Thousand Flower Farm is located on Waldron Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. We grow vegetables, fruit, and flowers, raise sheep, weave rugs and knit hats for sale mainly in Friday Harbor, WA on nearby San Juan Island.
Couldn't resist a cat picture. Chas on the left and James III on the right just looked so cozy on their favorite box.
We just had a lovely week's visit from our daughter, Siri, who is currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Yesterday we took her over to Friday Harbor so she could catch the ferry to the airporter to the airport back to NYC. Crossing the country is simple, getting to the airport from here can take all day.
It was a windy night last night. the weather station on Saturna Island north of here registered a gust of 75 mph and a steady wind at one point of 60 mph. At about 2:45 AM I woke up to hear a huge gust of wind coming through the trees followed by the crash of a big tree falling close enough in the nearby woods that we felt it when it hit the ground. Next morning Joel and his brother were out clearing the roads. If you are planning on driving anywhere on the island after a windy night it's smart to toss the chain saw into the back of the truck. The tree above will go to one of the sawmills on the island to be made into lumber.
I got started on this year's first batch of rag rugs today. A friend gave me a really pretty plaid flannel sheet. it has stripes of blue and green and red and yellow and purple and I've found three solid colored sheets to go with it. I think it is going to be pretty nice.
I finished a project today that I have been working on, well, off and on, since last summer. These are natural colored organic cotton baby blankets for a baby that was actually born last fall but will finally get it next week. The mom is an organic farmer so the choice of the yarn made good sense. There are 3 different colors of yarn in this basket weave look pattern. A friend of mine from San Juan Island, Kathy, made baby blankets using this pattern and exhibited them at the Fair last summer. I was really taken with the pattern which comes from the March/April 1987 Handwoven magazine (for any weavers reading this).
And I needed to get them off the 8 harness Harrisville loom so I can put this warp for fine cotton scarves on it. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I can start on that.
The toast on the stove this morning just looked so homey I had to take a picture. Shortly thereafter it was spread with my new marmalade. Joel makes such good bread.
Vacations are all fine and well but I have to admit that I start getting twitchy if I spend too much time not really doing anything. So today I dragged out my boxes of old sheets and started designing new rugs for the new year. For rag rugs I put on warps that will make 7 rugs at a time so I have to find a bunch of sheets that will coordinate with whatever colors I make that warp. So I pile lots of them up on the bed (I developed the habit of using my bed as a workspace in college in a very small room and still do it) and start selecting similar color combinations. The first warp will be stripes of green and dark blue and that leaves a lot of leeway. The above pile is one combination that I think will work well with those colors. I wound that warp today and tomorrow will start on another one of aquas, bright green, lavender and pink. It is exciting to get back to serious work at the loom.
I love marmalade. Real English marmalade made with bitter Seville oranges. My family once spent all out leftover English coins at Harrad's duty free store at Gatwick on marmalade. Sigh, in these days of heightened security they probably wouldn't let us on the plane with a dozen jars of marmalade.
