Shuttle

On April 30, 2023April 27, 2023 By CarynIn Craft

I still haven’t found my weaving shuttle. Hm. So I made one. I’d seen some trapezoidal shuttles on Pinterest, so grabbed a small thin wood sheet and cut a shape using a coping saw. The shape isn’t sellable perfect, but it works quite well, once I sanded it down.

I was then able to weave my new band pattern. It was quite cool to see the muddy mess of warp threads focus into a distinct pattern as I wove. The main experiment in this round was to see if staggering the turnarounds on the edges made the transitions smoother. They do, but it still isn’t as nice as having the edges a consistent direction, but I didn’t have to deal with warp twist. I did discover that I could tell where I was in my pattern by when the “A”s lined up. Every fourth turn, the cards line up, and since the pattern is based in 4, it meant I only had to move my pattern marker every fourth line. I need multiple cues to remember where I am in a pattern; sometimes I forget to move my marker.

“A”s lined up at the end of a set of turns (note there is also no twist in the warp)

I did discover my original pattern had errors, which I fixed as I wove. I went back to the pattern editor and updated it as shown above. I also really like weaving with variegated yarn, it gives added depth to the pattern.

Always check your shoes

On April 29, 2023 By CarynIn Life Hack, Wildlife

I was taught young to always shake out my shoes before putting them on, especially if they have been sitting outside. The caterpillar trying to climb in my sneaker when I was checking on chickens was a subtle reminder why.

Oh, that and snakes, which are now coming out from their winter rest.

Blurry picture of a rat snake, probably wouldn’t fit in my shoe, despite how skinny it is

Rough earth snake, ten of these would fit in my shoe, non venomous, but very wiggly

Here is a short of the rough earth snake, which is so wiggly because it was having trouble getting traction on the sidewalk.

Oh, and the scorpions, which would be an ouchie shoe find. And rocks, which also hurt, but don’t defensively pinch or sting. But spiders bite. Basically, always check your shoes before putting them on.

DIY bobbins

On April 28, 2023 By CarynIn Craft

In my Grandma’s stash of knitting supplies, there is a stack of bobbins she made from plastic containers. I decided to follow suit, and make more bobbins from my used plastic lids.

Grandma’s bobbins (left), commercial bobbin (bottom), ricotta cheese lid (right)

There are no signs of tracing on Grandma’s bobbins, I’m not sure if she wiped them off, they wore off, or she made so many she didn’t need to trace them. I need trace lines, so I used a thin sharpie to outline the commercial bobbin.

I cut out the traced design with kitchen scissors.

I think cutting was a harder task for Grandma; the plastic she used was much thicker than mine. It is a visible reminder that plastics manufacture has changed, and products are using less plastic per item now.

Grandma’s plastic (left), modern plastic (right)

Despite the thinner material, my new bobbin works great to organize the extra bits of thread I’m accumulating as I warp my Inkle loom.

Newly made bobbin wrapped with pearlized cotton

Intruder

On April 27, 2023 By CarynIn Cats, Wildlife

The picture is terrible, but frankly I’m surprised I obtained any image at all. There was a nuthatch outside on the coop looking in the house, then a ruckus behind the curtain that caught the cat’s attention. I pulled back the curtain to see a second nuthatch in between the screen and the window on the inside. I snapped the picture just as the bird dove down into the cat’s claws. I pulled the cat off and the bird rocketed back out the hole in the screen, through the catio bars, and off to freedom. That was quite the excitement for one morning, thank you. I’m very thankful I didn’t have to chase the bird through the house. I’ve seen some insects come through the flap I sewed into the screen so the cats could access the catio, but never a bird!

Crochet flower garland

On April 26, 2023April 23, 2023 By CarynIn Craft

I’ve had this as a purse project for a couple weeks. I wanted to make a flower garland, and I wanted to use crochet (which is still my top choice for an easy-to-pick-up, easy-to-set-down project). I chose pearlized cotton from my stash. I was sad, but not surprised, that all the green is gone, but the multicolored blue did a fine job for the leaves.

Crochet flower garland in process at my favorite coffee shop

I started by making the flowers with white thread. These are made with five petals crocheted into a magic circle, each petal is a chain 2, double crochet into the circle, chain 1, slip stitch into the top of the double crochet, chain 2, slip stitch into the circle. I made subsequent flowers along the thread because I didn’t want loose bits floating around my purse. When it came time to crochet the vine and leaves, I would clip off a flower and add between leaves (which are similarly constructed to the flower). I neatened up the white threads ends later by weaving them in and clipping.

Long strands with flower bobs enjoy getting tangled. I didn’t have an extra bobbin, so I tore off a side of a tissue box, rolled it into a tube and tucked in the ends. This allowed me to wrap the ornery lengths around it to keep them neat, and the tube served as a holder for the 1.00 mm crochet hook I was using. Not pretty, but effective.

For the final flower, I joined in the start of the chain to make a continuous loop. Now the garland can be doubled and used as a head band, or looped and worn as a necklace.

Critters and Craft

Month: April 2023