The Baize Shetland wool was the first Livestock Conservancy Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em fiber I purchased. I bought a 13 oz batt, and have been spinning it at demonstrations and fair booths. I’ve been quite remiss in actually making a fiber page! That is now rectified, and this wonderful fiber has a page in my sampler book.
Shetland wool is a joy to spin, and is definitely on my “will purchase again” list.
I had a bit of a shock looking for eggs in the nesting boxes recently, a very tiny egg.
I found it where the new chickens lays their eggs, so I’m certain it came from one of the Black Star hens. I broke it open and there was no yolk.
Maybe the term fairy egg comes from the thought that something stole the yolk? That would be old school fairy thinking, not the new tiny jingling sparkly fairies. Either way, it is not something concerning for the health of the chicken, just a hiccup in the production system. I do believe I have something going on with egg production, though. With six hens I’m finding maybe one egg a day. It could be that they are all older, 5 years old, well past prime laying. It could be the stress of a new pecking order or the heat. There could also be something stealing the eggs, although not fairies, but likely a snake sneaking a snack.
I had a long period of time in which Sculpey clay was my go-to medium. I found this photo from March 2007 of a thread cutter made from layered oven bake clay surrounding a wheel cutter blade with a brass wire loop. I formed each side of the cutter using a mold that I made, baked it, sanded it, then assembled it, probably with glue (tsk). The loop was properly made with a mechanical connection: prongs that went into holes in the clay.
I made several of these at one point. If I were to attempt to make them again, I would make sure there was a mechanical connection holding the blade between the sides. I’m sure the glue didn’t hold up to time or dropping.
Once again I was down to the last set of cotton loops for a potholder loom. I actually started several patterns gleaned from Pinterest, didn’t like them, and took them apart. Once woven, the knitted cotton loops are quite robust, but if woven and unwoven repeatedly, they have a tendency to unravel. I needed to make a choice and stick to it. I love spirals so decided to tackle a spiral pattern potholder. This was easier decided than done. I did find a picture of a spiral potholder, but couldn’t wrap my head around the sequence of under overs working straight across. I ended up working from the center, slowly adding loops on each side and meticulously tracing the spiral, fixing the woven path as I went.
The key to the spiral is that sometimes loops go over two, rather than one opposing loop. These floats happen at the corners when the color needs to be continuous. The order of loop color is the same for the vertical and horizontal.
I managed the make this whole week a throwback with this series of potholder experiments! The loops are now all gone and the looms have been absorbed into my weaving tool box. I plan to use the pin looms with yarn next. Tomorrow will be an actual throwback post.
When I bought the potholder loom kits for my kids, I bought one regular size and one Pro. The Pro box still had intact seals. I fixed that, and thought I might make a small bag because the Pro potholders are larger and there were only enough loops for two projects. The loom also has an odd number of pins, rather than the even number for the regular loom. It opens up different design possibilities. I wanted to experiment more with twisting with my first project with a Pro loom. I counted all my loops and divided them in half, then came up with a design based on the number I had of each color.
The overall pattern when weaving is three fold: twisted path, plain weave, plain weave.
I was going to make a coordinating but opposite twist design, but it turns out when the strands are twisted the opposite way, the pattern is just being worked upside down, it doesn’t look different. Hm. I don’t want twins, so I’ll try something completely different for the next potholder.
Critters and Craft 