Sunday, October 9, 2016

Tired But Happy

Another Museum of Appalachia Homecoming has come to a close.  The weather was wonderful, and I though many times about 2 years ago when the rain just would not stop!  Our booth did well by our estimates, we will know with more precision on Tuesday when Marie will give a report.  Many thanks for all those who gave a hand manning the booth Marie and Christy who also helped with set up, Karin, Pat, Joyce,Bonnie, Harriet, Anna, Irene and her husband. We could not have done it without you! (I hope I didn't leave anyone out!)

On Thursday we had 29 bus loads of kids come in, and it was just as busy as you might expect it to be.  Most everyone was well behaved and we sold out of  all the small stuff that we had made just for them, in fact we could have used more!  (Make a note for next year!)  Friday, Saturday and Sunday are mostly adults with kids sprinkled in families as they usually are.

I spent 4 full days spinning wool on the porch of the Peter's Homestead Cabin. I usually try to spin wool that comes from Sheep Shearing day on the porch and I was able to go almost the full 4 days of Museum wool, but today I had to pull out my reserves.





Over the first 3 days I was able to spin 6 bobbins of white wool, which once it is plied will give me 2 really nice sized skeins of 3 ply yarn (to add to the one I already have, )that will be good for many things including hats, scarves, or a sweater.







Like I said before, by this morning I had to pull out my reserve wool.  I had brought one of my Jacobs fleeces that I had gotten from a friend of Betsy's a couple of years ago.  I had washed the wool and separated out the 3 colors that were in the fleece.



 I hadn't decided how I was going to spin it before today.  I knew that I wanted that empty bobbin to last me all day.  In order for that to happen I knew that I had to spin lace weight yarn.

I started spinning with the darkest of the colors, and I was spinning just as fine as I possibly could.



It is not exactly frog hair, but it is really fine!  Much finer than the white yarn I had been spinning.  By the end of the day I had used up 2 of the fluffy bumps in the above pictures and had filled  maybe 2/3 of the bobbin.  Mission accomplished!

Lou Ann was in the loom house those same 4 days, she finished 5 placemats and ran out of weft or she would have finished the sixth and final placemat for the year.


We get many visitors at the museum, and every year we see relatives of Aunt Cordelia, who lived her life in the cabin that Lou Ann and I call home when we do demonstrations at the museum and the Tuesday Weavers get to use it as a booth during the Homecoming.  This year was no different, first there was a family that had just learned this year that they were related through family tree research, and some that thought that they might be related.  Then yesterday we got a real treat,  Aunt Cordies great grandson showed up with his granddaughter!


They went all over the cabin, and he told me that he had spent many nights in the upstairs bedroom above the kitchen.  He said that we had the girls room and the boys room upstairs switched, and that Aunt Cordie's spinning wheel was in that same upstairs bedroom above the Kitchen, that was where she would spin.

It was such a treat to get to meet him, I asked if I could take his picture!

We are all exhausted, but happy!  We will take a few days to catch our collective breaths and take an inventory of what we have left  and  then start getting ready for the show in late November, just before Thanksgiving.

Until next week, Happy Resting, Tina

1 comment:

LA said...

I'm so sorry I missed meeting "the relatives" who came to visit!!! It was a busy few days, and we met so many folks at the Homecoming....and you sure got a lot of spinning done!