Straw-Clay Infill Work Party #1!

It has finally started!  Yesterday, with the help of our wonderful friends, we worked our guts out and infilled a wall and a half!  We can no longer see through the wall in our one-day entry way!  It looks great and I can just imagine how toasty warm it will be in the winter time.

Bill has helped us on almost every stage of this process.  He was there the day we poured the footing and now he is here mixing clay slip.  Thank you, Bill!  You have been such a huge help all along and especially these last few days. 

Here is 55 gallons of clay slip Bill and I made the day before the work party.  Bill rocks!

Brendan in front mixing clay slip and Mariah in the back tossing the clay and the straw.  These folks worked their guts out all day long!  Thank you so much!

This little guy supervised our progress throughout the day.  When he wasn't pretending the big bathtub on the side of the house was his boat, he was helping with whatever he could or talking our ears off.  He entertained himself all day long.  What a cutie! 

Finally, the infill!  Bill, Sonja and I are tamping the very first layers of straw-clay into the walls.

Moving right along, it's time to slide the form up! 

Mariah and Bill posing with the new wall.  We can't see outside anymore!

Katrina, very serious with her fork and clay mustache.  Thank you for coming by and tamping straw-clay with me, Katrina!

The inside of the wall with the forms still up. 

The outside of the wall.

Chris making more straw clay.  He tossed that mixture all day long and kept the pile of ready-to use infill high!  Thank you so much!

Adorable.

The inside of the wall without the forms.

The one-day bathroom wall up to the window.  Will we get this one done today?  Keep your fingers crossed!

I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who was able to help yesterday.  Bill, Sonja, Finn, Mariah, Chris, Matt, Brendan, Katrina and Kate--we couldn't have done it without you.  The amount of energy we put forth was impressive. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

A Boat Ride with My Folks

After forcing my parents to help us with the house for most of their vacation, we gave them a break and went for a boat ride last night.  It was a wonderful night!

The Bedroom Framing!

Finally, we have begun working on the house again! While my parents were here visiting these last 10 days, we put up the bedroom framing (yay!), my dad did the rough-in plumbing and my mom and I worked on raking rocks and evening out the ground around the house.  After all of that was done, my mom helped to clean up the first floor and my dad and I worked on putting up the chicken wire that will help to hold the straw-clay infill.  It looks awesome!  Good news:  the straw is arriving on Monday!  I can't wait to start working on the infill!

The house with the bedroom framing.  Now isn't that a sweet little house?

Clay Building

To avoid chemicals, but still get the benefits of a well-insulated house, we have decided to use straw-clay infill for our wall system.  We came to this decision after hours of research, and now that the frame is ready for insulation, we needed to learn about the technique and materials for straw-clay infill.  Last weekend we traveled to Brownfield, Maine to the Fox Maple School to learn about the beautiful practice of clay building.  Here's what we found out:

First things first--you need clay and lots of it! 

When the clay arrives from the quarry, we will first need to break it down into little chunks. 

When it looks like this, we will be ready to turn it into clay slip. 

To make clay slip,  we will add water to the clay and mix it for a really long time in a mortar mixer. 

Finished slip will be thick and pretty smooth.  When you pick it up the impressions of your hands will stay in the slip.  When you throw a clay chunk into the slip, a crater will form. 

When the slip is ready, we will prepare the straw.  The first step is to fluff up the straw, flake by flake, one flake at a time. 

Next we will pour some slip--a little more than a gallon per flake--onto each fluffed up flake of straw.

Now we will toss the flake of hay like a salad to coat each little piece of straw with the clay slip.  Now the straw needs to rest for a while--at least 8 hours--before using it to infill a wall cavity. 

After the straw has rested, we will begin to infill our walls.  To infill, we will fill in the wall cavities with about a foot of loosely packed straw.  Then we will compress it by about half, being careful not to compress it too much and leaving a little spring in the straw. 

In the end our walls will look like this.  The next step will be to let them dry and then apply an earth plaster to protect the straw-clay and for the finished wall. 

After infilling the walls with the straw-clay and allowing it to dry for several weeks, the next step will be to apply the earth plaster.  Earth plaster is a mix of sifted sand, sifted clay and chopped straw. 

First we will need to sift the sand....

Next we will need to sift the clay....

And chop the straw....

And then mix the three together:  three parts sand, one part clay and one part straw.

Next we will mix it all together, adding a bit of water as we go. 

In the end the plaster looks like this. 

And now it's time to plaster the walls inside and out!

Pretty neat, huh? 

The neatest thing about building this way, besides from the incredibly beautiful finished product, is the fact that at the end of the day, when we washed away the clay that had built up on our hands, arms, necks, and faces, we were actually cleaner than when we began!  How often does that happen in house building these days?!

Projects (Lianna, Don't Read or Look at This Post Until After Your Birthday)

A few years ago my friend Mary invited me over to quilt with her for the day.  I had never quilted before and I wasn't sure it would be my thing.  I decided to go anyway and since then I have grown more and more appreciative and interested in quilting.  The first quilt I made after working with Mary for the first time was made from old blue jeans.  I cut out the jeans into pieces and patched together some complicated (for me anyway) pieces.  They were made from a combination of triangles and squares, and they took me forever!  I think I made four or five of those pieces and then put them down and forgot about them for close to a year.  And then Mary invited me over for another quilting day.  On that day she taught me about the "disappearing nine patch."  This is a quilt square that is made by sewing together nine equally sized squares and then cutting that larger square into quarters crosswise.  In the end you have four smaller squares that you can arrange in different patterns.  The final project looks much more complicated than it is in reality.  After learning about the disappearing nine patch I went home and dug out my blue jeans.  I promptly began to piece together nine squares and cut the resulting larger squares into quarters.  In the end, I pieced together a baby blanket for Finn, my dear friends' baby boy. 

Since that first quilt I haven't done much quilting, until this spring when I was suddenly inspired to cut up fabric and piece it together again.  I dug out my piles of fabric and began to cut squares to make another disappearing nine patch.  Mary helped me piece it together over April vacation, but I wasn't totally satisfied with it because it's made from upholstery fabric and not cotton.  The colors are kind of bland and it's lacking character because the patterns are too big and blah.  But I really enjoyed the process.  So I decided to go buy some actual quilt fabric and make a real quilt.  After thinking about the quilt I wanted to make for a few days, I decided on just the colors.  My sister recently bought herself a condo, and the few times I had been there I had noticed a real lack of blankets for her couch.  I decided her color scheme of pink, black, white and yellow were the colors for the quilt so that she could have a nice comfy blankey to snuggle with on the couch.  Here is the finished top:

Here you can see the disappearing nine patch.  Each of the larger squares you see are made up of four smaller squares.  Lianna loves polka dots and black and white, so I hope she likes it!  She's getting this for her birthday present-- I hope she's not looking at this post before then!  It still has to be quilted, and I'm having a hard time deciding on the right fabric for the back.  Her birthday is coming up on June 18th, so I don't think it'll be done on time.... 

Not too long after I finished working on Lianna's quilt top my students and I decided to make a quilt for our one and only 8th grader.  Our community doesn't have a high school and since it's impossible for children to commute to and from the island for school, children move away from home after 8th grade to attend high school.  Can you imagine moving away from home at 14 years old?  To help the kids leave the community we have a wonderful celebration--it's a kind of right-of-passage for the children in this community.  The school kids prepare a presentation and a gift for the graduate and the graduate prepares a speech for the community.  After the graduate speaks, the community is invited to share memories and wishes with the graduate.    It's a truly beautiful and meaningful event for our whole community and there aren't many dry eyes by the end of the evening.

The student graduating this year has been in my class for six year.  I have many, many fond memories of working with him, but the two that are most clear in my head are two projects that involved sewing.  When the graduate was in fourth grade we were studying the Civil War.  When he learned about the Underground Railroad and how people used quilts to send messages about traveling on the Underground Railroad, he insisted on making a real quilt.  I tried my best to convince him to use scissors, paper, glue and makers, but he refused to do anything other than sew a real quilt.  So we worked on a real quilt together and it turned out beautiful.  Additionally he made a map showing the Underground Railroad and wrote about the meaning of each of the squares in his quilt.  The year after that we were studying cultures from around the world.  He was studying Japan and really wanted to make a kimono.  So, we did.  I loved working on those project with him and will never forget it!  For a gift I wanted to make him a quilt and the students wanted to give him something, too.  We decided to combine efforts.  Each student drew a quilt square and I sewed them together and finished it off.  Our hope is it keeps him warm when he is living away from home next year. 

Catching Up!

It's been two months since I last posted!  Why so long?  School, work, icky weather, projects--all of those kinds of things.  Since I last wrote the weather has finally turned spring-like.  We've had mostly sunny days for the last week and the temperatures have been getting into the sixties.  After a month of rain, fog and temps in the 40s, I was ready for the sunshine and so were my plants!  As soon as the sun came out the garden began to grow, and now it's not looking half bad.

The garlic.  Remember when you could barely see it poking out of the ground?  Now it's knee high!

Potatoes in the front and onions in the back.  I transplanted the onions probably a month ago and they did NOTHING until about a week ago when the sun came out.  Now I bet they've doubled in size. 

Peas.  Again, they did nothing but sit there and get munched by slugs until the sun came out.  Now they're climbing up the netting and producing nice new growth. 

I just transplanted these tomato plants over the weekend.  It's nice and warm and humid in the greenhouse--perfect for tomatoes.  I hope to see them taking over the place soon!

The deer got into my strawberries a couple of weeks ago.  I broke down in tears!  But it wasn't long before the plants began to regenerate leaves and set flowers again.  Now there are little tiny green berries developing.

The only brussles sprout seedling that wasn't demolished by mice.  That's right--the darn rodents got into the cold frame holding all of my brassicas and got almost all of them.  Fortunately, the neighbor's cat got into the greenhouse and scared the little buggers away before they could get everything!  A few lived plants lived and are now growing nicely in the garden. 

I can't wait to see this peony bloom!  The ants are just showing up, so hopefully it will be soon!

My first lettuce outside of the greenhouse and cold frames.

Baby carrots.

Considering the mice, the deer, the slugs, the snails, the rain, the fog and the cold, the garden is doing alright.  I just hope the sun sticks around for a bit!