I checked the trail cam again and saw the usual complement of possum, raccoon, bird, and cat pictures. The bonus shot was of the resident gray fox. Of the cat pictures, there were two with un-tipped ears. Sigh.
Foxy
Author: Caryn
Petals fall
The crossvine flowers are starting to fall away. The profusion of blooms was truly spectacular this Spring. Unlike azaleas, the crossvine will bloom again, several times, before next Winter.
WIPs
Oh dear. I decided to see what my WIP (work in progress) count was up to. Hm. I’ll share them here as a kind of accountability, although I’m not counting the ball of napkin twine in the glove compartment of my car that is for emergency craft use (that project doesn’t need an end). Nor am I including the fiber survey that also ongoing.
Developing a 3D printed spindle is my oldest WIP. I’m still working on the head breaking issue, but with the help of the printer, I feel we are nearer the end than to the beginning of this project.
My sit and spin project on my vintage wheel is also nearing completion. I have a few hours worth of alpaca fiber left in the basket (the fiber in the blue bin is waste from combing). I have another portion of washed alpaca in queue.
My walking spinning project involves my first taste of flax spinning. The roving preparation is an odd one, but I’m finally getting the trick of it. I maybe have two or three walks left to finish the singles, then I still need to ply and finish the yarn.
My rainbow scarf knitted with the Brioche method became a car project a while back. This was the best thing for this work, as I regularly knit for about an hour on it many times a week as I sit in the car rider line. I still have many hours left to go.
My newest WIP is a blue and yellow light-weight cardigan. This is a big step for me in knitting. I have made a couple of sleeved garments (as opposed to vests, scarves, hats, and gloves), but not many and they all have had sizing issues. I’m making the attempt again because I have grown as a knitter and am hoping the new skills will help. I have been planning this knit for months, but I hadn’t cast on yet, so it wasn’t an official WIP. It sits next to my chair at home.
Surprise pumpkin
One of my neighbors brought my chickens a pumpkin! The surprise in this is that it is a fall pumpkin. It sat on a hearth inside all winter and was in perfect condition, without bleaching or other chemical coatings.
I broke it open for the chickens and they tucked in (once they were done begging for grubs).
I fixed it with a keychain
I was cleaning the kitchen faucet when I noticed flakes of rust around the top of the wand (where the sprayer attaches to the neck). I cleaned it up, and kept cleaning, until the rust and chunks where gone. Then I went to put the wand back and it wouldn’t snap back into the neck. Hm. Apparently the part that was the second half of the magnetic clasp rusted completely and I had just wiped it all away. The wand was still magnetized, but the neck wasn’t. Well that’s frustrating. My husband did some research, and we couldn’t get the part that rusted, and couldn’t buy the neck separately, and a new comparable faucet would be around $500. (I’m sure that is not what we paid over four years ago.) I decided to do some experiments.
I tried to put a neodymium magnet in the handle, which was not the right shape. I tried using bits from a roll of magnetic tape, but it was too thick and wedged it in. I tried some bare floral wire, which is steel, and had some luck, but couldn’t secure it inside the neck. Then I realized that the recessed indent in the faucet neck was about an inch in diameter. Keychain rings, the split rings made of stainless steel, come in about that size. I raided the junk drawer and found one. I was able to slip it around the wand hose (yay for split rings), and the steel hoop fit perfectly in the recess of the neck. I mixed up some five-minute, two part epoxy and glued the ring in place. Some tape held the ring while the epoxy cured, and kept the hose from gluing in as well.
When mixing two part epoxy, I always keep the waste mixture out until it is cured. If the stuff in the cup is cured, then the stuff holding the part is cured. I removed the temporary tape and tested the wand against the neck. Snick. Oh what a wonderful sound! It works! The faucet wand pulls easily away from the neck, but when replacing it, the magnet sticks to the steel keyring and keeps it in place. Neat.
Critters and Craft 