We have some bedding dirt left over from the front flower bed project, so I used left over stone to build new terraces between the house and the coop where the land slopes.
This was about all the stone and dirt I could haul in a day using a wheel barrow. The plan is to fill both new terraces with dirt, then maybe plant pumpkins.
Shame on me, really, for not doing my due diligence on my purchase. I wanted to crochet a shamrock, and went looking for patterns. I found one that looked cute and was “on sale” with high ratings and over a thousand purchases for the shop in Etsy. I bought it because I really do want to support pattern makers. The pictures were beautiful, but not helpful, and the instructions were skeletal and incomplete. The layout looked like it was copied and pasted from the free version of ChatGPT version 1. I did attempt to make the shamrock, and found that I had to lean heavily on my own crochet knowledge to puzzle out what to do on a pattern listed as “beginner friendly.” My shamrock had a hole in the middle.
So this post is going to be about what to look for when purchasing patterns.
My $2 purchase cost me more time and hassle than it was worth. What really makes me boil is that there are beginner crafters out there looking for patterns and this kind of garbage causes doubt in their own ability, rather than looking to the pattern as the fault.
And all those 5 star reviews? I strongly suspect that they are all the same person (or group of people?) posting the same fake or pirated photos under different accounts. A complicated ruse, but a profitable one, unfortunately.
To get rid of the Gregg’s Mistflower (which doesn’t get enough light there), and the grass which has been persistent since we moved in, I dug out several inches of the dirt in the front flower bed in December. Winter ice packed down the clay, so before we put new soil in I used a mattock to break up the packed surface.
My husband hauled over the new bedding dirt and filled in the flower bed, amended with chicken compost.
Weather reports say we should be getting a solid rain. We’ll see how much the bed settles then get plants and mulch.
Here are two more opportunities for clover gazing. (Hint, think squares instead of triangles when looking for four-leaf clovers.)
Let’s go again.
Happy gazing.
This throwback only goes back two years, in 2024 I made my Dad a long Turks-head knot pencil grip with hemp string.
I asked for hints for his birthday and he mentioned that the pencil grip doesn’t fit on mechanical pencils.
So I made him some more.
I’m still not confident with knot naming. The pencils in the photo above are laid out in the order I made them, from left to right. Rather than name the knots, I’ll tell you what went wrong. The first one I forgot to split the third time around so ended up with a different pattern. The second was too tight and I was not able to double the knot. The third was a little looser, so I doubled most of the knot, but couldn’t squeeze in the final doubling. The fourth I changed color and was still only able to double most, but not all, of the knot. The fifth I deliberately didn’t split the third pass. The sixth I was able to double some, but not all. The seventh, ah the seventh, came out as I wished, with all passes doubled.
Here is the video I referenced to make my knots: A Long 4 Bight Paracord Turk’s Head Knot (21 lead 4 bight)
Critters and Craft 