Change

On By CarynIn chickens, Coop

I have a hen, Seashell, sleeping in the nest box at night. Historically when this happens I take the hen off the nest and put her back on the roost with her sisters, which helps break the broody cycle, but this hen isn’t broody. There are no eggs in the nest, and haven’t been since September. They won’t start laying again until February, if they follow the same pattern as the previous three years. She started this behavior after we lost the last chicken, so I’m wondering if the hen that passed was her buddy and she would rather sleep alone than with the flock. Or the other hen offered her protection that is absent with the rest. The flock is quite clicky.

Photo description: Night vision photo of four nest boxes built in under a work bench, with curtains pulled aside, the back of a hen visible in the top right box. Pine shavings cover the floor, and there is a inverted wine bottle with dispenser for grit.

I have another hen sleeping off the roost, but that is Magic, who has periodic leg issues that impede her jumping up to the roost. She sleeps on her pedestal of pine in the left corner of the coop.

Photo description: Night vision photo of the inside of our coop, with three hens on the roost, one in the corner, and one in the nest boxes.

Cloud shadows

On By CarynIn photography, Sky

Doing the morning school drive there were numerous contrails across the blue sky. One contrail was casting a shadow on the wispy cirrus clouds in the distance. It made a striking effect, and I rolled down the window and took a picture while we were stopped at a light.

Photo description: Blue sky with white whispy cirrus clouds in the background, foreground has a winter brown field with red wrong way sign, two parallel contrails go vertically from the top of the photo to the ground, one is thick and white with no shadow, one is thin with a distinct darkening of the sky beside it.

Coffee art

On By CarynIn art, Craft

I went to my favorite coffee shop and picked up a latte and a couple shots of expresso to go. I drank the latte, but used the expresso to make lots of shapes on water color paper.

Photo description: Six pages of watercolor paper laid out on the table with an assortment of coffee rings, drops, and splotches of expresso. One page in the back was treated with isopropyl alcohol first, which gave the coffee a diluted/faded effect.

My goal is to digitize the coffee stains to make amalgamated coffee art. First up, a coffee tree. Although I intended to use the shapes to make the tree, I decided to also try just painting an evergreen tree with expresso. It turned out great, so that turned into my base image. I scanned everything, including a scattering of sugar sprinkles. I digitally combined the tree, sprinkles, and a precisely placed coffee ring, and am quite pleased with the result. For fun, I changed the color of the sprinkles in Photoshop so I had two options.

Photo description: Two cards printed on recycled parchment paper, showing a evergreen tree painted in the sepia tones of expresso, topped with a double coffee ring, and festooned with round and star shaped sprinkles. One card has teal sprinkles, the other, red.

These cards are sold exclusively at The Full Cup in Weatherford, TX.

Dashing through the Snow

On By CarynIn art, Craft

I made a new digital card design for our holiday cards. I started in Adobe Fresco on an iPad with an Apple Pencil, moved to the computer and used Adobe Illustrator, then to print, used Adobe inDesign to do the layout. I like black and gray word art, but to give it a little pop I printed on pearlescent paper.

Photo description: “Dashing through the Snow” in different fonts, with pine needle bunches, holly sprigs, two swooshes, and assorted gray snowflake designs. The shimmer of the pearlescent paper is evident in the upper left corner.

My plan is to put the design in Redbubble and cross post to my CarynsCreations.com site after the design is available.

DIY stitch holder

On By CarynIn Craft, Life Hack

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.

Photo description: Black flexible cord slid over the tip of a Prym circular knitting needle, in preparation for sliding stitches. Two cats in the background in close proximity.

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.

Photo description: Knit stitches slid onto the cord and the cord closed with a clear solid connector. One cat in the background. Thor pushed his luck, Izzy noticed and told him off.

Now onto knitting the body!