Another wrapping option

On June 25, 2022June 22, 2022 By CarynIn Craft, Life Hack

As the pull skein of yarn sat wrapped up in my Grandma’s blanket, waiting for me to finish the edges, it became quite untidy. Since it will be awhile before I am ready to get back to knitting on this piece, and I will have it laid out and put away several times to measure edges, I decided to rewrap the yarn to keep it neat. A cut and folded paper towel roll works well as a center, and if you run the yarn down the fold, it stays out of the way during wrapping.

Rewrapped yarn with working side on the inside of the ball

Here is the link to my short video on wrapping a center-pull ball of yarn, if you need it.

Trail cam update

On June 24, 2022June 21, 2022 By CarynIn Wildlife

Hm. The trail cam went unchecked for several weeks again. There were over 6,000 pictures on the SD card. Six-thousand. I usually import the whole reel then delete 95%, but in this case it was better to draw upon the skills of my eagle eyed eldest and sift through the thumb nails to just import photos of interest. I really don’t need 5,900 pics of shadows, grass, and cat tails (not the plant type). I do need a crisp, amazing photo of a gray fox. Nice.

This photo was taken a while ago, as we haven’t seen 71 degrees in weeks. This is about 20 feet from the coop, by the way. I definitely recommend installing hardware cloth around the chicken runs and coop, and buried a foot or more down into the dirt.

Wrapping up some alpaca

On June 23, 2022 By CarynIn Craft

I’ve been working through my carded alpaca rolags (although they have unrolled in the basket so are now more like small batts) both with the upcycled wheel and walking with the drop spindle. The charkha-like motion of the converted stationary mini bike means I have to wrap the newly spun yarn into a cone shape on the spindle. To ply, I like to have center-pull balls, so I have to rewrap the yarn.

Transferring alpaca singles yarn from the spindle to a center-pull yarn ball

Wheel spun singles (left) and drop spindle spun singles (right)

I’ll let the balls sit for while, then get to plying. The thicknesses of yarn produced by the two different methods is close enough that I will combine it all together into one skein.

Find them all

On June 22, 2022 By CarynIn Garden, Wildlife

How many frogs can you find in the melon vine leaves? I play this game each time I pass my container garden, so I thought I’d let y’all have a go too. Below is the same image with the frogs shaded pink, if you’re having trouble.

Paper burning

On June 21, 2022July 5, 2022 By CarynIn art

I used my professional wood burner setup on hand made paper. Using different tips and heat settings I was able to lighten and darken parts of the image. I’m calling this done while I still like it and before I take it too far. (It happens to me. Often.)

The paper was not hand made by me, but ordered through Etsy. It was darker than I expected, but it worked out just fine.

Critters and Craft

Month: June 2022