Moist extremes

On August 8, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

When working with flax or plant fibers in general, it helps to have a little moisture. When I first started twining my flax bag on a car trip, I was using saliva. Traveling and licking fingers didn’t seem like a prudent plan, so on the next trip I made a sponge ring by cutting off the end of an inexpensive curler and trimming the hole with scissors.

Photo description: sponge ring to use to wet fingertips as I twine flax, made from a hair curler

As I twined, I noticed the skin on my finger was turning white. Weird.

Photo description: white marks on my finger

I looked again at the small spray bottle I grabbed as I madly packed for the trip. It wasn’t labeled “H2O”, it was marked “H2O2”. I had been moistening my finger with hydrogen peroxide. At least it was sanitized. Sheesh.

Photo description: small spray bottle with pink sponge ring and “H2O2” written in Sharpie ink

Throwback Thursday: ruffle scarf

On August 7, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

Today is a throwback with a current twist. As I was going through pictures from 2015 I found one in April of my first ruffle scarf. These scarves are knit from machine made lace. The lace comes wrapped like chunky yarn, and if you knit 6 stitches wide, just picking up one edge of the lace, the lace spirals out and around the central knitted core.

Photo description: red ruffle scarf from April of 2015

Photo description: purple ruffle scarf from July 2025

I just made another of these from yarn my Mom sent as packing material for a package. They can be a bit tricky because the lace needs to be fanned out to find the edge, but once I get the groove, it goes pretty quickly.

Ceramic painting

On August 1, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

My youngest is on a ceramic painting kick this summer. We go to pick up the fired piece, and paint another. Repeat. I’m learning about music theory particularly in the realm of Barbershop harmony, so I painted a mug in celebration of Harmonics.

Photo description: “Fluted mug” from Quiggly’s Clayhouse painted with glaze in shades of green and the word “Harmonics”, my signature mark and 7/25 written on the bottom

Photo description: same mug after firing

I like that the “Fluted mug” looks like a digitized sound wave.

Photo description: opposite side of the mug with the numbers 1 5 1 3 5 b7 1 9 b3

On the opposite side of the mug I wrote the harmonic series in scale degrees, because Barbershoppers are all about the overtones (in physics overtones and harmonics are different, while in Barbershop they are often used interchangeably.)

Photo description: inside of the mug painted ombre tan to brown with the words “Go Sing” on the bottom

It greatly amuses me to paint the inside of the mug like it is already stained with tea or coffee. And, of course, when I get to the bottom of the mug, it is time to go sing.

Jacob’s wool swatches

On July 28, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

I started on the swatches for Jacob’s wool, and then finished them all in a day, even the nålbinding. I must have thirty other projects I’m not working on. Hm.

Photo description: four squares made from hand spun Jacob’s wool: knit (top left), crochet (top right), cut open nålbinding (bottom left), woven (bottom right)

I had two large cakes of yarn, and two small nostepinne balls, so I used the smaller amounts to make the swatches. I hope to make something wearable out of the larger cakes of yarn.

Zoom Loom Jacob’s wool

On July 27, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

I used my hand spun Jacob’s wool yarn on my new Zoom Loom. I did the three preparatory wraps a little looser this time (as instructed) and it helped ease the way when it came to weaving.