Weaving a Sampler

At weaving class today we worked on a sampler, a small woven piece meant to serve as a tester for different color combinations and weaving techniques. By alternating the loom peddles, called treadles, different affects can be achieved, and we tried a number of different colors and treadle combinations today. My first two classes were spent measuring, cutting, and warping the loom with the warp thread, which is the blue and white thread stretched front to back across the loom in the photos below. Today we added the weft (crosswise) thread using a shuttle, the wooden canoe like holder for the weft thread. As the weft thread fills in, the textile must be manually rolled over the front bars of the loom with a crank to expose more warp for weaving. By the end of the class I completed roughly 25 inches of weaving. The piece won't be used for anything -- it's just a tester and I made a number of mistakes -- but it was really satisfying to see how it all starts to come together. Hooray for my first day of actual weaving!

New Vintage Stock Preview

A quick sneak peek of items to be listed in the vintage shop this week!

I fell in love with this 1930s portrait painting

Vintage bamboo bird cage

There's something wonderful about faded old flags

Todd Farm Flea Market Opening Day

Today was the "season opener" of my all time favorite flea market, Todd Farm, and as usual the show was packed with amazing finds and I made out like a bandit. Todd Farm is a real deal flea market 45 minutes north of Boston that runs every Sunday spring through fall. You won't find any knockoff designer bags, cheap leather belts, or crafts at Todd Farm, just the real deal, dusty, chippy, old stuff. Sure, there's some occasional junk nobody would want, but the show is overwhelmingly great and I have never left anywhere close to empty handed. The market is large enough that you can spend a solid three hours shopping without passing the same booth twice, and yet it is not overwhelming. Brimfield is great and I look forward to it all year, but to be honest I prefer Todd Farm. I can get in and out in a few hours without dealing with parking hassles and lines, and the deals are better. Add in the fact that the show is completely dog friendly and has the best homemade donuts I've ever tasted, and it just can't be beat.

If you are a flea market lover on the east coast and have yet to check out Todd Farm, I highly suggest giving it a shot.

Quarry Road Trip

Today we took a road trip to Poultney, a small town on the border of Vermont and New York, to pick up slate tile for our bathroom that was mined at a quarry there. I had never been to a quarry site, and while we really only saw the processing area and storage yard, I have to say it was pretty cool.

Rows and rows of slate slabs and tile in every size and shape imaginable were stacked over acres of land, and a mound of "castaway" cuts tossed at one end of the property looked to be almost a story high.

We got to see a large, industrial wet saw in action, in addition to several workers splitting slabs by hand using what looked like a sharp, thin wedge and a hammer. The wedge was placed at the edge of the slab, and pounded with a hammer to create the split. The slate separated straight as an arrow down the middle, creating two smooth slabs where before there had only been one.

The day was actually very nice, with temps around 50 and sunny, blue skies, so it was really nice to get out and take a drive. We get such tunnel vision with our work on the house that it becomes necessary to break up the routine and go somewhere new once in a while.

In other news, the demo in the bathroom was finished yesterday and the shower kit we ordered online arrived today, so we have everything we need to get started putting this bathroom back together. Being complete amateurs, I'm guessing it will take through the end of April to complete it. After the bathroom is done, we will tackle a custom murphy bed for the bedroom before turning our attention to the three season room off the downstairs bedroom. Needless to say, there will be lots more house remodeling and DIY posts over the next few months, so stay tuned if you like that kind of thing!

Weekly Etsy Wish List: Spring!

I'm choosing to ignore the sad fact that spring is nowhere to be found in our part of the state (it is snowing as I type this), and forging ahead with my spring themed Etsy favorites list. I hope at least some of you are sipping lemonade, enjoying the warm breeze blowing through your window as you read this! Happy spring!

Fine Art Photo, $30	Enameled Pendant Light, $127.83	Solid Perfume, $30
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Peony Art Photo, $34	Goest Perfume Set, $50	Succulent Centerpiece, $110
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Vintage Desk Fan, $104.99	Air Plant, $4	Handwoven Hammock $249

Easter Then & Now

↑ Oak Grove Park, Pasadena, CA

As a child, Easter was my favorite day of the year, even more anticipated than Christmas. In the morning all of our family friends and neighbors came to our house for a huge Easter egg hunt, and my best friends, Schuyler, Holly, and Jesse, were always there. My mother and I spent the week before decorating hard boiled eggs and stuffing candies into plastic ones. Hundreds of eggs were stashed all through the back yard, the side of the house, the front yard, and even down to our parking lot. Once the hunt started, our parents would stand on the back deck laughing and yelling encouragement.

When the egg hunt was over we'd pile into the car with our dogs and head to the 300 acre park 5 minutes from our house for an all day potluck picnic. A few years ago the park was renamed Hahamonga Watershed Park, but back then it was still Oak Grove Park. The park is beautiful, and as a kid I knew it like the back of my hand. From the age of four I'd spent every summer at day camp there riding horses, building forts, playing games, and climbing through the aqueduct system that leads to a huge dam at one end of the park. The camp gave awards out at the end of each day for the muddiest camper, and sometimes I'd come home with mud piled so high on my head that my mom would have to hose me down in the front yard before letting me in the house.

The Easter picnic was always held under the same grove of oak trees at the park, and it being southern California, the weather was always perfect. I do not remember even one rained out picnic. Some years there were maybe twenty people, others up to fifty or perhaps more.

The grass was always tall and green, and Schuyler, Holly, Jesse and I would play in it all day, making up games, telling stories, and eating unhealthy amounts of Easter candy while the sun beat down on us. There were often badminton and horseshoe games going among the adults, and we'd get in on it when we could. Potluck meals were set out on picnic blankets and our two dogs, Mike & Poco, were always there roaming free in the grass. In the best way possible, that day always seemed to go on forever.

This morning when I looked out at the view from our deck, I couldn't help but notice the stark contrast of the Vermont landscape during Easter to the one I remember as a child. By April in California, winter is a distant memory, the sun is hot, and everything is in bloom. Our Vermont landscape is brown, grey, damp, foggy, and covered in snow.

Does it have its own beauty? Absolutely. In fact, I do love the view and never get tired of looking at it. But just this morning, I am missing Easter the way I knew it as a kid. I'm missing the people, the smell of grass and oak trees, and I am especially missing the sun.

Oak Grove Park Image Source

Bathroom Remodel Part 2

This morning the tub area was in the state shown above. Tub, drain, and bath spout plumbing still in. After removing the drain and cutting the spout plumbing, we struggled to remove the tub in one piece for about 20 minutes, but because it is flaked by walls on either end, we ended up cutting it in half to get it out.

After that it was easy as pie to pull out. We loaded it in the back of the truck and dropped it off at the dump an hour later. I'll tell ya, we were not sad to see that thing go. Some old appliances are charming, quality pieces worth keeping in tact to sell or donate, but this tub was most definitely not one of those pieces.

After the tub was out we did a bit of demo work on the tile.

And here's what it's looking like right now, after cleaning up the shards of tile:

The next step will be replacing the p-trap in the shower, filling the hole around it with a layer of sand, covered with gravel, topped with concrete. After the p-trap is finished we'll frame out the shower stall with a kit we found online, finally tiling it over. We are leaning toward white subway tile for the shower, similar to what they've done here:

Image source

For the floor, we found a slate company in Vermont that sells natural green/gray slate floor tiles cut to any size you like. Today I ordered 70 sq. ft of 9" x 12" tiles. Below are the samples they sent. We ended up going with the shade second from the right. They look a bit more green and less gray in person.

That's all for today! I'll be back next week with more on the bathroom. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend with warm temperatures, Peeps, and lots of candy eggs :)