Sugar Shack

 

Our son-in-law from Quebec became an American citizen last month. Chelsea flew down from New Hampshire this past weekend for her sister's birthday and I was finally able to give her this little rug to take home. I hooked it as a nod to Simon's heritage. It is designed by Isabelle Rollin of Quebec and is titled, "Sugar Shack". I thought this design fitting as a gift for them because Simon told me once that being Quebecois meant that maple syrup runs through his veins instead of blood.

 Chelsea and Simon also have friends in New Hampshire who own Kearsarge Gore Farm. I had an opportunity to visit their wonderful sugar shack a few years ago. Their syrup is delicious. My little quilly wood pile does not accurately represent the true size of their wood pile. It was enormous!

 

 

 

Things (Not) in Common with a Troll Doll

 

Seven year old granddaughter Violet spent the day with me yesterday. She ran across this little troll that belonged to my older sister in the mid 1960's. As she gently stroked its hair she said, "Nonni, if you grew your hair long you would look like this." I thought, "Huh??"

Later on, I shared this exchange with my other daughters over Marco Polo and we all had a good laugh. Nine year old Hugo got on and he said, "You would not look like that. For one, you are not that small. And for another, you would not be undressed."  Then he held up his finger and pointedly said, "Not to be disrespectful or embarrassing." We cracked up even more. 

No one said anything about my ears, nose, or eyes...

Warm Springs, VA

 

We took a weekend getaway to this lovely cottage in Warm Springs. It is a beautifully renovated three bedroom, three bathroom VRBO located right behind the Jefferson Baths. We went with two other couples with whom we frequently travel. The weather was cool and fresh and we had a fun time exploring. Warm Springs is exactly one hour from our house. I don't know why we don't drive up there more often. We vowed to come back again, even if only for a day excursion.

Warm Springs is best known for the Jefferson Baths and the Omni Resort, called The Homestead. We dined one evening at the resort and another at The Inn at Warm Springs. The food and service at The Inn were excellent and we were able to easily walk across the road to it. On Saturday afternoon Steve and I went to the baths. It was a peaceful, relaxing soak and we were happy we took the time to do that. It was not crowded on that particular day so they gave us a choice of the ladies or the gentleman's pool. We chose the ladies which is larger and has an open roof. The gentleman's bathhouse is a bit smaller with rafters that crisscross the roof hole but, it has a little side room with a little waterfall where the warm water rushes out. One can sit in the waterfall. 

We went exploring and found the nicest antique shop called, Springhouse Antiques. Every item in the store was immaculate. All six of us chatted with the owner's husband and marveled over the beautiful antiques. We found a couple of goodies to purchase and much more that we would have liked to purchase. We also took a drive to Hidden Valley. We visited the Bed and Breakfast there and looked at the Kitchen House and grounds. The plantation house has a grand and imposing entrance. It was built facing the Jackson River. Trees now obscure the river view but it was easy to imagine the early days of this farm while we walked the grounds. The main building serves as a bed and breakfast and the kitchen house is available to rent with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. They feature the fact that the 1993 movie, Sommersby was filmed there.

Nestled in the mountains is a natural warm spring. Warm steam rises fro the water on a chilly morning.

 

The larger bathhouse with changing rooms encircling the deck. The water is a constant 98.7 degrees. The water is six feet deep and the bottom is river rock. There are black foam floaties to help stay afloat.

The water is mineral rich with calcium, magnesium, and lithium.

The pristine Springhouse Antiques store.

 

Springhouse Antiques has a pretty, old fashioned store front. (which is no longer used as the main entrance)

A front view of the Warwickton Bed and Breakfast in Hidden Valley. It is in a very secluded location. The front elevation would have a sweeping view of the river if trees did not obscure it.

The main house and the kitchen house are attached with a breezeway.

The kitchen house is also available to rent by the night.

Channeling the Water

This is my experiment to see if I can get the water that flows down the hill, past the perennial bed, and behind the shed to flow without washing away the soil. Bricks are compliments of the old smokehouse that was torn down next door twenty-three years ago and scavenged by me. I still had a pile left even after I lined all the garden beds and paths with them over the past two decades. It took me six hours of hard, but fun, labor. 

We just had three days of rain, two of which were a steady pour. So far, so good!

I call it a gully. Steve calls it a flume. 

Getting started.

Nearing the end.

Transitioned from brick to river rock behind the shed.

Bathroom Renovation

 The bulk of the upstairs bathroom renovation was finished a couple of weeks ago. Overall, I am very pleased with how it turned out. There are always things that I would do differently when I look back on a project but, that is how we learn. I am still completely in love with the wallpaper. Sometimes I go upstairs just to look at it. It makes me that happy. This was a DIY project except for the quartz countertop and sink installation. We contracted that job to be professionally delivered and installed due to the weight of it. Steve and I make a good team. I give him my vision and choose all of the elements and he installs. He does plumbing, electrical, sheet rock, wood working, you name it. Oh, I do the painting!

I forgot to take a "before" photo. It was a basic, boring bathroom: powder blue walls, all white trim, a pretty shower curtain and that was it.

 

 

I wanted it to be moodier and I wanted to incorporate wallpaper. The wallpaper is from Wallpaper Direct and is called Dagmar by Borasapeter in color, Nude.

 

We installed a narrow tongue and groove paneling. Steve made the baseboard and the top rail and I painted (and painted!) all wood, trim, and doors in Benjamin Moore, color: Brandon Beige. I used BM cabinet, door and trim paint.

 

I purchased a custom sized picture frame from Web Picture Frames and Steve transferred the mirror from our old frame into it. We hung it with a French clip system purchased at Lowe's. The antiqued brass faucet is from Kingston Brass. The quartz counter top and sink are from Rockfab in Roanoke, VA. The wall sconce is from Lamps Plus.

The pretty antiqued brass towel bar, TP holder, hooks, etc. are from Pottery Barn.

As the project wound down, I realized that my preferences always go toward the same design elements and colors. The upholstery fabric for the chair and the rug I hooked were very similar to the wallpaper I chose. I brought the chair up from the dining room and the hooked rug up from my office and put them all together on the landing to the bathroom. 

 

Still to do: find a pretty landscape painting to hang, paint the wall socket covers, add an antique washstand or bench under the window, maybe paint the bathroom vanity, place a natural fiber rug on the landing with the chair. 

Regret: The tongue and groove wood paneling from Home Depot is awful. It is Hakwood 5/16" Knotty Pine Edge V-plank Wall Boards Kit. It is very thin and all the boards warped. We came very close to ripping it all out and calling it a loss. I stressed quite a bit over it. I hoped caulking the holes and putting on three coats of primer and paint would mask it well enough. Steve has offered to tear it all out and install better wood but it feels overwhelming to take out the sink and vanity to do that.

Strawberries and Cream- Bettering Humanity

Aren't these adorable? These strawberry flowers and berries were created from a pattern by Mary Annunziato called, "Strawberries and Cream". Three friends and I spent a day making them together. I must admit that spending a day on this made me question my purpose in life. I doubted that creating these artificial wool flowers was contributing to the betterment of humanity. I thought that surely there was something more important I could be doing with my time. While I sat with my friends, cutting and gluing, I shared my thoughts about feeling guilty for squandering time like this. "Maybe that's the whole point", my friends said. "It is a day of down time, to relax and refresh ourselves by creating something pretty", they reasoned. 

Anyway, they are super adorable and I enjoyed spending the time with my friends. Two days later, Tess saw them on my windowsill and exclaimed with joy over them. She kept going back to study them and asked if I would show her how to make them and could we have a craft day next week? She wants to make a bouquet of them for her co-worker. 

Now I find it interesting that something I thought was pointless might actually have a purpose. Forming these little woolly flowers and berries is bringing people together and giving them joy. Very soon, my daughter will hand a bouquet of these to someone and pass along more joy. I need to stop looking for the deeper meaning in everything and sometimes just accept things at face value. Sometimes we just need to play and spread joy. That is how we contribute to the betterment of  humanity.
 

Settling In- Home Keeping

It feels good to turn my attention to the home place. The past six weeks have been busy with travel, a bathroom renovation, and workshop preparations. I have been looking forward to settling into a home routine for the next couple of weeks. My desire is to spend more time on 'slow' things like baking bread, hand embroidering, and finishing two small rugs. I would also be pleased with myself if I could keep the house clean as a matter of routine. This means not having to rush to clean a bathroom because someone is coming over but have it be clean just because. I suppose I want to feel more in control of the day to day. 

With that goal in mind, I have the garden mostly planted. I also baked a nice Cinnamon Swirl Bread from the King Arthur cookbook my son-in-law gave me for Christmas. We toasted the slices for breakfast. With that success, I felt encouraged to try their recipe for brownies. The brownies turned out to be the best I have ever made from scratch. They were so good, I ended up making one and a half more batches. The first two pans were destined for the church fish fry and the last half batch was to enjoy ourselves with family and friends. I bought a carton of vanilla ice cream so we could enjoy them to the fullest. I plan to work my way through more recipes from this cookbook. 

Unfortunately, my goal of staying home more is not going to happen without a fight. Requests to help with "this" or be there for "that" are endless. This conflict of time causes me anxiety. I need to learn how to say, "No" better. I also need to pick and choose what I join into. We will see how that goes. Maybe a fresh baked brownie would make me feel better about it all. : )

All but two beds are planted. The dill volunteers itself all over the place. I like the tender dill fronds for recipes so I let it be and then pull it up as needed.

 

That last ingredient is two cups of chocolate chips. The first column of ingredients are mixed together in a bowl. The butter and sugar are melted in a pan to 110°F., then added to the mixed ingredients. Then the chocolate chips are folded in. Spread in a 9x13 lightly greased pan and baked in a 350°F. oven for 28-30 minutes.

Blue Ridge Ruggers Annual Workshop- Lanscapes

 Whew! Our third annual workshop is a wrap. This year, we scheduled three days in May to focus on hooking landscapes. Our talented member, Patti W., agreed to teach the workshop. Preparations began last fall. We thought it would be fun to provide an original pattern of our county's landscape to the group. It would be the base from which each hooker could make the rug a work of their own by tweaking the building, trees, seasons, etc. Patti spent months experimenting with ideal pattern sizes, colors, add-ons, etc. We ended up with a finished pattern of 10"x14" to give each attendee. We also provided them with linen, wool cutters on site during the workshop, light boxes on site for tracing patterns, and lots of fabric swatches and assorted silks, yarns, chenille, and velvet for embellishment. Lunch was provided each day along with snacks and beverages. This way, all attendees could focus on the class and not have to fuss with preparing a lunch of their own each day. Of course we had lots of door prizes, exercise breaks, and sharing of experience. We also had another one of our members, Mary H., selling her beautiful, hand-dyed wool.

Patti lives a good distance away so she stayed at my house during the workshop. We were pretty tired at the end of each day so we relaxed on the porch, fixed light dinners, took a walk, and retired to bed at a good time each night. Steve provided good dinner conversation when Patti and I were too tired to contribute much. He put on record albums for background music and helped clear the table each night.Patti gave me a lovely hanging planter from the greenhouse where she works and a tin of oatmeal cookies she baked for the three of us to share. It turned out to be a lovely visit amidst our busy workshop.

In retrospect, there is not a lot we would change. One thing that would have helped is if we had provided Patti with a microphone. She is soft spoken and the large room containing thirty women seemed vast at times. We also ordered too much food. Even though I cut back from the amounts we ordered last year, there were leftovers for people to take home. 

 

 

Different views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Peaks of Otter formed the base of the landscapes. Variations of trees, seasons, and out buildings could be added or deleted.

Patti made up lovely little bundles of wool swatches that we put into goodie bags for each attendee. We included other embellishments, a yard of sari silk, a little notebook, and candies in the bags. Patti encouraged everyone to use pieces of pantyhose, yarn, silks, or some kind of embellishment in their rugs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thirty-one of our Blue Ridge Ruggers

Mary made sure to include plenty of pieces of landscape colors in her sale wool. She also thought to have small swatches for sale at one and two dollars because many of us only needed little bits of certain colors.

Primitive Linen

 

Last minute preparations are underway for our rug hooking Landscape Workshop, I ordered a twenty-five yard bolt of linen foundation fabric from Searsport Rug Hooking Supplies. It is the only way to get a good price on linen yardage these days. Prices are up to $43.50 per yard when purchasing one yard at a time. By purchasing a bolt, the price is reduced to $25 per yard and shipping is free. It helps to have a group of hookers who all want/need linen. 

I spent the afternoon cutting the bolt down into individual orders. Primitive linen backing smells like hay to me. It is a wonderful aroma but it can be a little bit dusty too. I ended up wearing a surgical mask (thanks to leftover Covid pandemic supplies that I never want to see again) while I worked. To cut the yardage, I pull a thread of linen at the desired place, then cut along the weave of the pulled thread. Pulling that thread through the linen is one of the most satisfying things! I use the pulled threads to tie up the cut bundles. It was nice to have the tidy piles stacked up at the end of the chore, ready to be disbursed. There were also twenty-one smaller pieces cut for Kay to serge for our workshop attendees. I am happy to have this checked off the list! I shouldn't need to order another bolt of linen for quite a while.

 

Creative Hands Gathering

 I had the fun opportunity to once again attend the annual Creative Hands Gathering in Hagerstown, MD last weekend. I traveled with my partners in creative escapades, Kay and Pat. The Gathering is a two and a half day event fueled by one hundred attendees and wonderful vendors. It is enough to sit and stitch (or hook, or quilt) with all the other crafters and glean from their creative energy. We dine out together and talk and talk and talk. The vendors included, Primitive Homespuns and Needleworks, Teresa's Prim Treasures, The Bee and the Bear, Susan Gonzales Designs, Dianne Pierce Basketmaker, Lori Brechelin, and more. I learned from past attendance that it is too crowded to take my rug hooking. So I usually kit up some applique or stitchery to work on while I am there. This year I made a yardstick holder with wool from my stash and an appliqued mat from a kit I bought from Teresa's Prim Treasures, who was on site.

I wish I took photos of some of the  items being created while we were there. Two women were hand stitching amazing quilt squares. There were a few rugs being hooked and many beautiful embroidered pieces being stitched as well. It was a fun getaway, especially since Steve was away for work and I had been home alone anyway. Now I have a few days to catch up on house and yard in preparation for the annual workshop for my rug hooking guild. One of our excellent hooking members will be our instructor and she is staying at my house during the three day workshop. Our focus will be on creating landscapes. More on that next week!

Primitive Homespuns

 

The Bee and the Bear

My little mat from a kit at Teresa's Prim Treasures

The Bee and the Bear

Dianne Pierce Baskets. I have two of Diane's sturdy baskets for carrying supplies.

Catching Up on This and That

 I see that it is two weeks since I last wrote! Good gracious where has the time gone?! 

Tess and Blake flew to New York City and we kept their little Bok Choy here while they were away. She is so sweet and followed Steve and I wherever we went. She seems to look forward to bedtime and she watched me like a hawk each evening, waiting for me to make a move to the bedroom. Each time I made the slightest move in the my chair, she popped her head up to see if it was time for bed. She slept on the bed with me and I must say, I enjoyed her warm company.

 Aside fro the flight home, Tess and Blake had a good time in NYC. Tess is an amazing knitter and she sent this photo of her standing at the artwork that inspired the sweater she knitted. She has knit and crocheted a few things for me and I treasure them all.

 Holy week was beautiful in every way. Thursday was the Lord's Supper, Friday we attended the solemnity of Jesus's Passion, and Sunday burst forth with joy at the celebration of our risen Lord. I do love Easter!

Tess and Blake came over for brunch after church. I mostly cooked the day before. It was a frustrating day of cooking because everything I attempted to make went wrong. My sweet bread wouldn't rise, the chocolate cake spilled over the pans, and the hard boiled eggs would not peel. I made the bread over, made the cake over, and did what I could with the eggs. The one thing that turned out great was the broccoli quiche. It looked so pretty in the pottery dish. (found in a thrift store!) The crust was perfect and the cheesy filling was not overpowered with broccoli flavor. I must use this pie dish again!

Steve was away and I got a lot done around the house. I caught up on some good cleaning, mowed the lawn, weeded the asparagus bed and bought some garden plants. I worked on sewing projects and I am feeling pretty well caught up.

Pick Up Sticks and Sorting the Past

I decided to give the lawn its first cutting today. It was a chilly but otherwise beautiful day to be outside. I usually end the mowing at the top of the hill, under the swing. There were so many fallen sticks and branches up there that I had to stop mowing and pick it all up before I could continue. I took a few minutes to study the colors in the valley. I needed to consider what season to hook in my next hooked rug project. It is set to be a workshop on landscapes. After seeing all the lime greens and pinks today, I think I will choose spring. It will be fun to blend those greens and create some flowering trees. That decided, I went back to work.

 I gathered two cart-fulls of sticks and branches and unloaded them on the burn pile. Down at the burn pile, I noticed how unkempt the woodshed was so I stacked the wood that had tumbled all over the place and tidied up a bit. I went inside around 4:00 to shower and start some dinner. I noticed how stiff my legs felt stiff and was surprised that so little time outside could make me feel so ancient. Then I remembered the hike to Carvin's Cove yesterday. It was an easy hike, more of a walk in the woods really. But, we did cover four miles. I figured the muscle soreness was a fair trade for all the fresh air and work done today. I do not take this good health for granted.

I spent the rest of the evening gong through old home movies to send to Legacy Box. They had a special sale last week so I decided to finally organize and preserve all of our old VHS tapes. It took me hours to go through several not-clearly-marked tapes. I shed some tears and had some laughs at our girls antics. When they got hold of the camera, there was no telling what silliness would turn up. I sped through twenty-five years of memories. I watched Steve and I go from young and slim with no gray hair to where we are today. It was emotionally challenging. Around 11:00pm I went to bed and dreamed of old friends whose faces I saw in the videos. 

Rain is forecast for the next two days. I am in the mood for it and it will be good.