lately, the snow is melting, the roads are clear, ground is beginning to show – in other words, it is more like March in the Methow, than early February!  Thank you, El Nino… while east coast and midwest seem to be reeling under heavy snows, we are just soggy.

Today we have some sun, though, so I went up the road and caught this picture on the way back down.  As you can see, there is still some snow on the ground up here on Benson Creek.

My friend Diana has a spinning day on the second Monday of each month (including a delicious potluck lunch).  That was yesterday.  There were only four of us but we had a fine time.  Diana had finished spinning the fleece from a Jacob lamb and had 3 skeins of yarn to show for it – hard to believe these all came from the same sheep!  She did a great job of separating out the colors before carding for spinning.  She also had some socks she knit years ago from handspun Jacob wool, so I got a picture.  Aren’t they great?  One pair also had handspun angora from one of her bunnies.

Posted in Methow Valley, spinning | Leave a Comment »

4 Days on the Coast

February 2, 2010 by Katie

We’re back from a busy weekend in Seattle, the purpose of which was to begin moving out of the apartment we have been renting there for the last 3 years, and also to visit with family and friends.

Friday was pretty much taken with the drive over (Rick with the pickup truck and cargo trailer, me following in the Honda).  We had time to go by U-Haul and get some moving supplies, get gas and wash the car, then we went out to his mom’s retirement home with his sister, for dinner and a nice long visit.

Saturday we started packing in earnest.  A lot of our nicer belongings have been archived there since we sold the house in Seattle, as we have no room for them here.  We packed up a lot of dishes, stemware, books, etc – then in the afternoon our friend Austin came over and helped Rick get some of the bigger and heavier pieces of furniture down into the truck and trailer.  We hadn’t seen Austin in a while and it was great to catch up with him, too.  That evening we met some friends for dinner at Serafina and celebrated a birthday.  I’ll add a picture later if I can get it from my friend (we used her camera).

Sunday was a day off from packing and moving.  I went down to Gig Harbor with some of my friends for a knitting day – an annual event referred to as “Soup Bowl Sunday.”  Our hostess used to have it on Super Bowl Sunday but now she just sticks to the last Sunday in January.  I was lazy and took no pictures – sorry!  Rick stayed at the apartment and worked on some drawings and estimates for 2 jobs he is bidding, and also had a visit with a friend who stopped by.  That evening we went over to another couple’s house for dinner, we actually met them here in the Methow, but now they have moved back to Seattle for family reasons.

Monday morning we finished packing boxes into the vehicles, ran around doing some Seattle-ish errands, and headed out of town a little after noon.  The drive back was easy, the passes clear, and we arrived home just as it was truly getting dark, with a light snow coming down.

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Spinning Day

January 29, 2010 by Katie

We had a good turnout yesterday at Methow Valley Spinners and Weavers, for our 4th Thursday “focus on spinning” day.  Somehow we had kind of fallen out of the habit of making this 4th meeting of the month truly about spinning, so it was heartening to see all the wheels in motion and a lively discussion of fiber preparations and spinning methods.  There had also been some interest in learning more about crochet finishes so we had a little demo and practice of basic crochet and also Reverse Single Crochet or Crab Stitch.

I am teaching 2 knitting classes now.  The Tuesday night group is learning how to design and knit their own top-down raglan sweater.  Next week is the 4th meeting and everyone seems to be doing well.  I’ll try to get some progress pictures of their sweater next week.  Here is the one I am knitting along with them:

The yarn is some Rowan Magpie Tweed I bought several years ago from a friend who was de-stashing.  It’s nice to see it finally turning into something!  I am quite pleased with the cable pattern down the front and back, and the cabled rib with rolled edge on the sleeve.  I plan to use that around the bottom of the sweater as well, and then work out something along the same lines for the neckline finish.

My other group is on Thursday mornings – they just wanted some help with their projects, and to learn some new skills.  Yesterday I taught them how to do several different kinds of buttonholes.

We’re off to the coast today to start packing up and moving out of our apartment there.  We’ll be moved out by the end of February.  It’s been a wonderful place to come to when we are in the big city, right at the Ballard Locks, but it has become harder to justify the expense given how seldom we are actually there.  Kind of hard to give it up, though…

Posted in knitting, spinning | 3 Comments »

A good Friday

January 23, 2010 by Katie

Not too much to report here, but yesterday was a nice well-rounded day.  Rick went up to town to have a coffee date with some of his friends at the Cinnamon Twisp bakery in the morning, and I made good progress on the bookwork while he was gone.  After he returned and we had some lunch, we suited up and headed up to Loup Loup South Summit for some XC skiing.  They had just groomed that morning and it was relatively clear and cold-ish so the trails were in pretty good shape.  We were out for 2 hours and it felt great!

Not too much to take pictures of (just trees and snow, what can I say?) except on the way back we did come to a nice viewpoint to the west and the mountains:

Today we’re driving to Wenatchee so Rick can pick up a bearing he needs to fix his planer, which has been out of commission for 2 weeks.  He ordered parts from a place in the Midwest, but they sent the wrong bearing and now it is taking forever to get it re-sent.  Found out he could get one in Wenatchee, and we need to make a trip to Costco anyway, so off we go.

Posted in home life, outdoors | 1 Comment »

Wet but still White

January 20, 2010 by Katie

Greetings from the soggy Methow Valley.   We have had a steady supply of precipitation – if only it would stay about 5 degrees colder… then it would stay as snow.  At least we got a nice 3-4″ over Saturday night, and some of it is still on the ground, but the roads are once again completely clear.  Last week we twice went on a 2-1/2 mile round trip walk up our road, to the end of pavement, which most winters is a treacherously icy affair, best not attempted.

I hear most of the groomed ski trails in the valley are still in decent shape, though.  There was a big national level Nordic ski race here last weekend, the SuperTour, and they had to change the venue in part from the track near Liberty Bell High School to the north summit of Loup Loup (which has a groomed ski trail system of its own).  By all accounts the conditions were good and it went off well.

Not at the championship level ourselves, we were content to ski some of the trails up at Loup Loup South Summit last Sunday.  It was a little slow but not sticky and we were out for at least 2 hours.  Towards the end we had a light snow mixed with rain, so we got pretty wet, but it was great to be out there and doing it!

Yesterday I went with my Tuesday group for a snowshoe outing.  We drove up the Twisp River Road and tried the Buttermilk Sno-Park (not tracked and too icy), another spot at the end of plowing up the south side of the Twisp River (neighbors known to be unfriendly to parking there, were home, and some of our group were nervous…), and finally the end of plowing up the main Twisp River Road.  There we had luck and saw only that some skiers had been in before us.  We had to “break trail” but the surface was firm so it wasn’t too much work.

This was the turn-around spot for some, the beaver ponds and a rather grey outlook:

Twisp River beaver ponds

Four of us continued on to War Creek Campground for a lunch break and turn-around spot.  We figured we did 5 miles round trip, and I was a little tired!  But had a lovely hot soak in the tub on returning home.

On the fiber arts front, I finished my third Jared Flood hat from his “Made in Brooklyn” booklet.  I used my handspun grey Corriedale plus a strand of grey Rowan Kidsilk Haze.  It is wonderfully soft and springy!

I also finished up spinning some dyed wool roving that I bought from Heidi Parra at The Artful Ewe in Port Gamble about 2 years ago.  The roving was dyed mainly green with some areas of brown-into-black, so the color varies subtly along the length of the spun singles.  I wanted to ply it with something else so I could get more yardage, so rummaged around in the spinning fiber boxes and came up some baby camel/merino (50/50 blend).  So here is the final yarn, it is a 2-ply and about fingering weight.  I have 220 gm total or about 1/2 lb of yarn, approx 850 yds and I think it will be knit into a lace shawl.

Posted in knitting, outdoors, spinning | Leave a Comment »

Resolutions

January 9, 2010 by Katie

I didn’t make any specific New Year’s resolutions, yet the past two weeks have seen us finishing things up, organizing, taking care of things long postponed, and the like.  Not much of this activity was picture-worthy, and so I tended not to post on the blog.  But we are here and busy!

I started teaching a knitting class last Tuesday based on Karen Alfke’s Top-Down Raglan “Unpattern” (with her permission).  I am leading 5 intrepid knitters through the process of designing their own sweater using a yarn of their choice.  Of course, I am knitting one along with them so I have to keep ahead!  I spent most of last Monday getting my class project started, going through some of my sweater design books and preparing handouts for the first class.  Things went well with the first meeting and I think it is going to be a fun and exciting process for everyone.

I also took most of a day last week to catalog a big box of books that were donated to our guild library last fall.  They have been sitting there on the floor of our home office giving me a baleful look for some time now.  It wasn’t a big deal, but I needed to enter them into an Excel sheet and classify them, print out labels and get them ready for shelving.  We are using the Pourrey Cross Textile Classification Schedule developed at Interweave Press to classify our books.  Sometimes it is a challenge to get the right match, but it is better than nothing (and certainly better than trying to develop our own subject classification method).  So on Thursday I took everything up to the meeting and my co-librarian and I shelved everything and generally tidied up the library.  We needed more shelf space so we had to move some things around and then shift all the books over to fill the newly freed-up shelf.

Next project up was going through and organizing most of last year’s Visa charge receipts and pairing them with their statements.  This is in preparation for entering into Quickbooks which I will start tomorrow.  In other words, starting to get our bookwork done so we can take everything to our accountant hopefully by early February.

Rick finished up some laundry room cabinets and installed them at the house up in Mazama a couple of days ago.  That means he is done with that cabinet job, which occupied him for much of 2009.  We are going to try to go up to the house sometime next week and get some pictures.  The owner has asked Rick to build 3 beds for the house and they are still working out the details on that, but that will be his next project in the shop.

He also took the time to build a new out-feed table for the table saw, and repaired the big sprinkler cart that we use to water out in the field during the summer (“finally got that **** thing out of my way in the shop”).

It did snow for several days last week, on and off.  I decided it was time for me to learn how to use the snowblower, so I cleared out the driveway instead of expecting Rick to do it.  That was actually a workout!   Discovered some under-used arm muscles.  We finally got enough snow to put a layer down out on the alfalfa field, and our neighbors pulled the tracking sled around behind a snowmobile to set a ski track.  We went around twice yesterday (40 minutes) and it was great skiing, although a hair thin in places.  We got a light dusting last night so that should improve things a bit.

And finally, I spun up some dusty green merino top to go with some previously spun singles.  These came from a spinning batt given to one of our guild members last summer in Spokane – she passed it on to me as she doesn’t spin.  It was a beautiful batt (94% superfine merino, 4% bamboo, 1% angelina, which gives it the sparkle) in color “Dolly Varden” created by Laurie Sitkiewicz from Anchorage, AK (ewenique@gci.net, no website).  But only 2.5 oz so I wanted to stretch it a bit to get enough yarn to knit with.

merino & trout before plying

I had divided the Trout onto 3 storage bobbins, originally meaning to make a single skein of 3-ply from it, but wound up plying each one of those with 2 strands of the dusty green merino, resulting in 3 nice skeins of yarn.  The sparkle from the Angelina is definitely there, but not overwhelming.

Posted in home life, spinning | 1 Comment »

Happy New Year!

December 31, 2009 by Katie

Just a quick post to let friends and family know we are home in the valley and settled back in.  And, today it is SNOWING!!  Yay!  Maybe there is some hope for the ski trails, and our water supply next summer.

We got home Monday night, the cats having once again survived the trip without too much trauma.  There was a day of unpacking, fetching the mail from the post office (holiday cards and 3 packages!!), laying in some food, etc. We were both recovering from colds, so were a little on the low-energy side initially.

By yesterday we were back to working on projects – Rick starting some laundry room cabinets for the job up in Mazama, me going through the stone beads I picked up in Seattle for making more shawl pins.  Some of them have holes just a little too small or not drilled completely straight from either end, so they don’t fit on the steel shafts I am using.  Bummer!  The small ones I could ream out with a diamond file I got at the bead store.  Tedious, but do-able.  Today I found some diamond drill bits at a rock shop online, and ordered them.  Rick has a “Fordham tool” which I will be able to use to ream out and enlarge the holes on the larger stone beads.  A new adventure…

I got a jump start on New Year’s resolutions today by cleaning up and lubricating my Schacht spinning wheel.  The wood was getting quite dry, so I used the Howard’s Feed-n-Wax (with its lovely orange scent), some steel wool and a soft cloth.  Now she glows and spins like a dream.  I have several spinning projects in mind, and we will have a spin-in for Rock Day on Saturday Jan 2, up at the guild room.

So Happy New Year everyone!  See you in 2010.

New Year's Eve - the prequel

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