I couldn’t take it. Looking at the crocheted Wisteria wreath every time I opened the front door, I couldn’t take the tri-colored “blooms”. I made more light purple elements and replaced the multi-colored ones.
Now to see how it weathers.
I first attached a deer antler to the squirrel feeder tree in June 2025. Here is what was left after 11 months.
I took one of the other antlers that I had already harvested parts off for craft projects and replaced the devoured antler.
I watch the squirrels gnaw on the antler everyday. They get minerals from the antler and also wear down their constantly growing teeth.
Here is the finished brioche knit cowl that I made with yarn that had a long color shift. I absolutely love the play of color that appeared by knitting it from opposite ends of the same pull skein.
The yarn was two ply with each ply a separate color, so some sections were solid color, but others were purple and gray, or blue and purple, and the colored sections were long. As I was rolling up the yarn into two separate balls, I did find some knots from the manufacturer that put an abrupt color change in the yarn. I reknotted those sections to different areas of the yarn that had a closer match. It pays to rewind commercially spun long repeat yarn to check for inappropriate color changes due to knots.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who mother, whether their charges want the mothering or not.
I didn’t think I had a style as an artist, but I seem to really like balancing negative space.
I had my first encounter with textured metallic vinyl for my electric cutter. My youngest wanted new bookmark/ornaments for teacher appreciation week and I thought using the gold vinyl would look great for lettering and stars. I did look up what settings other crafters used to cut the vinyl so cut cleanly on the first pass (on my CRICUT air: Vinyl + setting and a deep cut blade. (Note: cutting cleanly on a first attempt with a new material is almost unheard of, it was a deceptive introduction.))
I find it easiest to weed the cuts (take out the bits you don’t want) using a metal pick, and then use a larger waste part as a sticky holder for the smaller fiddly waste parts.
Weeding was a little fiddly, but not terrible. The terrible part came when I placed the transfer sheet on the cuts. The purpose of the transfer sheet is the hold the cut vinyl from the front so the nice layout is preserved and you can then move the cut vinyl to the final project location. Transfer sheets are usually clear sticky film with grid lines. The textured metallic vinyl doesn’t like to stick to the transfer sheet. It would much rather stick to my fingers or the pick or really anything other than the transfer paper.
The first transfer was a complete disaster and I ended up with most of the letters stuck to my fingers and had to place each individual component onto the back of the printed circles by eye. It was readable, but not neat. I then took more time peeling off the backing paper, bending it sharply back, and using the metal tool to detach the letters.
The transfer sheet and vinyl didn’t stick well, but the transfer sheet loved the card stock and if I used any pressure at all, the top layer of the cardstock would come away with the transfer sheet. Ugh. I finished the rest of the lettering by very lightly touching the transfer sheet with its precious cut vinyl cargo to the cardstock to place the letters. It is one of the fiddliest craft things I have done. If I use textured metallic vinyl again, it will be large cutouts, rather than small letters.
The teacher gifts came out well. I designed the graphic to my youngest’s specifications in adobe Illustrator, printed on recycled card stock, cut the circles with a blue diode laser cutter, put the “from” information on the back with vinyl (this was the time suck), laminated the circles, punched a hole, and added a rainbow tassel.
Critters and Craft 