Today we are going back to December of 2004 and a leather book weight I made and decorated with painted bees. It seemed appropriate to share this in nod to my bee visitor this week.
Photo description: tooled and painted leather book weight with painted bees on red, blue, and green circles on each end, the sides have been sewn with leather lace with a braided edge. Black velvet background (which was totally a thing back then).
The ends of the book weight are filled with small bags of sand to give it enough heft to hold a book open. The back side is suede to be gentle on the pages and have a bit of grip. I’m still quite pleased with the stitches around the outside, I love a good decorative braid stitch. I do have to admit that I have to look up how to make the braid every time.
Photo description: three white bearded iris blooms
Iris that my Dad replanted at the back of our meadow three years ago or so have bloomed! The rest of the meadow is filled with tall grass, but we are only mowing the edges in hopes that our Indian blanket and basket flowers come up again.
After replacing his collar four times, I found out how Thor the cat was breaking the buckle: with his teeth. Rather than risk a broken tooth, I am letting him go collarless. He is chipped, so if he freaks and escapes, there is that. He looked so handsome with his black collar, sigh.
Photo description: gray tabby with white face and chest laying on a gray fuzzy blanket with a black collar laying on the blanket in front of him.
I’m sure the collar was interfering in his regular baths. He is a very fastidious cat.
A couple weekends ago I spent about five hours doing spinning demonstrations at a local Earth Day market. I was spinning Shetland wool on a spindle that I have demonstrated on before, so only about half the yarn cop was spun that day, but it was enough to fill the spindle. I found that hanging the spindle from my canopy made it easier to off load the yarn. So at home I tried the same thing, but used fishing swivels instead of a loop of yarn, which works much better. Did I take pictures of the full spindle with single spun yarn? Or the nice nostepinne style center pull ball of yarn? No, much to my later self’s dismay. I did the photo record of the two ply yarn, and the resulting skein after blocking.
Photo description: using fishing swivels to hang a drop spindle from a broom rack for ease of off loading the yarn. Two ply Shetland wool on the spindle.Photo description: two ply Shetland wool skein weighing 28g
I still have Shetland wool ready to spin, but a factor in off loading and plying this yarn now is that I don’t have a Shetland wool page in my fiber book. Oops. I demonstrating spinning it, but don’t have examples of the finished product. I’ll use this finished portion of yarn to make my swatches and complete a page in my book, then spin up the rest later.
I was walking by my kitchen when I spotted an anomaly on a box on my counter: a bee.
Photo description: honey bee on a cardboard box
What are you doing inside little bee? And where have you been, and what brought you to this particular landing spot? Mysteries. I put a small amount of white sugar in a spoon and filled it with water and offered it to the bee. It was very thirsty and gladly accepted the offering, but wasn’t keen on leaving the box. I put a small puddle of sugar water on the box, then took the box and the bee outside in the shade. I had to run errands, and when I returned home, the bee was gone. iNaturalist folks identified her as a Western honey bee.
Photo description: honey bee drinking sugar water from a metal spoon
Now I have “give me sugar, in water” stuck in my head from the movie Men In Black (1997).
Critters and Craft 