12/13/2006

Craft House Reflections

Well, the Craft House has come and gone and it went pretty smoothly. We ended up with four crafters, Trish with doggie treats and gift baskets, Laurie and her daughter with a really nice variety of things like waxed leaf firestarters, sheepy ornaments, knitted scarves, decorated frames, and beaded jewelry. My neighbor, Barb, brought a bunch of crocheted scarves at the last minute. The younger kids had the brownie jars and cocoa stuff and worry doll pins. In addition to the scrubs, salts and lip balms, I finished painting quite a few springerle ornaments, several pin cushions with shrinky dink pins and dyed bunches of roving.

About 7 or so people from town that no one knew stopped by. That was encouraging especially since we didn't do a ton of advertising. At least one expressed that they really liked the idea. A number of friends and neighbors stopped by. That was really key. Looking back the success of something like this depends on frihttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifends both their coming and bringing some of their friends. Since I was the only one from Phoenixville, it was overwhelmingly my friends that came. A bigger group of crafters more centered in Phoenixville would have brought more people.

Still, everyone had a pleasant time. The house was filled with friends and laughter. The kids learned a lot (!) and we all managed to make a little money. I personally would really love to do it again in March with spring things and baby things. We'll see. In the meantime, we have lots of scrub and salts and lip balm and if you receive one as a Christmas gift, please don't look on them as leftovers because the intention all along was let's make these for Christmas gifts and make lots extra to try to sell.

And, this picture may make it onto Etsy.com this week as I try out that venue for selling.

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12/09/2006

Spinning Wheel Tune-up

Upon moving my Ashford traditional out of the living room and into the dining room taking the place of my daughter's easel (which has moved up to her room), I noticed that everything was, well, how should I put it - shaky. The wheel itself looked like it just might fall apart. The spokes were loose and the hub was coming apart as well. After admonishing my son for not keeping his hands off of it and hearing tales of other children wildly spinning the wheel unsupervised, I went to the google and found this page. My very question of how to repair the wheel spokes and hub was answered, although it took a pdf (found on the ashford site) of how to put one together in order to figure out how to take it apart.

There is a pin in the hub that must be pulled out (we used a pliers) and then you may pull out the shaft, and lift out the wheel. Upon doing this, all you need is a little wood glue and a clamp or two. Wait 30 minutes or so and reinstall. Here's a note though, make sure that the drive band is positioned correctly when you reinstall the wheel. If you don't do this, you may have to take the whole thing apart again to get the drive band on correctly. Take a wild guess as to why I know this!

We (Julius was my eager assistant the whole time - he is going to be such the engineer) then oiled it up, realigned the wheel and the bobbin drive, and tightened some screws. I think it'll be ready for a spin (yes, pun intended) tomorrow evening!

12/05/2006

Wool for the Craft House



I've been doing some dyeing this week and last for the Craft House. There are a couple of spinners that might stop by and a number of Waldorf parents who live in the neighborhood, so I wanted to be ready. I also took some skeins of hand-spun yarn and labeled them for sale. I don't think I'll get more yarn done, but I have a few more batches of roving to dye. Dyeing is so much fun. I love playing with the colors to see how they turn out. Having a background in science I know that I should be keeping a notebook with all the concentrations of dyes and how I mixed the colors, but I'm not. That'll have to be a project when there are more than 24 hours in the day! If they don't sell at the Craft House I might just have to get one of those Etsy shops going.