Christine - Trained Doula

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Holy wholly tee shirts

With my ever growing pile of tee shirts I finally decided to make yarn.  Tee Shirt Yarn - it's all the rage and fits right in with my desire to use what I have.  I even found that old cotton sport socks make great family cloth when cut in half.

Callaloo Soup has a great tutorial on how to cut up a tee shirt to make a single ply of yarn.  Because I decided to try my new yarn on my twining loom I found that I didn't want any seams so I adjusted this method a bit. When twining I use an invisible join so it lays flat.

My strips were cut about 1 1/4" wide but I think the next time I will try a wider cut.

Calllaloo Soup used scissors but I found my rotary cutter much more practical and easier on my thumb.
when using tee shirt material make sure the warp is pulled tight.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Reasons to live in the Mohawk Valley

My daughter and grandson came to visit for Thanksgiving and one of the things we do I talk about how wonderful it is to living where I do.  Besides the fact that we (meaning our farm) rarely get bad weather, and that I have lived here 60+ years, I believe that the Utica Rome area is on the edge of a boom.  But besides that there are many reasons why my daughter and her family would benefit from living here.
In random order as they popped into our heads.

1. On call baby sitters - what a money saver.
2. You can grow vegetables year round in our greenhouse  (like that Alaska show)
3. Biking, canoeing and kayaking are close by (not to mention the Adirondacks)
4. Two families means meal sharing possibilities plus canning and preserving company and help (I'll be able to pick more blackberries).
5. You don't have to listen to the tornado sirens and remember you don't have a basement.
6.