It must be getting close to Christmas, my Thanksgiving cactus has its first bloom!
I think mine blooms at this time of year because it only starts to really cool down in Texas in late November. The branches against the window finally get cold enough to trigger flower buds, then I turn the pot so the other side can experience the temperature change. Here is a link for more information.
In January 2011 my husband and I designed a terrarium in a 25 gallon tank. I painted a faux stained glass mural with special plastic lead and translucent glass paint on the outside of the tank. We built a clear acrylic planter with a pass through for water circulation and covered the pump with a hand sculpted and water safe painted rock formation made of styrofoam. The bottom section was for fish and two red bellied newts, who would presumably also venture onto the land. The newts had the best story, because they would somehow escape the enclosure and roam the house. We are pretty sure a cat found one, but the other crawled onto my husband’s foot one morning startling him and sending the newt flying. Newt-imer survived the flight and my husband returned him to his enclosure where he lived until 2015. We had to re-home him after a house fire when we all had to find new accommodations for a while.
While the designing process was interesting, and there were lessons learned, the cleaning and maintaining of a fish tank is not something either of us want to bother with again.
My single spun mint top fiber has been sitting on my drop spindle for awhile. I spun it so thin I really was worried about it breaking during the plying process. I finally took a deep breath, got out my homemade spindle holder, and chain plied with my vintage Befra Willy spinning wheel.
I wet the yarn on the niddy noddy to set the twist. I’m still not feeling and “coolness” from the mint infused fibers. Maybe that will come once the yarn is made into fabric?
I have finished my twined bag. Yes, I was obsessed with making it and spent three days working on it. (Should I have been doing other things? Oh yes, but this was fun.)
I experimented with the weave as I progressed, not only doing stripes, but changing twist direction and number of twists between warp threads to control which color was on top, using this project as sampler.
To make the strap, I threaded long strands of jute through the top edge of the bag, then used more hand-spun wool to cover the jute, reversing twine direction on each row, so as not to introduce bias twist in the final strap.
I felt the other end of the strap needed some adornment, so I cut a slice of antler and drilled two holes to make a decorative button. It is sewn on, not functional, but I think it came out nice and coordinates well with the natural jute.
I finished the bottom end of the bag and the end of the strap with tassels lashed with wool.
I absolutely love this weaving technique. Want to learn more about twining a bag? There is an excellent book called “Twined Bags: A Historic finger weaving craft of the Native Americans” available from Livingston Press, written by Monica Newman Moore.
I have had it in my head for a while to make a new card display for the greeting cards I have for sale at my favorite coffee shop. I wanted something artsy that would show off the cards, but also have a spot for a stack of cards and business cards. I decided the take a block of flame maple from my stash and combine it with some spiral wire card holders.
I used a two part epoxy to secure the wires in the holes drilled into the wood, then finished the block with Howard Feed-n-Wax. The feed and wax is my kind of product: it applies easily and dries within 24 hours or less, plus it smells nice.
The bouquet style display brings the cards up off the table and creates an eye catching arrangement.
Critters and Craft 