My hibiscus is still producing blooms. Most are below the crown, hidden behind fading leaves, but we had one present front and center. I think it is interesting that it forms blooms from the top down over the season. The leaves are starting to get their fall wilt going; it is slightly cooler, but we are not at fall temperatures yet.
Now that the temperatures are dropping, and my Achilles tendon is healed, I’m starting to walk and spin again. Joy. I picked the Clun Forest wool from my stash, which I bought as roving, so it is ready to spin from the bag.
This wool is very different from the Merino and Shetland wools I’ve spun so far, it has more lanolin for one, the energy in the crimp is higher, and it is coarser. I find spinning it a little thicker makes us both happier. There are fluffy little balls in the roving, called noils, and if they want to incorporate into the yarn I let them, but if they float to the side, they are set free in the breeze.
My melon vines are withering. There are still melons on the vine. They are not doing well.
I suddenly had melons turning yellow, but not a nice yellow. I rescued them from their fading lifelines, and gave them a good wash since they also had a gray-black color (possible culprit?).
The color on the flesh was OK, and the rind was thin, but the taste was watery, nothing like the loveliness of the last harvest. I scooped out the edible bits and threw it into fruit salad.
Two more went this way the next day. Maybe they have been too wet? We’ve had a few gushers making a valiant attempt to battle the drought.
I think when someone next asks me what I do when the kids are at school, I’m going to tell them that I open doors. It sounds like I’m a mover and a shaker, smoothing the way for grandiose projects and big dreams.
But what it really means is that I let the dogs out and the cat in like I’m a remote controlled revolving door. How many times do y’all really need to go out then come back in? Seriously, I must have “push” printed on my forehead and “pull” on my … leg.
I pulled some scoured mohair from my stash that I prepped a few years ago. This is hair from Rutabaga, an Angora goat, and came from her first shearing. My intention is to spin it up for another fiber log page.
The fibers condensed some in storage, and at the time I didn’t have carders, so had used a cat brush to align the fibers. I tried spinning from the sections straight from the bag, but the pull was uneven and my yarn inconsistent. So I carded some with hand carders, which made spinning easier but I lost some of the shine. I don’t have wool combs, but found some undercoat rakes designed for dogs. I am able to comb small amounts of fiber inefficiently, but I can comb them, which makes the fibers parallel and removes the noils and shorter fibers. The combed sections are much easier to spin and have more shine when spun.
The next step is to obtain actual wool combs, which have longer tines to process more fiber. Properly made wool combs are an investment. Yes, there are DIY versions out there using finish nails, but those nails aren’t mirror finished or very long. As I think about how I would construct combs, hardening and mirror finishing the metal tines seems the most intensive part. Then setting the tine into a comfortable handle in such a way that they don’t work loose under the work load is the next challenge. I am thinking that the combs, although expensive, are not unreasonably so.
Critters and Craft 