I hated to leave...

The last few years I stayed on Nantucket through Thanksgiving. I love it when the crowds leave and the island quiets down.

It's nice being back in Maryland and still see fall leaves on the trees. Now I need to get ready to teach a basket class in a few weeks. Then I plan to dress the loom for an overshot project.

While on Nantucket I did manage to knit a couple of chemotherapy caps to be donated at our November guild meeting. I also made some bracelets from small scraps of antique ivory and parachute cord. They are comfortable to wear and the paracord is very durable. For closures I use either a bead or a toggle made out of scrap whale bone.
I'm having fun learning new knots from Ashley's Book of Knots. It was first published in 1944 and documents over 3,800 knots. It's certainly not the easiest book to learn how to tie knots from. You can now get new reprints of the book but comparing the new with the old, the older version is much better. The print and pictures are much more clear and crisp in the original version of the book. Other knotting books I like are The Arts of the Sailor and The Marlinspike Sailor.

I made some of these little guys. The one on the left has a lanyard knot and a 4 strand square sinnet. On the right is a lanyard knot and king cobra stitch.
Cleaning up the yard before leaving I snipped off all the blooms from the hydrangea bushes and tree. Piled up they were so beautiful I had to snap a picture.
This came from our hydrangea tree. The blooms are large and plentiful.
I really enjoyed scalloping and digging for clams this year. Nantucket Bay scallops are different from any other type of scallop. They are smaller (half the size of sea scallops) and more tender and sweet.Shucking (opening) scallops is hard work but well worth the effort.
Nantucketers call hard-shelled clams quahogs (CO-hogs) but they can be subdivided by size. The smallest, little necks, are ~ 1-inch thick. The largest, chowders or quahogs, are 3 or more inches in diameter and cherrystones are in between.
Steamers ~ Soft-Shell Clams ~ Long Necks must be dug by hand at low tide. A short handled "fork" with long, thin tines is used to excavate them. The thin shells are very delicate.
I froze a lot of the meat and will be enjoying it over the winter. Yummy!

Moe as in Moby Dick

Before leaving Nantucket someone bet me $10 that I wouldn't finish and hang the whale before I left. That was all the push I needed. I've been working on the whale the last year and a half. Here he is hanging in our cottage. He's pretty hefty and 44" in length. He has real ivory teeth carved by Nancy Chase. The timber, used to carve the whale, is several centuries old and came from the Nantucket United Methodist Church. It's an original timber from when the church was built in 1823. In the mid-1980's the church basement was renovated and to accommodate an exterior door the timber was cut out. It had been kicking around Nancy's house until I discovered it. Nancy started the whale many years ago so with her help I finished it.


We had a party to celebrate. The night before the party I had someone help me hang him and I covered him up with a sheet. The night of the party we had a whale naming contest. Everyone submitted their choice of a name. The names were then read aloud. Next everyone voted for a name but they couldn't vote for their own name. In the end Moe won by 2 votes and then we had an unveiling. I love him and I can see him from just about any room in the house.

I also made this basket. It has a rosewood bottom and ebony top. It can be used as a ladies sewing box, jewelry box, or just as an art piece. The bird on top was carved from an antique whale tooth.

The Eagle Has Landed

The eagle is finally finished. Yahooey! After restoring the wings and stand the eagle took 26 books of 23.5 gold leaf. It just sparkles in the sunlight. It is believed to have been carved by John Haley Bellamy (1836-1914) c. 1860-1870 a famous New England nautical wood carver.

Nadine, Ed, Nantucket, and Clapotis!

I'm back on Nantucket. When we first got here it was cold, windy, and rainy and I wondered why I came up so early in the season. The weather turned this past week and we have been having beautiful weather.

My good friends (more like family) Nadine and her daughter Ed came for a few days. We had a very nice visit. Ed is a fabulous cook and they came with a rather large care package that included bottles of wine, homemade bread, a precooked dinner, and desserts (yes that is plural). It was all yummy! Ed even helped pull together some of our other meals. I always learn so much from her. Nadine is a good cook too.

When we get together like this we usually get a lot of knitting accomplished but not so much this visit. We did manage to stop by our favorite yarn store (Sheep to Shore).

I helped Nadine take a picture of Clapotis, her latest knit, to upload to Flickr and Ravelry. Afterwards Nadine presented me with this beautiful scarf.I was so surprised and delighted at the same time. Clapotis is a free pattern that can be downloaded from knitty here. Nadine knit it to be worn with jeans so she added some repeats and made it a little narrower.

I'm looking forward to their visit again next year.

Beadwork Progress Has Slowed Down

I was zipping along on Beadwork until we went off to another Windsor chair class in West Virginia. I brought Beadwork along but I was too tired in the evenings to knit a stitch. Since I last posted I picked up the sleeves and completed the decreases. Now I just need to continue knitting down to the cuff then put the body stitches back on the needles and continue knitting.



I took a Windsor chair class last year with Vanessa. This year we went back to West Virginia and Charles Boland's workshop, Storybook Joinery, where we each made a Nantucket Windsor Fanback rocker. The class was a full six days. We loved every minute of it! (Except for the part where I got a ticket for speeding and having expired tags.) Besides the class we enjoyed seeing Sherry (Charles' wife) and their golden retriever Maggie. One night Charles cooked a delicious seafood stew for us. As you can see the Boland house is filled with his beautiful creations including the dining room table.



Here are our finished chairs. My chair is on the left and Vanessa's is on the right. Charles is in the center without rockers.


Some highlights from the class.

The crest is steam bent red oak with the crest ears hand carved with volutes.



The oval shaped seat was created from a solid piece of 2-inch thick clear white pine. The seat was saddled by hewing with a hollowing adze, and then finished with a scorp, compass plane, travisher, spokeshave and a scraper. This picture also shows the tail piece that was installed via a mortise and tenon. The back spindles are installed into the tail piece to provide extra strength for the backrest.





Here the legs and stretchers are installed. The legs penetrate the seat and are wedged securely in place through a tenon joint. The holes are drilled using sightlines to bore compound-angle leg mortises.


Everything else is maple with the exception of the arms that are poplar. The arms have hand carved knuckles and volutes. I affectionately renamed the knuckles to Maggie Paws as a tribute to Maggie the Boland's golden retriever.



See Vanessa's blog for a more complete description of the workshop.

The next project for me will be a Windsor Sackback Settee like this one.



If you ever have an opportunity to take a class from Charles DO IT you won't regret it. He is very patient and willing to share his vast knowledge of his craft with you.

You Can't Fight Mother Nature

I don't have a knitting update since I haven't been knitting lately. I had to go to Boston all last week. So, I thought I'd share some pictures of Nantucket. Oh, on the knitting front I did receive my invitation this morning to Ravelry. Yahoo! I made my Ravelry username itsterri.

On Sunday I drove out to Madaket (Western tip of Nantucket) to check on this house. This weekend it finally toppled off its foundation. It is the last house on Smith's Point and is owned by a family in Connecticut. It was threatened before. In early 2005 the waves crashed through the basement. Since then, the beach had gained and then lost 125 feet.

The house next to it is a goner. It is only a matter of time (a very short time). The heavy part of the storm season isn't even here yet. That usually begins in December or January.

Viewing from another angle you can see the house fell off its foundation.
On the other other end (East) of the island 'Sconset Bluff is fast-eroding. The Sankaty lighthouse was in danger of toppling into the ocean. It was finally moved last week away from the bluff. It is now sitting in its new location. You can read about it's journey here.

Nantucket Sunrise

When we are on Nantucket we don't have much property to run our dogs so every day at daybreak I head to the Tupancy Links and get treated with the most spectacular sunrises. They are well worth rising early for. Tupancy was a nine-hole golf course overlooking the ocean that in 1976 was gifted to the Nantucket Conservation Foundation (NCF) by "Tup" Tupancy and his wife. Now the property can be enjoyed by the public. And a few minutes later ...

Recently DH's FLAK sweater got pulled out and dusted off. I started this in parallel with the FLAK sweater I knit for myself. Somehow mine got finished and his did not. (No comment.)
Single sock syndrome no more. Finally managed to finish the second Fetzensocken sock.

The Chair is Finished...

After returning from the Windsor chair class and while Vanessa was still here we sanded our chairs in preparation for paint. Before painting the chair it got a coat of walnut stain that was diluted 1/2 stain - 1/2 water. If the paint wears off to expose bare wood you won't see the light color of the wood underneath rather you will see the dark walnut stained wood.

Next the chair received a coat of Old Fashioned Milk Paint in color Salem Red.

The next coat is Pitch Black. Many old chairs had several coats of paint applied to them. With use the underlying color comes through in the natural wear areas. To simulate this I took a pan of water with a cloth and rubbed wear areas exposing the underlying color.

Lastly, the chair got 3 coats of Golden's brand Natural Tung Oil Finish followed by a coat of paste wax.
Vanessa and I are planning to make another chair in March. I plan to make a Nantucket rocker (it's like the second chair on the left).

Long Overdue Post

I have lots of catching up to do. The biggest news is our Nantucket cottage is just about complete and we are just waiting for the final sign off by the building department before we are issued the occupancy permit. Here are a few pictures. It sits on a little one-way street that used to be a foot path. The front is being bricked and there will be a flower bed next to the house that will contain things like hydrangeas and old fashioned roses.The house is only ~1,100 sq. ft. and has 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. It doesn't feel like it is that small and it amazes me how little space one actually needs. The original section of the house was built in 1925. I was looking at a recent issue of "Cape Cod & Islands HOME" magazine that featured a huge house that was referred to as a cottage. That started me thinking about what is a cottage exactly. Hmmm...

The book The Credible Chronicles of The Patchwork Village 'Sconset by the Sea published in 1886 states, "The meaning of the word cottage in society is strangely perverted. It is defined in the dictionaries to be a small habitation; a cot; a hut; formerly limited to a poor or shabby habitation, but now applied also to any neat or tasteful dwelling."

Based on the last part of this definition the house I saw featured in the magazine would qualify. I'd be interested in knowing what others thought about the subject.

Nantucket Daffodil Weekend Festival

The island was in full bloom with over three million daffodils bulbs planted over the years. Daffodils could be seen in shop windows, planted along roadsides, in gardens and window boxes. Daffodil Weekend marks the beginning of the spring season on Nantucket. Part of the celebration is the annual antique car parade where cars are decorated with daffodils.


Each trip back to Nantucket I've worked on my whale with the guidance of Nancy Chase. He's a big boy and I've nicknamed him "Bocephus".After the last time I worked on the whale it started to crack or check. Checking is typically caused by shrinkage differences between the surface and core of drying lumber. A check is a naturally occurring lengthwise separation between wood fibers. Wood logs shrink twice as much in the tangential direction (growth rings or concentric circles) as it does in radial direction (diameter). I was surprised this happened since the timber came from the Nantucket Methodist Church and is one of the original timbers from when it was built in 1823.

I filled the cracks with Swedish putty. Some of the cracks were so deep I ended up creating little wedges from wood and inserted those into the cracks and back filled with putty. It seems to be working. I worked a lot on the tail this trip. I'm very pleased with how Bocephus is turning out. This is my first carving experience. Nancy watches over me and gives me direction. She is the best teacher and so encouraging. I'm having so much fun.
I did manage to cast on the foxes sweater. While on the 2 1/4 hr. boat ride back to the mainland I cast on and knit ~ 1-inch of ribbing. Oh well, at least it is something.