Its All Golden!

So it seems that I have my hanging basket back and just in the nick of time. Ice cubes squirrelled into the available pockets around the junco nest was just not enough water for the basket... and it really needed a good fertilizing too.  The babies literally stood on the edge and jumped, and they were last seen part hopping, part flying around the other flower beds with frantic parents trying to keep up.  Seems to me, that this scenario can often mirror our experiences with our own children!

While the flower basket enjoyed a good watering and feeding, Bruce announced that we can't park our car inside the carport as swallows have built a nest in there and they are pooping everywhere!  So now our 'new'  car is out in the driveway and the birds have full ownership of the carport.

The compost cone has been emptied and dismantled and moved away. Seems it had become an all you can eat salad bar for rodents!  Not good.... so we have evicted them.  Being here in the trees, we can't feed the birds as it brings in bears and we can't put up humming bird feeders as it attracts ants.
Then  there are the little island deer (which look like baby deer but jump 5-6 feet with no problems) who eat annuals and hedges.  Having said all this, we do love being in a private setting with nature all around.... even if does push into our space from time to time!

In my last post I had my latest warp off  the Louet Spring and stretched out as one long 'runner'.  I serged the raw edges of the scrap yarn filler and put it through the washing machine and dryer. Then I had a long session of hard pressing the yardage with a hot steam iron. (A steam press is on the wish list.... but they are so darn expensive!)

My towels on the loom measured twenty five inches in the reed, With draw in and then laundering that reduced to twenty two inches.  Twills will tighten up and draw in happens, and then there is the shrinkage factor too!   I know that I want large towels and will turn small hems but how long should they be in proportion to the width? What is a good length to allow for small hems on either end and a generous body of cloth?

Is there a formula for determining this?   Why, yes there is!  The Ancient Greeks called it "The Golden Mean"  They believed that this was a philosophy to live by:

The Greeks believed there to be three "ingredients" to beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and as something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, education (paideia), and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

Then there was the mathematics behind The Golden Mean:

Proportion is the relationship of the size of two things.
Arithmetic proportion exists when a quantity is changed by adding some amount.
Geometric proportion exists when a quantity is changed by multiplying by some amount.
Phi possesses both qualities.
If you study the Fibonacci series and the Golden Rectangle carefully, you will eventually realize that
phi + 1 = phi * phi.
Consider: suppose that you start with a Golden rectangle having a short side one unit long. Since the long side of a Golden rectangle equals the short side multiplied by phi, the long side of our rectangle is one times phi. or simply phi.
Now suppose that you swing the long side to make a new Golden rectangle. The short side of the new rectangle is, of course, phi units long, and the long side is that times phi, or phi * phi. This describes a Geometric proportion.
But we also know from simple geometry that the new long side equals the sum of the two sides of the original rectangle, or phi + 1. This describes an Arithmetic proportion.
Since these two expressions describe the same thing, they are equivalent, and so
phi + 1 = phi * phi.
(Now that we know this, we can discover the exact value of phi. )
The resulting proportion is both arithmetic and geometric. It is thus perfect proportion

Okay, for some folks this is super fascinating stuff... and for others, their eyes glaze over!   I  failed math in school and  the advent of calculators arrived too late to save my grades. Not that the teachers would have let me use it in class like they do now!  All you need to know is that there is a mathematical formula to achieving a pleasing balance between width and length.   You have to love the internet as now you can simply click on a link and plug in the known number or measurement and get the golden  ratio calculated quickly and painlessly for you!

Save and / or book mark this web site:   Math is Fun: Golden Mean Calculator Web Site

{ There are many web sites out there that explain the whole formula and philosophy if you want to learn more. There are some links embedded above for you to review.  You can use the formula to plan garden spaces,  reports and photo layouts, interior home design, homes, even cars.... and sizing textiles to perfect proportions. }

You enter in the known number at the web site by changing the orientation from portrait or landscape if necessary and the calculator will provide you with the correct number.  In my case I entered  twenty two inches and the calculator gave me thirty and a half inches for my finished length. Then I had to make a decision on what to allow for hems and cut each towel apart every thirty four inches.     

I measured every thirty four inches and placed a little red cotton loop to mark the cutting line. Fortunately the pattern has built in lines to follow!

I found only one treadling error in all of the 8.6 yards!  As you can see I marked it with a green loop and it coincided right next to a cutting line. It would be buried inside the hem allowance.  A great bit of luck!

I had planned on seven towels, plus some samples and loom waste.  When the cutting was all done I had eight towels!  No samples and very little loom waste.   The warp had been laced on at the front and looped onto the apron rod at the back which as you saw in my last post was woven almost right to the back of the eighth shaft.   I had budgeted twenty inches for loom waste and the verdict is....

Seventeen inches!   I was darn close...

I folded the edges and pressed  and pinned them and they were to be a task to do at night while we watch the television.  Great in theory but with black thread, and all black sections in warp and weft it has become a day time job so I can see what I'm doing!

Eventually, I got a couple sewn and they measure up precisely thirty inches for length by twenty two inches for width!    I got them lightly pressed and ready for their close up's :

I have to make a comment about the colours. They are black, a sage green,  cream beige,  soft peach and something I like to call "burnt pumpkin"  Its not the orange I see on my computer  screen but something much softer and lighter.  Trust me, they all work together nicely.

Meanwhile my next warp on the loom is a bit difficult to weave because I can't see what I'm doing! I'm having to treadle by my notes alone and be extra careful to call out the steps so I don't miss one. I can't see to correct a mistake.... and later after its off loom and washed won't be much help!

Curious?      More next time....    

Eventually You Get There...

If you click on the picture and look carefully, you can just see a bird sitting on the top of the farther wrought iron flower basket supports. That's Daddy Junco on guard duty.  He and his mate have built  a nest in the flower basket.

When ever we use the front door, they sit in the magnolia and chirp away at us in little warning calls.

It makes watering the basket rather awkward! Today the flowers are looking downright wilty and so I waited until they had both gone for food and quickly filled the other part of the basket with ice cubes. They slowly melt and  evenly distribute the water. (Its a method I use to slow water orchids in the house) 

Holding the camera up very high, I quickly snapped this picture. There are at least two babies here and a possible third. Their little feathers are coming in nicely.  With some luck, I can  get these wee  fellas fledged, and save my flower basket!

So, I have been busy treadling away at the towel warp. It's 8.6 yards and I planned 7 towels and some samples. I also decided to weave it as one long continuous piece. I thought I would measure and cut apart later.  So I wove, and wove, and wove... and every night Bruce would ask me how much I had got done that day and I told that I had no idea as I wasn't measuring.  All I had to go on was the size of the roll on the cloth beam (which I nicknamed Chubby)

Here I am at the very end! The gold scrap yarn was the absolute limit of my being able to get a shed and  not have skips.  I want to see how much loom waste this Louet Spring really has.

I had 6-7 inches of warp left in front of the loom......

....but I was right up to the back of the eighth shaft heddles in the back!  I decided to nip the warp ends right at the metal apron bar. The idea is to measure the length at back and then see what I have left at the front for my total.  I'll give those totals in my next post.

The roll got quite full. Very satisfying pulling it all off and having a huge armful of fabric!

So we stretched it out...and it ran the full length of the studio which is twenty six feet long!  So that's 8.6 yards. I think I'm going to sew / serge the ends together and pre wash it before cutting it apart this time.  I will steam press it ahead of cutting and hemming.

I think this is the longest plaid I have ever woven!

The poor loom looks gutted!   Bruce helped me pull the warp off and we both likened it to giving birth!   Its takes time to tighten everthing back up again.  Two hours later, I'm slipping the next new warp into the raddle slots.  I'm going to revisit a recent project a time or two.  Table runners are up next.

Global Warming Hits Close to Home

This is what a mild winter looks like six months later!   Have you ever gone for a drive along a country road and noticed the 'tents' hanging in the tree tops? Well, the Forest Tent Caterpillar runs in ten year cycles and when an infestation occurs, it takes three years to get under control again. The moth lays 300- 500 eggs per nest and although we cut and destroyed all we could reach in our orchard, the thirty to fifty foot alder trees were unreachable! (Especially when they were on the neighbour's property) So for the past two weeks we have been under invasion. They literally crawl uphill like they are programmed  little zombies. You could see them coming up the driveway and through the lawn. They eat everything in sight! We started picking them off the flower beds and a cascading wall of a native vining plant called kinnikinnick (or bear berry or Uva Ursi)  They *LOVE* this plant and once on it, they dine and then seem to go into some sort of orgasmic coma. You can pick them off and they lay still like they are stoned or something.  The trouble is, they eat the blossoms. The local bees and bumble bees wait all year for the wall to bloom!  So while I gave up on the thousands elsewhere (no lie!) I did work to keep the  kinnikinnick wall clear. The honey bees just buzzed around me and I made every effort to stay clear of them working the flowers.

As you can see here... the flowers are catching heck! Click on the pictures for a close-up!

Here is healthy bear berry that I have managed to keep the 'Pillars' off for the bees.   (We have started calling them the Pillars ... as in " the pillars will get you!")   They like straight lines such as the boards in our deck and so you see little convoys of them all in motion to and fro.  The jar shown above is a 2 kilo peanut butter plastic jug and it has been full to the brim several times with no effect. Eventually, you go inside and ignore them as Mother Nature will win this round. Trouble is, they'll be back next year too as it will be year three.  

The last time I can recall them being this bad was back in the late 1980's when we visited Salt Spring Island when out touring on our boat. The fall country fair was on in Ganges and we found jars of 'pickled tent caterpillars' on display and even entered into the fair for judging. The lady who had brined them up told me the fair was about the local bounty and since they grew more of them than crops, why not?  

I'm concerned that the ants will be enjoying the extra bounty of dead caterpillars and increasing their numbers too. They seem to be the only thing that eats them. Birds leave them alone unfortunately.

We have another casualty this year. My favourite tree.  I went looking for a decent full length picture of it and now I'm further saddened by the fact I didn't really take its picture while it was healthy. Here it is in 2009:

Well, the base of it anyway. It had just prevented a group of three large trees from falling and hitting our house. I was sitting having my early morning coffee when I heard the crack and watched them fall!  This old fir that must stand at least 80 to 100 feet tall, blocked them from coming towards us and redirected them to fall behind the hedge in a nice tidy heap. What you see there is some of the firewood from the adventure.  It resulted in many trees being taken down due to disease or age in the coming weeks between our property and the neighbours. They had developed  a condition called cone rot.

In  late September 2010, it looked like this:

The needles aren't as lush or as green and we called an arborist in to look it over. The back needles on the inside end of the branches had gone brown months earlier than they normally do and were falling off. He had to go and do some research and when he got back to us he told us it was an infestation of a silk type worm. It would either make a come back or fail completely. You might recall sometime walking under a tree and there is a little worm hanging from a fine thread? well, its those little things.

Six months later:

Its lost the fight. Those sweeping branches that I saw an owl sitting on one evening twilight, looking so much like a Robert Bateman painting, will be coming down this fall. A casualty to worms that didn't die off this past mild winter or the one before.

We have other pests too. Oh, there are raccoons here, and feral cats from time to time. Wild rabbits in the meadow and the odd neighbour's cat comes hunting birds. Bears in the fall and we understand cougars pass through here spring and fall at the change of seasons. There are also ever present deer. We have a much smaller variety here called Island deer. Most tourists see them by the side of the road and think them cute as they look like babies, but those are full grown! I've watched them go from standing still and leaping over a five foot fence with ease. They have brought down full fruit frees and cleared entire crops  from the trees.  They eat anything you plant for flowers around the house except for heather and lavender.  The (so called) deer proof Lily of the Valley?  gone.... My glorious purple lupine? gone in one night!

So we bought tomato plants and a new small Japanese maple and put them in pots on the cedar deck to keep them away. They only go on the grass or natural ground... right?

Apparently not. Half the tree was eaten and they took all the shoots and flowers off the tomatoes. They've all been relocated to protective custody on the upper deck, behind bars.

We personally have made many choices to 'do our bit'. We compost kitchen vegetable waste, participate in a kitchen scraps composting pick up, recycle all we can at home, and only put out one bag of garbage every two weeks. We multi task our trips to town to maximize on fuel. We turn down the heat, and switch off lights.

I hope its enough.... we have a grandson and his future to consider now.

A parting picture or two:

This an old variety of Allium is just coming into bloom.. The perky star star like flowers can be picked and toss into a salad. They taste like chives or onions. Some gardeners we had here two years ago said that they hadn't see this plant in years as its an old varietal. It seems most people go for the purple globe types now.

Best news? The deer leave them alone!  

Today as I was typing the basics of this post up, we had a big shadow swoop by the patio door and eventually a large bird came in for a landing.

I had my camera nearby and Bruce crept out and took several pictures quickly. A big Turkey Vulture had landed in the dead fir tree. Now you can make of that what you will!

Back to weaving next post....