Dover, NH: Historic Walking Tour

The Dover Chamber of Commerce holds walking tours of Dover, NH, USA on Saturdays from 10:30 - 12. In September 2009, the tours are free.

Here are a few highlights of the tour from Saturday, Sept. 5 with a textile slant.

Horse Trough now used as planter

Dover was first settled in 1623.

Railroads arrived in 1842. Dover incorporated as a city in 1855.

Side street

There was a large brickyard in Dover. Brick is a favored construction material.

The mills in Lawrence and Lowell, MA were also built from bricks made in Dover in the 1800's.

Cocheco Falls Millworks

The mills were in operation from 1839 until the 1930's.

Manufacturing progressed from yarn to muslin to fine cotton to world-renowned printed calico at these mills.

The mills became famous for printed calico. Their manufacturing process could use up to 12 colors in a single piece of calico.

Calico from the Cocheco Mills was prized for its colorfastness. The manufacturing process was state of the art. The windows of the mills were white-washed so that competitors could not see inside.

Cocheco River

The Cocheco River flows through the mill, and provided power to all of the equipment.

This portion of the river is tidal. We've kayaked right under the mill to the waterfall from Hilton Park on Dover Point.

Dam and waterfall on the Cocheco River that powered the mill

Central Tower Entrance

The mill now houses businesses. An exhibit of the history of textile mills in Dover is inside the Central Tower Entrance to the mill (on the west side of the mill along Central Avenue.)

If you go, enter the mill here, go down the hall and turn right at the end of the hall to find the exhibit.

History of the Mills in Dover

The exhibit includes pictures, descriptions and a diorama with some cloth, fiber, equipment and a quilt

The free exhibit is along this hall. and is accessible whenever the building is open.

On another textile note:

The Dover Public Library currently has a free exhibit on Chinese Textiles. Unfortunately for us, the library was closed on Saturday.

Some of our favorite shops in Dover include:

Spinning Yarns - a local yarn shop

Red's Shoe Barn - for a great selection of all kinds of shoes

Tuttle's Red Barn - America's oldest family farm (The land was originally granted to the Tuttle family by the king of England.) Tuttle's has a great selection of plants, gifts, fruits and veggies, plus all kinds of healthy, delicious food. (I'm counting cheese and chocolate as healthy too!)

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Hope you're having a good weekend full of good friends and good food!


At a friend's house today, I was able to get the definitive answer on that giant mushroom from our yard. It is not edible, at least not according to this book. (I actually couldn't decide which of two species it was, but neither was edible.)


After a dinner conversation that included discussions of history and of TV shows we watched growing up, somehow the host's childhood bedspread from a favorite TV show was brought out.

I had to take a picture for all you textile lovers out there!! The bedspread was chenille, and the figures also seemed to be chenille. Too funny!

When a group of weavers brings out textiles, or ooohs and aaahs over dishtowels that seems normal to me.

But today, it was a group of "civilians"....


Happy weekend!

Blog Thrums

You know how with weaving you have odds and ends after you weave?

I have some blogging odds and ends that I'd like to wrap up in this post.

4 topics: Valuable Fungus, Cake/photography, Sock Mystery Solved and Camera FAIL at the beach

Valuable Fungus?

Please note, I am NOT a mushroom expert so do not take any advice from me about what you can eat that you find in the woods!!


Remember when I told you about this giant mushroom in our side yard? Well, after a few of you asked if it was edible, I did some checking around and I think it might be.

We'd already removed it when I checked into it. I haven't tried it. I wouldn't try it without some kind of expert help.

I did talk about it with a long-time NH resident and nature lover. She thought it probably was edible and that it might even be pretty unusual and valuable.

Not that I'll be going into business selling mushrooms that I find to restaurants in the area. I will add that one of the best things I've ever tasted was an open-faced wild mushroom lasagne at the Three Chimneys Inn in Durham. That was years and several chefs ago....and I haven't found it anywhere else since. But it was incredible!

The Massachusetts Audubon is holding an edible mushroom class in September. I might try to go.

Cake Photography

When I first showed you this birthday cake, the words were backwards. (I quickly snapped this picture narrowly missing the Doritos bag in front of the cake and getting a fairly decent background. Upside down and backwards words didn't bother me a bit!)


Well, turns out it's not hard at all to flip an image in Photoshop. Not hard for Jim at least!


Sock Mystery Solved

Remember when I rejoiced over a sock that had been missing for years resurfaced???

Well, I asked myself where it could have been hiding in my washing machine, and found the likely culprit!! So now I know where to look!

Fortunately, this favorite sock that says "Shebeest" on it has not gone missing yet!!

Beachside Camera FAIL

I told you in some comments that I'd be heading to the beach this week with my weaving buddies.

9 of us met for an oceanside day of weaving, spinning, knitting, gabbing, feasting, walking, resting, and polymer clay button-making.

I took my small digital camera and had massive camera fail. Not only was the battery in the camera dead, but the spare battery I always carry was also dead.

So no beach pictures for you.

I can offer this picture of the red scarf for K in progress. I made noticeable knitting progress sitting on a front porch rocker at the beach. Doesn't get any better than that!!!

Hope you're all having a relaxing and fun weekend!!! Glad I got this all off my chest!!

Asking Myself Why

A wise weaver in my local weaving group suggested that I ask myself why.

Good advice for many things in life and in weaving.

The particular why I'm puzzling through in this post is:

"Why were the drafts I loved successful or unsuccessful for the Ruby Leslie Color Workshop warp?"


(Warning: I tend to think out loud....or on paper or using a keyboard....so this post is long and might not be even slightly interesting to anyone. I will not be offended if you just skim - or even bail out now!! I need to keep all this info in here so I can come back and look at it so that it sticks in my mind.)

I don't always apply my engineering training to my creative pursuits. Perhaps I should do it more often. Thinking analytically about why I like something or why I don't could help me create things I think are beautiful and avoid those projects that just don't come out to my liking.

For me, nothing is more motivating than a project that is coming out even better than I imagined....and nothing is more demotivating than a project that I don't love. For me, that feeling of loving a project is really important....worth thinking analytically to make it more likely that I feel that way more often.

I realize I've actually resisted thinking analytically about creative projects because I've often used those projects as an antidote to too many hours at work thinking along rigid engineering lines. Even though I'm not working as an engineer these days, old habits die hard.

What I want to mull over in this post is why some of the drafts that I chose and sampled looked good and some were huge disappointments. They were all drafts that I liked and thought would work, but only some of them actually worked.

First I tried this draft that reminds me of fern fronds.



When I wove it, I didn't like it with this warp. I think the issue was that the warp has strong stripes and this draft has strong horizontal elements. My weft was also striped since I didn't have enough of any one color to do the project.

I think the warp stripes, weft stripes and strong and fairly large horizontal were competing with each other rather than helping one another.....so I don't think this was a successful combination.


These crescents are OK on paper. They were on my short list, but I didn't love them.


When I wove them, they looked pretty good. I think the small scale of the shape and the fact that it doesn't strongly push my eye in any particular direction helps this combination to work.


My favorites on paper had a strong diagonal component.


I thought these diagonal bricks might look good also.


Both the fusili and the bricks disappeared when I wove with them.


Looking at the fabric again today, I realized that if I look at the back of the fabric, I can see the fusili a little bit and one small part of the bricks. (The top two shapes are fusili and the bottom shape is part of a diagonal brick.

I judged one pattern by what the back of it looked like, and the other by a very small repeat.

I'm still happy with the choice of the crescents, because I ended up using this fabric for napkins - so I'm glad that it's reversible.

My decision-making process could have been better though.

Things I learned:

• Make sure I know what both sides of the fabric will look like. If I want the cloth to be reversible, make sure to consider both sides!
  
• The size of the motif in the weaving and any color variations in the warp and weft will interact
  
• As with so many things in life, good on paper isn't always good in practice!!
• Analyzing why you either liked or disliked something is a good way to learn and improve as a weaver!

If any of you have made it through this post, thank you for that! If you notice something else about these drafts with this warp and weft, please comment and let me know!!

Related posts:
Finished napkins on my autumn table
Hemming

Samples from the workshop
Day 1 of color workshop
Day 2 of color workshop (I guess I was too tired to write about day 3!)
Ruby's Teaching Schedule

No Bad Dogs Here

Poor unfairly maligned Bailey


Back in July, we took him to a remedial dog training class to learn tactics to make him bark less often.


When we returned from vacation, I noticed this telltale evidence in the garden.

Our violet plants had been beheaded. From year's past, I suspected a groundhog.

If Bailey is barking to keep a critter at bay, and suddenly the week Bailey is gone, the critter is in our garden, I really can't consider Bailey's barking a nuisance.

Annoying perhaps....but Bailey was just doing his job, protecting the house.


I finally caught a glimpse of our fat furry friend.


According to The Joy of Cooking, groundhog (also called woodchuck) is edible.

Don't worry, I won't be cooking him any time soon. Several comments about other woodland finds have asked about whether something is edible. I thought I'd volunteer that info about our groundhog. There are also recipes for rabbit, porcupine, raccoon and opossum in that cookbook!

Bailey, hopefully you'll forgive us for taking you to anti-barking school when really you were telling us it was our responsibility to remove this varmint. Luckily Bailey doesn't hold grudges!

I suspect that winter will solve our groundhog situation for the year. By November, he'll be hibernating in a den he's used in the past. Sleep well little groundhog! You've already spent a few winters in our yard. You're welcome to stay again this year!

More about the photos in this post:

On a photographic note, this picture is what I pulled out of the camera. Through the power of Photoshop, I cropped, and enhanced to get the clearer pictures in this post. Post-processing can do a lot!

Usually I don't start with such dramatically bad pictures. I took this picture quickly out the window and through a screen so that I wouldn't disturb the groundhog. Bailey has him well-trained. As soon as we're up and about, the groundhog makes himself scarce for the day.

I know that Photoshop is expensive, and I find it difficult to learn. I use it because Jim bought it for his photographic adventures....so I'm just along for the ride.

Another, much less expensive alternative, is www.picnik.com. Jim has played around with it a bit and is very impressed by its capabilities. If you're looking for ways to improve your photos, you might want to check out picnik!! (I haven't played with it at all. Until our household migrates to new software, I'm sticking with what I know!)

Weather

This week at Digital Photo School, the assignment is "Weather".


In New England, we often have big weather - and we think about weather, talk about weather, and watch forecasts more than people with more predictable weather.

But this assignment arrived during a time of gorgeous weather. The entire forecast has been sunny in the 70's (the 20's C). Perfect fall crispness.


We did have a stormy and rainy Saturday, so I ventured out to take some pictures of rain.


Thoughts about photography in the rain:


The drops hanging on the overhang of our porch looked really pretty in the subdued light, but it was hard for me to capture.

Plus, afterward when I was cropping this picture, I noticed a bunch of black gunky stuff on the white wood of the porch....but it isn't raining any more so I can't go re-shoot.

The nice blurred background in this case wasn't on purpose - but I do like it. I guess the rain between the porch and the trees did its own blurring.

This picture was challenging as well. I shot this picture of the flowers through rain pouring off our roof. The light streaks in this picture are rain.

I'm not crazy about either of these rain pictures....I definitely need more practice.

When I started blogging, I had trouble photographing everything.

Now, when it's something that doesn't move, that's smaller than me, and that's in my house, I can usually take a picture that communicates what I want it to.

When there are moving parts and elements that I really have no control over (weather, Bailey, people at the beach, etc to infinity), I'm at the very edge of what I'm capable of right now. I can sometimes take a shot that I just love and other times I look at all my pictures and don't love any of them. This week's assignment leaves me with nothing that I love.

One thing that's really nice about photography is that you can create hundreds of pictures in a single day without too much trouble.

Now we're blessed with more perfect late summer New England weather.

Notice that I'm not conceding to fall quite yet!

Plymouth Mountain

Jim had business to attend to in Plymouth, NH today.

Bailey and I tagged along to enjoy the beautiful sunny day.

We all took a short hike up Plymouth Mountain (3 miles round trip, 894 foot elevation gain).

Purple Flowering Raspberry

I'd never noticed this plant before. Very pretty! Also known as Thimbleberry.

Trail marker

I secretly like that we're following a trail marked by a black wolf stencil!

Trillium Fruit

Bailey loves water - look how mucky he is!

He thinks he can catch frogs.

Short scramble up these rocks

Bailey poses on rocks along the trail

False summit

First we arrived at this false summit. We had to continue down and across for another 10 minutes to find the summit marker and views!

I'm happy to report that even at elevations over 2000 feet, it is still green. Fall hasn't arrived yet in the New Hampshire mountains!

Mountain views to the north

Lake views to the east

Bailey enjoys the view

Bunchberries in moss


Roots and moss

Bunchberry

Edible and in the same family as the dogwood. (I didn't know they were edible until tonight....otherwise I would have done a taste test today!)

Bailey saw a frog in this stream and would have stayed all afternoon to capture it.

Of course, I was on the frog's side.....so we moved on!


But not before Bailey searched the stream for the frog.

It was behind him.