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Mosby's Secret Sidehill Farm

Week-old puppies

3/2/2016

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Puppy weigh-in! The pups are one week old now and doubled in size!
  1. Akela, who was 1lb 4oz when he was born, is now 2lb 10oz
  2. Messua, who was 1lb 7oz when she was born, is now 2lb 11oz
  3. Baloo, who was 1lb 8.5oz when he was born, is now 3lb 3oz
  4. Raksha, who was 1lb 11oz when she was born, is now 3lb 5oz
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Check out the tubby little milk belly!
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Puppies!

2/25/2016

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Our proud mama Bridé gave birth to her 4 enormous puppies!
  1. Akela: male, 1lb 4oz, 9:20pm
  2. Messua: female, 1lb, 7.5oz, 9:42pm
  3. Baloo: male, 1lb, 8.5oz, 11pm
  4. Raksha: female, 1lb, 11oz, 2:45am.
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Final snow of the winter?

2/16/2016

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The front of the house has a winter wonderland feel today!
The new farm looks like home now as the snow falls around us, but we're optimistic that spring will hit us soon, perhaps even early this year.  In spite of the 6" snow and a night of freezing ice, the weather is predicting sunny weather in the 60's this coming weekend!  That'll be just right for kids, lambs and puppies, who will be arriving soon.
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Brun and Duke patiently endure the winter weather with icicles hanging from their blankets.
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Walking back to the house from the barn where we fed goats, sheep and horses; Mr. Mistofoles rides Chris' shoulder to stay out of the wet snow.
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almost puppy time!

2/12/2016

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T-minus a week or so, and counting down!  Bridé has a puppy belly and is starting to fill up with milk.  Check back with us for puppy photos soon!
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bridé has a boyfriend

12/23/2015

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It's that time of year for our Livestock Guardian Dog, Bridé, and we've found a purebred Maremma Italian Sheepdog stud in Charlottesville for her to visit.  She'll spend about a week in his company and hopefully we'll see puppies from her in about 65 days.
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A New Location, a new name

10/10/2015

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As we move into the new farm location and get fences, shelters woodpiles and hay ready for winter, we must acknowledge the change in site with a change in name.

Our new farm rests along a slope coming down from Mount Pleasant, with a shallow hollow at the bottom of our land and a ridgeline at the top of our hill.  Unlike our previous farm, where we sat in a bowl of a valley, here the majority of our farm will have a definite slope.  This will be wonderful for making an orchard on one of our south-eastern slopes, where the cold air and excess damp will drain away from the fragile fruit trees.  Our pastures and cropland, too, will have to grow on hillsides, and this inspired us toward our new farm name.

In the classic western novels by author Louis L'Amour, multiple characters (hardy, humorous individuals with problem-solving, resilient attitudes) hail from the Appalachian Mountains.  They frequently describe their homesteads there as "sidehill farms" where they jokingly claim that their flocks were bred to have short legs on one side, so they could walk on the steep pastures as long as they always went around the mountains in the same direction.

In laughing tribute to these Appalachian tall tales, therefore, we have redubbed Mosby's Secret Valley Farm as Mosby's Secret Sidehill Farm.  May our livestock never need to shorten their legs on one side!
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Moving!

9/15/2015

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Mosby's Secret Valley Farm is moving to a new location in Amherst, Virginia, along Route 60.  Our old rental location is being transferred into a trust and we are switching to a farm we can own by ourselves.  However, with property prices as they are in Northern Virginia, our chosen farm is substantially farther south than where we began.  We will be about half an hour East of Lexington, Virginia, on 81 South, and very close to 29 South, so we'll still be within easy access for those who wish to brave the drive.  As a wonderful sidenote, our new location no longer sits across a creek with a tiny bridge, down a dirt road off a dirt road, as we had been used to.  Now we will live on a private road that connects directly to Route 60, a paved, well-traveled road that is maintained even through winter storms.  No more worries about the creek rising and washing out our driveway!

The new farm has 26 acres but has not been used for farming since the 1960's.  We love the location, the house and the forest, but there's much to do to make it ready for use.


Please bear with us as this will be a difficult, intricate move; in addition to a household, we have to move livestock, berry bushes and farming equipment!  The livestock need fences and water sources in the new location before they can be moved, and the chimneys need inspection and repair before we can start using our woodstoves this winter.

​We will try to maintain contact and availability as best we can in the coming months, but it may be some time before we re-establish normal farm cycles sufficiently to offer our products at local markets and such.
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Happy kid photo to brighten your day

7/15/2015

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Tablet weaving edges

6/5/2015

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PictureA tablet-woven edge decorates and encloses the neckline of a linen dress; the material is wool embroidery floss.
Tablet-weaving on the edge of fabric creates a warp-faced binding that decorates and protects. Tablet-woven edging is a skill from medieval Europe, but it is still in use in countries where hand-woven goods are common, such as Peru and Bolivia, because it encloses and reinforces seams, finishes visible garment ends (like sleeve openings and buttonholes) and it can take any shape without rolling or puckering the fabric (like necklines). Where visible, it can be made very decorative and elaborate, with no more skill or time needed than for a utilitarian version—the method and materials are the same!  The materials are portable and don't take up much space. The skill requires the same dexterity as hand-sewing but takes less attention than embroidery. 

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An SCA reenactor, Stoffel, uses traditional hand-tools to turn a walnut log into a set of weaving tablets.
What are weaving tablets?

Tablets, or cards, are thin (0.07 inches thick) pieces of wood cut into small squares (1.6” wide), with holes drilled in each corner. Some examples in period are hexagonal or octagonal, with additional holes, but the easiest shape is square with four holes. Sometimes the edges are colored to help keep the cards aligned together correctly.

Each weaving is defined by how many tablets are in use, not by how many warp ends (individual threads) are being woven. Therefore, a “13 tablet pattern” using 4-hole cards requires 52 warp ends, each thread cut to the needed length for the warp of the weaving.

Many in the SCA substitute cardboard or heavy paper card-stock (playing cards, for instance) instead of wood tablets. However, the more flimsy the material of the tablet, the more likely the threads will catch under neighboring cards and bend them (always frustrating). Thicker wooden cards are simpler to manipulate, so long as the pattern doesn't call for too many of them.
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How does tablet-weaving on an edge differ from regular weaving?

  • Warp: The threads running through the holes in the tablets constitute the warp.

  • Weft: The thread pulled by the sewing needle becomes the weft.

  • Shuttle: A sewing needle, passed through the fabric and the weaving shed, acts as a shuttle.

  • Heddles: The tablets, which create the sheds, replace the heddles.

Because square tablets each carry 4 threads, and can individually be turned at 90 degree intervals to create new sheds, the possibilities for patterns are vast. With 2 square tablets there are 16+ sheds possible; with 4 tablets, 32+ possibilities, and the number increases with each additional tablet. This makes weaving chevrons, stripes, and lines simple; with more cards, letters, animals and brocade are possible. For most seam-finishing, one color and turning all the cards together suffices.
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Extant tablet weaving with tablets already threaded and a woven band halfway made, from the Oseberg Viking ship burial (dated 834 CE). Photo from The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, by Peter Collingwood, 1982.
Can I document medieval sources for this technique to make my project into an A&S display?

Yes! Tablet weaving itself existed throughout medieval Europe, especially later in period. Starting in the 700s, everywhere that the Vikings touched one may argue for it as a “known technique.” In France, one humorous illumination depicts a lady weaving her lover's hair using tablets and a rigid beater (Codex Manesse, Cod. Pal. Germ. 848, folio 284r)... but don't try that at home.

Later, it is demonstrably used as a seam finishing. For instance, many pieces in the Baynard Castle textile dump from around 1330, England, include tablet-woven edges along seams and button-holes. From veils to sleeve-ends, from cloaks to cotehardies, this is a valid finishing technique for a European persona's garb after the 13th century.

Instructions for Tablet-Woven Seam Finishing


Materials:
  • 4 tablets (thin wooden square cards, 1.6” wide, with 4 sanded-smooth holes in corners)
  • 2 uprights, front and rear (clamps, anchored on a table or board, or wood pegs on a loom)
  • 1 sewing needle (or glover's needle if you're weaving onto leather)
  • 2 large safety-pins (or kilt pins)
  • thread, embroidery floss or fine yarn
  • *optional* 4 knitting bobbins (playing cards notched to keep thread in place will work)
  1. Prepare for weaving.
    Assemble your materials, measure your project and purchase more than enough thread! For example, if finishing a neckline: measure the length of the neckline, plus 40% more for weaving waste—this number is your base length. You will need: 16 times the base length (for making 16 warp threads) and 4 times the base length (for the weft) plus extra if you want wider, visible stitches, for a total of 20 times the base length, plus spare.  Put up clamps onto your chosen work surface or set up your board with pegs; there has to be room between the uprights to maneuver your project and enough room on the surface beside them to pile the fabric. MEASURE AND CUT YOUR WARP THREADS ALL IDENTICALLY. 
  2. Thread the tablets.
    Thread: Using a needle-threader wire (or a twist-tie) if you prefer, feed each warp thread into a hole on a tablet until ALL 16 holes are filled with their own individual threads. Only pull about 5 inches of thread through the holes. Each hole gets only one thread; 1 tablet gets 4 threads. Make sure every thread passes through the tablet in the same direction—don't let them cross.
    Knot: When a tablet has 4 threads running through it, tie the 4 threads into a knot on the side where you pulled only 5” through. Take your first large safety pin, and slide the pin through this knot. Repeat till all 4 cards have knots securing their sets of threads, and these knots are pinned together.
    Anchor: Loop a short section of yarn or thread around your front upright and secure the pin, with its 4 knots, to this loop.
    Wrap: Draw the threads away from the front upright, past the rear upright, as neatly as possible—then, starting at the far end, make a loop-chain (crochet chain) to wrap up the extra length without tangling. When the chain is almost to the rear upright, stop. Skip this if using bobbins.
    Bobbins (optional): If you have bobbins, segregate each tablet with its 4 threads of warp. Draw these 4 threads away from the front upright, then wind them together onto the bobbin. Repeat for each card, stopping about 2 inches away from the rear upright.
    Suspend: With all 16 threads together, make a slip-knot to slide down over the rear upright. Make sure you can move the threads enough in this slip-knot that you can adjust the tension of the work-area between the uprights. Your 4 tablets should be suspended fairly tightly in the middle, side-by-side and competing for space with each other if you didn't turn them to lay flat.
  3. Angle the tablets: Looking down at the tops of the four threaded tablets (oriented perpendicular to the warp), decide whether you want S or Z threaded patterns. For this project, you will not be turning them individually for patterned weaving, so just flip all four to lie the same direction, so the tablets sit parallel to the warp. The threads should run in the same direction through all four cards. You can make chevron patterns by alternating S and Z threaded cards, but wait to try this until you're confident at tablet weaving.
  4. Throw the shuttle: Thread your sewing needle with your comfortable arm's reach worth of thread, now called your “weft.” Pass the threaded needle, which is now your weaving shuttle, into the opening of the warp that lies between the tablets and the safety-pin on the front upright. This opening is called a “shed,” and the four rotations of your tablets will create four unique sheds. Leave a bit of tail hanging from the weft so that turning the cards the first few times will not pull out the the thread.
  5. Rotate the tablets: Look horizontally at the side of the four threaded tablets, suspended between their uprights. Turn the whole pack one “step” or 90° forward, toward the front upright. This means that the side that was facing the front upright will now be facing down, and the side that was facing the rear upright will now face up.
  6. Throw the shuttle: Pass the threaded needle, pulling its weft, back through the new shed, going the opposite direction from the way you fed it through the first shed.
  7. Rotate the tablets: Turn the whole pack one step forward again. Make sure you open each new shed all the way so the weft threads pack together in the previous sheds.
  8. Throw the shuttle: Pass the threaded needle, pulling its weft, back through the new shed in the opposite direction.
  9. Keep weaving: Repeat the rotate-throw-rotate-throw a few times until a nice little woven tape emerges. When you've got it consistently even (tension, width the same) proceed to 11.
  10. Add a stitch: Pause when the needle has pulled the weft out on the right-hand side of the warp.  Rotate the card-pack. Bring your fabric next to your weaving space between the uprights. Hold it so that the edge lines up with the left-hand side of the warp. Bring the needle around and UNDER the fabric, so the weft follows it below the weaving. Push the needle UP through the fabric, near the edge (the farther from the edge, the wider the stitch you'll see). Now pull the thread up & out, moving the fabric until it sits directly against the bottom of the warp strings, with the weft coming through it to the left of the weaving.
    NB: Either direction is fine, right or left; the instructions here use an arbitrary direction.
  11. Throw the shuttle: Feed the needle back through the new shed, going to the right. Rotate the cards and drive the needle underneath the warp again, sewing through the fabric. With each stitch, the lower 8 out of the 16 warp threads will bind down to the fabric edge. With each rotation, the tablets will change which of the 16 threads will be on the bottom, thus weaving a new border on top of your fabric edge.
  12. Move your anchors: Pause in your weaving after a few stich-weave-stitch repetitions. Take your second large safety-pin and push it through the same hole on each of your 4 tablets, holding them together where they are now in the pattern. This prevents many potential mistakes! Now unclip the front upright's safety-pin from the knots that started your weaving. Slide off and release the slip-knot from the rear upright. Fasten the front safety-pin now to the first section of weaving and fabric, in between some stitches, close to where you've paused. Behind the tablets, a LOT of twist will have built up. If you have bobbins, here's where they make a difference! Separate the bobbins and untwist them, then draw out more thread to extend your warp. Slip-knot the warp back onto the rear upright, under tension, and unclip the tablets from their keeper safety-pin.
  13. Continue weaving: Weave and stitch through the fabric, moving your anchors when you need to, continuing until you've woven a narrow, tube-shaped band around the edge of your fabric and completed the neckline. If you DON'T use bobbins, at some point the twist that builds up will prevent you from weaving further or from drawing out more thread. To unwind this twist, reverse direction. You were turning the cards together forward, so now turn them backward. A single line across your pattern will appear where you switched direction, but the twist will undo itself and then build up again in the other direction. Make sure you switch before it's too difficult to do so; ideally, switch directions at an even distance (every 2 inch mark, for instance) to keep the pattern that forms aesthetically balanced.
  14. Refill the shuttle: When you run short of weft thread, rethread your needle. Leave the tail of the old weft hanging out of the shed, adding the new weft in alongside it with a tail of its own (should have tails hanging in opposite directions). Resume weaving.
  15. Finish At the end of your neckline, you have two options: tuck and sew, or be OCD:
    Sew: stop stitching through the fabric and return to plain, back-and-forth weaving for a short distance. Then cut the threads free of the tablets. Turn the newly woven segment under, as you would with decorative trim. Use the needle and thread to bind it down to the fabric where the end is inside or invisible. Now go back to the start, trim the initial weaving and tuck it under in the same fashion, binding it down. Check for any “tails” hanging elsewhere (anywhere you ran out of weft) and trim them off. You're done!
    OCD: stop weaving and draw the tablets back, away from your neckline. Snip all 16 warp threads and the weft thread free, leaving a 4 inch tail from the neckline on each thread. Use your empty needle to pull each thread (or 4 at a time, if your materials and needle-threading skills allow) back into the fabric under the newly woven tube, hiding them and anchoring them simultaneously. Go back to the beginning bit of weaving and snip off the knots. Unravel the short strip of weaving that was not connected to the fabric, until you almost reach where the weft made its first stitch. Use the needle to pull those threads under as well.
    This looks and wears better, and doesn't take much longer, but do be careful not to rip your fabric while pulling so many threads down into it. All done!
    Alternately, you can weave a longer strip at the start and at the finish, and use those ends as tie-strings for closing a key-hole neckline (or as purse straps, or sleeve fasteners, etc, depending on your project).

Also check out Katafalk (Cathrin Åhlén) on WordPress (full tutorial) and Hibis at Hibernaatio.blogspot.ca (it has some English translation present and great photos).

For more documentation on the wooden weaving tablets, please search for Bronwen Elgars (Terri Morrison) in the Kingdom of AnTir, who has made a set of the tablets found in the Viking Osberg ship.

Variations and Advanced Steps

Bare Minimum Tools To finish a fabric edge with the fewest possible tools:
  • Use 2 tablets, a sewing needle, two safety pins and enough thread/yarn to finish the project.
  • Instead of uprights, anchor your threads directly to the fabric. After threading the tablets, tie the 8 threads in a single front knot. Safety-pin this knot to the edge of the fabric. Alternatively, tie the knot to a string with a loop that you can anchor with your foot, and start weaving. Anchor the back to a large safety-pin on your belt or chair, if you don't think you can control tension with fingers alone (some people can, but it's easier with an anchor).
Historical Accuracy To use only period-correct tools, use a large metal straight-pin, pinned into the fabric across a loop of yarn, to anchor the fabric and weaving. Use hand-split wooden tablets and a metal needle with a sharp fabric-point. Silk, wool, linen, nettle and cotton threads can be documented for tablet weaving.
Luxury Tool To make the twisting problem never even occur, use bobbins AND fishing-lure spinners. Anchor the 4 warp threads from each tablet through a spinner before it feeds onto its bobbin, and rig the spinners to the rear upright so they can turn with each twist of the tablets. Rely more on your fingers to open the sheds fully and maintain correct tension if you use this option.
Flat Ribbon To make a flat ribbon on the edge of the fabric, instead of a tube around it, follow all of the steps to get weaving. Instead of running the needle under the warp to meet the fabric like step 11, weave back through the shed and THEN into the fabric. Stitch, rotate the tablets, throw the shuttle; rotate the tablets, throw the shuttle, stitch (weave, weave, stitch; weave, weave, stitch); continue.
Wider Ribbon To make your edging wider, without needing thicker yarn, simply add more tablets to the weaving, threading the same way.
Twill To make a chevron pattern in the edging, alternate the angle of the cards in step 3.
  • From left to right, angle the cards S, Z, S, Z. The tablets will seem to form two upward-pointing arrows or chevrons.
  • Weave either a tubular or flat ribbon as usual, turning all four tables in the same direction.
Multiple Colors To make a multi-colored edging, you can thread the tablets with multiple colors.
  • You can alternate tablets filled with different colors, or use multiple colors in a single tablet.
  • Two threads of one color and two of another in the same tablet (side-by-side, not diagonal) will make woven stripes of each color, slightly angled. Three of one color and one another in the same tablet will weave a an angled dash into the line (try 3 white, 1 green, and the next card all green, to make green leaves along a vine). Look online for lots of patterns!
Weaving New Selvage To finish an edge with new selvage, and to repair unraveling fabric edges where the weft is clearly visible:
  • Thread two tablets to match the material of the fabric, winding enough thread onto your bobbins to span the length of the fabric, with spare. Make the knots, pin, anchor to front upright.
  • Using tweezers or needle-nose pliers, pull the first of the fabric's free-hanging weft ends into the first tablet-weaving shed. Rotate the tablets, then pull the weft strand back through a second shed to make the weaving secure. Rotate the tablets, pull in the next weft, continue as before.
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Newborn kids!

4/14/2015

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Goat on the go! Black Bay is a quick mover, ready to take on the whole new world around her.
On Monday morning, just before dawn, our miniature Oberhasli doe, Bay, gave us twin sisters.  The most exciting part?  They're black!

Oberhasli goats have rigorous standards for shape conformation, color markings and milk flavor.  Usually, if a goat is not "chamois with correct black markings," that goat cannot be called an Oberhasli.  However, they make an exception for pure black Oberhasli does (not bucks); there is a recessive trait in the genes that allows the occasional black goat to appear.

Mosby's Secret Black Bay is pure black; her twin sister, Peppercorn, has white spots on her haunch and front leg.  We will know in about one week whether these girls inherited the polled traits of their sire, Mosby's Secret G.W. Lafayette.  Both are healthy and alert, up and running as soon as they were dry!
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Bay's Peppercorn is alert and curious!
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    Farmer Shannon runs MSSF and keeps horses, sheep, goats, ducks, chickens, pigs, dogs and cats, while living gluten-free & spinning/weaving for a hobby in the SCA.

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