The Final Push

Rose Cottage's Own Electrical Service

Seth's copper work powder room sink and counter for "kitchen" area

  Shopping trip to Jerry's for laundry sink, toilet, heaters, etc.

The laundry sink is awesome.  It has it's own built in washboard, and came with its own cabinet.

One of the things we had to do to be energy efficient is to prove that Rose Cottage is tightly insulated enough.  So this company came and did a "Blower Door Test."  they had to do it twice because he couldn't believe how tight this little building is!

And that was the last step before final inspection! 

 

Seth cutting battens to finish the siding while I start moving in!

 My "new" Oregon made mid-century Allen Folding loom.  It needs some work, but it came with lots of extras making it a pretty darn good deal.

All this stuff (and more!) is leaving the house for Rose Cottage

The Rose Cottage landscape is filling in.   

                               

The house is very Zen with all that stuff out. 

 OK, well, relatively Zen.

Word Lite -- easy on yer brain

I am so behind! The Rose Cottage is nearly complete--we literally only need about 4 more things to get wrapped up and we'll be done!--but anyone who looked here would never know it!

So, here is one of my infamous whirlwind photo heavy, sparing text, catch-up posts, to continue the saga of how to build an art studio in your neighbors' back yard:


STEP 24:
Call Rock Roofing (they did our house a few months ago) and have them come back in the fog and use the same super-coolio red shingles on Rose Cottage as we put on our house:

STEP 25:

Have Andrew from Salamander Construction come back and start putting up your redwood board siding.  He was very patient with cutting the top of each board just a weetle different at the top for the crazy swoopy roof!

   

STEP 26: Mask the heck out of the place before the insulation blowers arrive!

STEP 27: Wait for it to be the second worst snow storm of the year to have your insulators drive over the mountains to get to your job. Then have them Blow in this stinky, but highly effective, stuff, just before you leave for the weekend.   Exciting day!  

This is taken after our return--you weren't allowed in for 48 hours!
 This stuff is hard as a rock though! And it's a vapor barrier.

STEP 28: Call Rick's Rain Gutters to put up some nice

 galvanized half pipe gutters and downspouts. They look really old school--and they match our house, too!

STEP 29:   SHEETROCK!   Oh, yeah! Lookin' like a room!

STEP 30: Plaster.  

 

These guys were fast and awesome and I LOVE plaster.  I love the roughness and the look. It just seems "real" in a world where so much is pre-fabricated.  Smearing mud on your walls--can't get much more old school than that.

Wheeeelll, I'm no where near caught up, but I'm going to give myself carpal tunnel if I keep clicking away much longer! Hope you are enjoying this!  I know someone is looking at it because the Google tells me so.  Feel free to leave a comment.  I'm pretty sure it's fairly safe to do so.  (Is that enough qualifiers?)

Darling Claire's Pea/Coco-nut Power Pods

     On yet another tangent--neither fiber nor travel related--here is a great (not to mention vegan and gluten free) no-bake cookie recipe I have been making.  I got the basic recipe from my good friend Claire Darling.  You can fudge the amounts one way and another and it will (probably) work just fine, but this is what I used on my second batch and they worked great. More coconut oil makes them sturdier, but I like them a little squooshier.  I imagine you could obviously use any kind of nut butter/ nut combination that sounds good or that you have handy.

Quite a few people have requested the recipe, so I thought I would just post it so it will "always" be handy if anyone wants it!


DARLING CLAIRE'S PEA/COCO-NUT-BUTTER POWER PODS:

Toast  3/4 c.  EACH raw filberts (a.k.a. Hazelnuts to folks outside of the PNW) and almonds for a few minutes in your toaster oven (a.k.a. easy oven for my Canadian cousins) or under your broiler.  Let  them cool before trying to chop them up.

Chop 1 c. of them very fine into a flour consistency. Chop the other 1/2 c. coarse like the chunks in chunky peanut butter.  I used my coffee grinder, but you can use a food processor.  Or you can buy nut flour in a natural food store and use that.

Warm to melting on medium low heat in a medium saucepan:
3/4 c. Coconut Oil
3/4 c. honey
1 c. unsweetened nut butter (I'm sure you can use regular old Peter Pan,  but I imagine they will be quite sweet)
1/2 tsp salt (if your nut butter is unsalted)(or if you just love salt)

Add:
2 C. quick oats (if you use regular or steel cut you may want to whirl them through your food processor or coffee grinder real quick like)

Stir the oats in well and let them warm up and cook a bit for about 3-4 minutes.

Then Add:
Your pre-made 1 c. nut flour and 1/2. c. chopped nuts
1 1/2 cups UNsweetened dried  coconut flakes 

As Claire said, "Basically you just want to glomb all that goo together."

I put mine into mini muffin tins lined with mini muffin tin papers, which made them very handy for sharing, not to mention super cute, but you can also just drop spoonfuls of the stuff onto parchment paper.

Let 'em cool. Eat 'em.

If you live in a hot climate and you don't over air-condition your house, you will probably need to keep them in the fridge or the coconut oil (which is what makes them solid) will be too soft and melty to hold  them together.

These are kid approved, and a really great for between meal snacks for picky or A.D.D eaters who might not get quite enough at regular meals.

P.S. I have dreams of rolling them into little balls and dipping them in melted chocolate. Let me know if you try that!  I would also love to hear about any other adaptations.

P.P.S. That's Grandma Hisrich's cake plate I have them on there.

Spring is Springing Here

Enough said.

For The Love of Fiber

I have about a million more pictures of the Rose Cottage project, but since this blog is supposedly about fiber arts and travel, I though maybe a little shot of a few things I have been working on lately might be fun.  Not to mention easier than the next 75 steps of the cottage project!

For the love of Bumbles

  I "unvented" a new way to make catnip toys: a needle-felted, scarily realistic, cat-nip rat.

Take a little fiber (washed, but still a little sheep-y seems to intrigue Bumbles better than scoured within an inch of its life fleece) and needle it to make a little mat.

 I forgot to take a picture of the next step where you put some catnip on it and fold the fiber around it.

Then needle it into a basic mousey shape.

Make some whiskers and a tail by braiding yarn scraps together.

Attach the whiskers and tail by needle felting a little more fiber over them.  Detail pointy nose shape.

Add some eyes with little bits of a darker color, and Viola! A pet rat for your beloved cat.

I keep getting a little scare every time I see it on the floor!

For the love of Byron

I love my cat, but I love my brother-in-law, at least as much.  A few years ago I made him a cotton throw, but it was always just a little small for him (though he loves it dearly!). I knew he would appreciate this:

It's based on the Modern Miters Afghan free pattern from LionBrand, and is made with super easy care Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick yarn.  I started it at the end of December managed to finish it in time for it to arrive right on his birthday the day after Valentine's Day. He called me to thank me even before he called his own mother!

For the love of Myself

I dumped all of my knitting notions out, sorted them by type into a gazillion saucers and then reorganized them into various pouches, and even managed to clean up after myself!

Love is all you need!

Rose Cottage Goin' Up Like a House A'fire ----- (FIGURATIVELY, of course!)

Things have progressed so quickly on my studio I can hardly believe it. Between Seth and our friend Andrew of Salamnader Construction and various sub contractors we already have walls and a roof!

STEP 8:
When the form is ready:

 have these guys

come and do this:

.

Then, with a stick,  scrape something meaningful into the concrete.

O-kay, so it was still 2013, but the building wouldn't be done until 2014, so I post-dated it!

STEP 9:

When the concrete dries and the snow all melts again, draw the stairs in on form to be sure they will line up with walls properly.

STEP 10: Have Pete of Sunstone Hardscapes go to the quarry with his big ol' truck and get a bunch of rocks so you can start landscaping (by "you" I do actually mean I helped, though Seth and Pete of course handled the ginormous ones!)

Golly gee. I haven't taken any pictures of the landscaping?! I actually helped with it! Sheesh.

Anyhow…

STEP 11: Get a lumber order figured out and delivered.

STEP 12: Build 3 walls all on top of each other flat on the ground so you can see if they line up with the stairs.  Be sure you build them in the right order as this will be important later!

Ah-ha! Seth had some pictures of Bumbles looking for opportunities which show the walkway at least. 

NOW FOR SOME REAL EXCITEMENT!

STEP 13: Get as many big strapping men as you can roust up on a weekday morning to come a push the walls into place!  Just like the barn raising in Witness! But with fewer Amish people and no intrigue. We did have a cute little 2 year old girl and a dog at least.

 The 2 year old exclaims, "It's a HOUSE!"



Then later, in awe, "It's a Biig House!"

She was very helpful in keeping the dog out of the way.

view from Seth's shop

STEP 14- oh, about  STEP 22:
Finish the sheathing. Get it inspected. Build the roof framing. Tar paper the roof. Get a bunch of windows you ordered months ago delivered. Put them in. Wrap the whole thing in Tyvek.  Get Brett from Baxter's Plumbing to come and do a bunch of plumbing (duh). Do a bunch of framing inside for the loft.  Seriously, this all happened in like a week!  I hardly did any of this (though I did take all the packaging off the windows!) and I'm exhausted just typing about it!

As my scientist housemate in college would often say when she had to write a paper, "Well begun is half done!"