ozweaver – Page 26

Antigua, Ho!

November 19, 2017 | Leave a Comment

My trip to Antigua went smoothly. Once I arrived at the airport in Baltimore, I connected with another sailing friend, Judie. We made our connection in Miami, and even enjoyed a couple of leisurely hours in the American Airlines member lounge! There is a saying among sailors that “nothing goes to weather like a 747.” It’s certainly true! While Bob had his easiest passage this year, there was still one long day when he and his crew had to schlog through 20 squalls. My passage was much shorter and much smoother than Bob’s! His journey took 9 days, 23 hours. He had estimated 10 days, so how’s that for accuracy on something as hard to predict as sailing conditions and boat speed?

It is shockingly hot here, but lush from all the rain during hurricane season. Antigua has had little damage compared to its close neighbor Barbuda whose entire population has now been evacuated. We spoke with a waitress who is from Dominica who said that the rainforest, the best in the Caribbean, has been flattened. No one here has gone untouched by this year’s violent weather.

I have made things as cozy and homelike as I can for the moment. I’ve put out the little woven table mat that I bought from Chris Hammel during the Greater Boston Open Studios a few weeks back. It is just right for our dining table aboard Pandora. I hope she knows how much I love it! Bob got fresh bougainvillea for the table to greet me when I arrived, as well as a vaseful of pale pink oleander. He knows I love flowers!

The day before I left home I visited the Hartford Artisans’ annual weaving sale with my friend Jody. We both bought some great treasures, and I bought this kitchen towel to put onboard to help me remember fall at home….there are no naturally occurring autumn colors in the Caribbean, so this feels a little like New England in November. It’s the towel on the left.

Our mascot, the little sailing mouse, French Louie (who came from a shop in St. Martin, but is originally from Denmark!), has a new hammock. My friend Mary made it for me when she was trying out her skills at net making. She did a fine job, and Louie and we love his new spot for relaxing! Thank you, Mary! Sadly, we will not be visiting St. Martin this year due to the hurricane damage suffered there.

Before he left on the long passage, Bob made a lot of entertainment plans for the boats arriving here. There has been cocktail party one night, and a ceremony by the Antigua and Barbuda Royal Navy Tot Club last night. We were guests at their daily meeting, where in historic fashion one of the members reads from the logbook various events that took place on this day over the past 700 years or so, then toasts enemies and lost friends (Thursday’s toast-there’s a different one for each day of the week) and the health of the Queen, and THEN we each take a tot of rum, all in ‘one go.’ For men, a tot is an 1/8 of a pint. That is 1/4 cup of rum, straight, all in one go! For women guests the tot is half that. Well, let me tell you I failed at getting it down all in one go, and I decided not to attempt the rest of it. I gave it to Bob, who was successful at his own full tot. Sheesh!

Here is Bob in the white shirt at center, thanking the Royal Tot members for their hospitality in hosting us for their daily ceremony. It’s a beautiful setting in the Copper and Lumber historic site that is now an inn and restaurant.

Tonight, Saturday, Bob has arranged another dinner, the first of three. Tonight we will be having fresh sushi, Caribbean style. There is a traditional Caribbean dinner coming up on Monday to welcome the rest of the arrivals–boats who had various equipment problems and boats that are simply slower or had weather issues getting here. One of the restaurants here in Falmouth Harbor is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday for all of us who will not be home for that holiday. There are plenty of English and Canadians in our sailing group who will join us for this holiday dinner. Other boats in the harbor are flying home port flags from Sweden, Holland, and France. As the weeks go by there will be more and arrivals from many other places.

For the moment Pandora is in Falmouth Harbor, where we spent a few days on the dock, enjoying the ease of stepping ashore for me, in addition to being plugged into electricity so that I had some air conditioning to help acclimate to this tropical climate! Now we are off the dock and anchored out in the harbor. There is plenty of breeze, but it still takes some getting used to!

This lovely water garden is near the entrance to English Harbor, just a short walk from Falmouth. I would love to add something similar to my own garden next summer. I know I’ll have to settle for something far less interesting than this giant iron pot that might have been in use when Lord Nelson was stationed here.

My last post had a photo of Pillars Restaurant where we had dinner after my arrival. Pillars is equally beautiful before the sun goes down.

Before I left I had three wonderful days with our son and his wife, and our adorable granddaughter Tori. She is getting cuter and cuter as well as bigger and bigger! I’m so glad we will see her again over Thanksgiving weekend.

In fact she will be our Princess Tori when she has her christening day on Sunday after Thanksgiving. And speaking of royalty, we have been hearing for days that Prince Charles will be visiting Antigua today as part of a tour to see the hurricane damage among islands that were once British subjects. I am keen to see him! Wish me luck!

Changing Gears

November 14, 2017 | Leave a Comment

Tomorrow at this time I will be in the air heading for Antigua. Hard to believe that time marches on as it does. For weeks now I’ve been entirely focused on other things–things with deadlines that had to happen before I took off to warmer shores.

First! The dress fits! Can you imagine what a relief this is??? I am not an experienced seamstress, and not particularly knowledgeable about how quickly a baby grows during the six weeks since I fitted the muslin to my granddaughter. I thought she might get taller, but I was counting on her NOT getting wider in the chest.

She is such a beauty! –not that I’m partial or anything! I owe the success of making this dress to my sewing teacher Marie, and to my lace mentors, Mary and Clare. This dress was beyond my limited sewing skills, so I’m lucky to have found such a great teacher!

At this point I don’t even remember what projects I put onboard Pandora before Bob left to sail south. I will have fun discovering what’s waiting for me. I will bring Tori’s Mini Mouse dress to finish during the 10 days we’re there. I decided not to bring my new band loom on this trip. I’ll wait to let Bob help me with the logistics of that when we return at the end of December. We will be in Antigua for only 10 days before we come back for Tori’s christening and to spend the month of December celebrating her 1st birthday and the Christmas holiday. Our younger son Chris will come out for both the christening and Christmas, so I’m thrilled we will all be together twice in one month.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be arriving here. Bob says we are one of only a handful of boats on the dock right now. It won’t last as the super yachts will be arriving everyday now, until the docks are full of mega-yachts. We’ll move off the dock and out into the breezes in the middle of the harbor after I arrive. But tomorrow I will move aboard while Pandora is at the dock…

…and we will enjoy dinner together at Pillars on my first evening there.

I imagine I will have a bit of culture shock as I transition from all the conveniences of living on land along with the transition of late fall into tropical weather. Now I’ll be in permanent summer, while living off the grid. When I get used to it, it does have its pleasures, but I never get entirely beyond missing home. One thing I cannot live without these days is good internet! I need to get photos of my Tori Tiny Super Moon at least once a week!

Internet Shopping

November 8, 2017 | Leave a Comment

Boy, have I had fun shopping in cyberspace lately. Remember the old days when the ‘modern’ thing to do was ‘let your fingers do the walking?’ This is lightyears beyond that!

Internet shopping is hardly new, but the wealth of websites devoted to weaving/spinning/lace making/sewing….etc…etc has expanded into a galaxy of wonderful places to shop!

A couple of posts back, pre-christening dress dilemma, I wrote that I had ordered a tape loom on etsy. Well, it arrived! And it was beautifully packaged so that opening the box was like a well choreographed dance. I enjoyed every moment of unpacking this treasure! I hope I can get a warp on it, and figure out how to get it to Pandora, now that she sailed away with Bob–OR rather, Bob sailed away with her.

The woman who made this loom and all the accessories that go with it calls herself HandyWOman. What an attention to detail! My loom has images of England and Scotland branded (?)/burnished (?) into it on all sides, inside and out! The accompanying bag (sold separately) is so well made– it shows the kind of sewing expertise that I am trying to attain in my classes! Just take a look!

Here is the box with the first bit unpacked. She made the drawstring bag that holds some small items you’ll see shortly!

I enjoyed the unpacking process and had to document it! The rigid heddle is embellished with a Tudor rose.

The set came with this little Scottie dog comb–adorable!

Everything unpacked and displayed on the kitchen table! I wish I’d gotten a better shot of the London skyline on the side of the loom that is being blocked by the instruction papers.

You need to see a closeup of the tote bag that holds all the pieces with plenty of extra room for other stuff. Note that HandyWOman’s logo has been machine embroidered on the top of the bag. What a great touch! I’m finding it hard to believe that she can be such a good wood worker as well as such an accomplished seamstress.

I can’t wait to try weaving on it!

Going back a couple of weeks now: my lace group made a trip to the Windham Textile and History Museum in Willimantic. My friend Mary descends from some mill workers and foremen, so she has particular interest in this time period. She was searching the internet for some mill related information and found the clothing designer Carolyn Denham (of Merchant and Mills) who makes timeless yet modern clothing with a nod to the mill workers of years ago. I couldn’t resist ordering this pattern, and today I found it in the mailbox! There’s no time to make it now, but hopefully I can tackle it in the spring when I return. In fact, I hope Mary makes it while I’m away so she can give me pointers on the process!

Last week I went to an extra sewing class on a day I don’t usually go. There were students there I hadn’t met before, and lots of projects to sigh over. One woman is making her granddaughter a quilt out of large and small panels of woodland animals drawn in a wonderfully graphic style. I love the owl and the fox and think that Tori would love them too! So, of course, I had to go hunting for them, letting my fingers do the walking so to speak, across the keyboard rather than the phone dial of old….and they were easy to find! They also arrived in my mailbox today! (The panels are from fashionable fabrics)

There are actually four animals in this set. I’m smitten with the owl and the fox so that’s what I’ve photographed. There are also a bear and a bunny. I bought the coordinating fabrics at the top of the photo at a local fabric store in Glastonbury called Close to Home. I’d never been there before, but I will be going back in the future. I just love the addition of that kiwi green and hope Tori will too.

The arrival of these treats could not have come at a more opportune time! It’s post-christening dress trauma and just in time to plan things to work on when I return home in the spring!

Calm after the Storm

November 7, 2017 | 1 Comment

This morning I sewed on the newly bleached lace to the front bodice of my granddaughter’s christening dress. What a relief that it looks good to these old eyes of mine!

Here is the front of the dress, looking rather golden because of my kitchen lighting and the cherry cabinets in the background. Trust me, this dress–and the lace!–is bright white!

Here is the back. As you can see, I cannot finish attaching the narrow lace to the back until I’ve done the buttonholes. That will get done on Wednesday at my sewing class. Actually, my teacher is going to do that….if you mess them up the dress is ruined, so that is WAY out of my comfort zone.

I tied off the the rest of the lace on the pillow and have just finished bleaching and soaking it in hydrogen peroxide. When it dries I hope I will find that it got as light at the lace I did yesterday…my fingers are crossed and I’ll just pause here a moment to go throw some salt over my shoulder!

Alrighty then! It’s a damp fall day here, drizzly and dreary. It will get dark an hour earlier than I’m used to this evening. I have taken a moment to enjoy what will be close to the last things blooming in the garden. It’s been such a mild fall, and surely the first hard frost can’t be too far away now.

These are the last few roses in the garden.

I couldn’t resist cutting a few of them, along with some lavender, to bring inside. The summer colors looked quite out of place in the house. I’ve moved them to my bathroom (of all places!) where a bit of pale pink, bright pink and purple look better.

It’s almost time to bring in my extended sheep family. During the winter they stay warm in front of the fireplace.

The birds who lived here are long gone, along with all the hummingbirds who were attracted to the red mandevilla and sat on the wire waiting for a drink at the feeders. The mandevilla doesn’t have much time left, so it’s singing its swan song.

I’ve already brought in some of the plants I want to keep for the winter. l didn’t realize this geranium cutting had a bud on it. It is sitting on the window sill above the kitchen sink, and it opened yesterday during my trials with bleaching. Today this bloom seems like a benevolent onlooker to yesterday’s events.

Lastly, here is the kitchen table. It hasn’t been used much lately for eating! While Bob is off sailing to Antigua, I haven’t felt much like cooking for one and sitting down to a meal at the table.

Mostly I’ve been using the table as I am now, to write emails and blog posts, with morning coffee or a glass something stronger in the evening. I’m feeling pretty lucky that I had the opportunity to write this particular post. The storm is past, and it’s looking pretty likely that there will be a christening dress worthy of dear little Tori, my tiny super moon!

Oh Dear! OH DEAR!

November 6, 2017 | Leave a Comment

I did not end up posting this on the day I wrote it. It all happened yesterday, Sunday of the first day of standard time… thank heaven for that extra hour!

There is a textile crisis going on in the Osborn house this morning! If you are my husband, either of my two sons, or any of their acquaintances, reading this, you are probably scoffing!–or laughing! Bob says a dropped stitch is an adventure for me! (not true) Those of you who know me will know how serious this is.

I began sewing the larger lace to the christening dress this morning, starting with a 12″ length that is getting attached to the bottom of the front bodice. Earlier this week I noticed that the first inch or so of this lace, which I started months ago, had discolored a bit. When I showed it to a few other people this week we all agreed that it probably was affected by the darling walnut lace holder I’d been using to wind the lace as it came off the pillow. This prevents the lace from hanging off the the back of the pillow and possibly hitting the ground or getting caught on something. Perhaps the tannins in the wood leached into that first bit of lace that wrapped around the wooden cylinder (just right of center in the photo below).

Last night I soaked this lace in a mild solution of Eucalan, a gentle cleaner that I use for washing wool locks that I want to clean before spinning, as well as cleaning my handspun yarns. This morning I took that bit of lace outside to get a good look at it to see if it had come clean. To my horror, I discovered that the stain was not just in the first inch of lace…..it was a discoloration that ran the length of the lace in a distinct pattern.

Somehow, when I started this lace, I managed to wind bobbins with two different colors! One was pure white, and the other was half-bleached. So I’ve got two colors running through the whole length of my lace–almost 2 yards. That lace has taken me over 100 hours to make, and I hate the mottled look of the two colors.

How could I have done this? I still cannot imagine the scenario. Surely, I must have been interrupted as I wound the 36 bobbins needed for this pattern. But I know I would have left the spool of linen with the unwound bobbins. How did I manage to get a 2nd spool of linen into the mix? It’s no use wondering how this happened. It’s time to decide what to do about it.

My first reaction was to make peace with it. I pinned the cut piece of lace to the dress. I took it to different rooms as well as outside to look at it in various lights. When I’m in a gloomy room and cannot see the problem, I don’t mind it. Anywhere else, where I can see the color changes, I hate it. I think this photo does a reasonable job of showing the color problem.

Solution #2 is to tea dye it and make the whole thing off white. I cannot get onboard with this. The dress is a bright white, and the smaller lace at the neckline is also. I just can’t go there….and what if the lace still looks mottled after the tea dye? It could very well look dirtier!

So, as I’m writing this I am taking desperate measures. I am soaking the small bit of lace for the bodice in a weak solution of bleach. Yikes! I’ve done a futile internet search on bleaching linen and come up mostly empty handed. I called my friend Clare, who is a far more experienced lace maker than I am, someone I hoped might have had a similar situation. And she has! She bleached some vintage lace in the past, and it worked while not harming the old fibers. My linen threads are new and should be able to take this treatment. I’m following her lead.

Fingers crossed….

Tick tock…. I have stopped the bleaching three times now. First time was 10 min. Then I did an additional 3 minutes. Now I’m watching the timer for another 5 minutes. Each time I’ve rinsed the lace and put it into a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution. Both the bleach solution and the hydrogen peroxide solution are about 1:10 ratio, chemical to water.

I will not go beyond 30 minutes total. I think the lace looks whiter, but it still doesn’t look quite right against the dress. It’s a dark day here, and drizzling, so I’m blasting my two brightest Ott lights at my little container of diluted bleach, hoping I can get as good lighting as possible for seeing some change!

One last try…. I added 1 1/2 tsp more bleach (1/2 TB) to my solution and am trying again for 5 minutes. I think I will have to make peace with this and not go further. Ha! I added another 2 minutes when the timer went off.

The almost verdict: the lace is still damp so it will get slightly lighter when it’s completely dry. The lace is noticeably lighter than its unbleached counterpart that is still attached to the lace pillow. I can still see a color difference running through the lace, but it is less obvious. I’m hoping it will be even more subtle once the lace is dry. I bleached it for a total of 27 minutes, and do not want to chance doing more. I must make peace with this ……MUST!

I’m trying to convince myself that the dress will still be a lovely thing in spite of its flaws. I expected some sewing flaws, but I did not expect the lace to be the focal point of my disappointment. I hope the love embedded in the dress will make up for the visual flaws…

It’s now a couple of hours later. The lace has dried, and looking at it with my two brightest work lights I cannot see any cream color now! Whew!

That was WAY too close to disaster! I feel undeservedly lucky.

Author name: ozweaver

Antigua, Ho!

Changing Gears

Internet Shopping

Calm after the Storm

Oh Dear! OH DEAR!

Subscribe to receive notifications when I post: