Author: Caryn

Knitted lace scarf

On By CarynIn Craft

I’m stash busting: going through my yarn stash and using it up (so I can spin more yarn). I had a skein of machine lace in red metallic with a pattern on the label. I thought, hey! this will be a quick project.

Knitting with machine lace

I have crocheted a scarf from machine lace before, and I forgot that I said never again. Which is why the skein was unused in my stash. The idea is that you crochet or knit just the top two strands of lace, and the rest ruffles out. I’m not usually a ruffle person, but it really does make a striking scarf. But oh is that lace fiddly! I decided to pick up 10 stitches and was very careful to pick up the next loop on the lace for each stitch. Wrong. I wasn’t getting any ruffles and it was taking forever. So I took a breath, beat my OCD down with a stick, and stuck my needle in just any ol’ where. (Yes, I exaggerate, I did pick up lace at measured intervals, but because they were not always in the next loop, the ruffle effect happened.) Because I was doing a 10 stitch repeat (and turning the work in the same direction each time), I ended up with a sort of flat spiral. To maximize ruffle, I gave the whole thing a couple of twists and connected the ends to make an infinity scarf. I was much more pleased with the final result than I expected!

Ruffle infinity scarf

It was on sale

On By CarynIn chickens

And it was the last one. I went in for chicken feed and pine shavings and came out with an extra chicken. At least I don’t have to figure out how to integrate this one into the flock. She is a stand alone bird.

Crystal Splendor Chicken light up decoration
Night view of chicken holiday decoration

Three bags full

On By CarynIn Craft
Three bags of alpaca fiber

Of alpaca fleece, not black wool. Ha. There is an alpaca farm 20 minutes from here (we visited not long ago). I requested fiber and the owner contacted me and said she had some! So we went over and I selected three colors so I could experiment with color and spinning. So excited!! It is raw blanket (the fiber sheared from the back of the alpaca), and from animals whose fleece has won blue ribbons in competition. Yes, I know their names: Dawnabella, Sugar Plum, and Aimee. Squee. Interesting fact: alpaca fiber is not covered in lanolin, so I will wash it, but I don’t have to scour it like I would for wool or mohair (and worry about temperature getting too low and the lanolin redepositing on the fiber).

I have other projects to finish first, though, before I can play. #Motivation

Egg ornaments

On By CarynIn Craft, eggs

I’ve been holding onto a few of the chicken’s first eggs, not the whole egg, just the blown out shell. Not the very first egg, I didn’t think of blowing out the eggs until the next day. They have been sitting on my counter for a few months and then I thought making ornaments would be a great way to preserve them!

32 gauge wire looped and twisted

I took about 10 inches of 32 gauge wire, looped it, and twisted the ends together to make a straight section longer than my egg.

Wire strung through blown out egg shell

Getting the wire through the tiny hole on the end of the blown out egg was a little tricky, but I got there eventually.

Ribbon threaded through egg with knots to hold it in place

I had some thin ribbon in my stash, so threaded some of that through the wire loop, then used the wire to pull the ribbon through the egg. I used over hand knots to keep the egg from sliding off. I used alcohol based ink (aka Sharpie) to write on the egg, and I coated the egg in matte Modge Podge glue for extra durability, and let it dry.

“Our first egg” ornament next to another pullet egg

I’m not that keen on the Modge Podge coating. It makes it look like a plastic egg, even though it has a matte finish. I’ll have to run some experiments to see what I can do about that.

Egg ornament hanging on the tree

How to keep chickens from pulling rings off your finger

On By CarynIn chickens, Life Hack

Wear gloves.

Wearing a glove to protect my ring and my skin from my chickens (but that picture looks strange)

Long title, short answer, and one that is so simple and straightforward that it hurts I didn’t think of it sooner. I tried three different colored silicone bands (I wasn’t risking any gemstones!), and have three wounds on my ring finger for my efforts. Checking the chickens one cold morning I pulled on my gloves and sighed. I love simple answers.

I do have a little solace in that when I googled the problem, other people suggested not wearing rings or jewelry around chickens. No mention of gloves there either, although one suggested tucking necklaces into your shirt. Getting there.