My eldest ordered a size large costume online; when it arrived it was a YOUTH large. Oops. There wasn’t time to return and reorder, and all the critical identifying marks were on the jacket, so we ripped some seams and turned the buttoned jacket into a vest.
We obtained a black shirt and black pants to go under the vest, and I rather like the crop vest with the long shirt. It is a subtle stylized version of the character.
I’ve made it to the split of the arms and body on the cardigan I’m knitting! This is momentous because after I separate the stitches for the sleeves each body row will have less stitches, which will make progress seem faster. There are a couple ways to hold the stitches for the arms, waste yarn, or a stitch holder. I found some pony bead elastic in my stash, which is a thick, but hollow, rubberized cord marketed for stringing beads. The end of this cord fits over the tip of my needle, making it much less scary to slide the stitches off the needle and onto the cord.
The cord comes in long lengths, making it possible to cut it as long as I want it, which in this case is large enough so the garment can be tried on during construction. In the package there are also small connectors that slide into the ends of the cord, closing the loop.
Now onto knitting the body!
Amazon has been distributing non-woven gift bags for awhile now, and I have amassed a collection. I do reuse them, many times, and to organize them I sorted by size (which is conveniently color coordinated) and used one bag of the group to hold the others. That way, at a glance, I can tell about how much the bags inside will hold.
Happy Thanksgiving y’all. If you blink, you’ll miss it.
Two years ago I fixed a plastic knob that broke. The thin gauge copper wire snapped recently and the epoxy didn’t hold, so I have to fix it again. I’m not messing around this time. I used 18 gauge wire to wrap around the socket, then filled the surround with J-B Weld, which is a two part epoxy.
It worked. Now I am hoping to get another couple years out of the appliance.
Each summer I put up a sunscreen in the coop runs to keep the afternoon sun off the feeder and the side of the coop. Each winter I take it down so the sun can warm the coop. Both operations are a pain, wrestling with the large triangle of fabric. Until this year, when one of those slow ideas finally bubbled to the surface and I thought to just roll up the sunscreen. It took a few moments to secure the roll, but should only take a few moments again in the summer to deploy the screen.
I do believe that there are many ways to accomplish any task, and find it interesting how often the thought “why didn’t I think of that earlier” happens.
Critters and Craft 