I threw a couple fuzzy blankets onto my chair as I was picking up, and Izzy took it as an invitation to settle in. She is particularly pleased because she won the spot battle and over Missy the dog, who has decided a cushy blanket on my chair is The Place To Be.
So in the nap spot wars, may the fourth be with you.
I put together a 60s themed outfit with a nod to the fiber arts. I crocheted a duster vest and flower garland, wove a band and added bell sleeves to a tie-dyed t-shirt (I did not dye the shirt, dye and I are still not on speaking terms), and assembled some felted wool ball earrings! (My mom made and gave me the felted beads.)
When I do bell sleeves next, I will make them longer and without the off-set center hole. These look great on the hanger, but were awkward when worn, except when doing jazz hands, then they worked. Since I can’t do jazz hands all the time (although that would be quite the arm workout), I picked out the seams for the added sleeves after the debut. I can see peasant blouses with woven trim and bell sleeves on my crafting horizon.
The feral long-haired calico cat stayed in isolation (a spare bedroom in the house) for over a week after her spay. She turned out to be advanced in a pregnancy when I took her in (hard to tell under that long fur). Since that is a risky operation with a high probably for complications, we kept her calm and resting afterwards. She ate, drank, and used the litter box, so I felt OK keeping her inside, especially since we had cold wet weather for that week. When the weather cleared we took her back to her territory. Getting her back in the cage was tricky, but my eldest, the cat whisper, managed it. The cat bolted from the cage into the woods, but within five minutes I saw her in the meadow reacquainting with her family, which includes Mr Tom, Shadow, a gray tabby that is one of her adult kittens, and a short-haired black female that have also been through the TNR process. I’m hoping this is my last trapping for awhile. The other cats seemed to have cleared out.
Here are some flowers for you for May Day that are near my front porch. There is an arbor in there somewhere. I can’t drop them off on your doorstep, and we don’t have smell-a-vision yet, but this year you would be grateful as the scent is overpowering. Being socked in the face with a bouquet of flowers isn’t very neighborly. Lol. These are predominantly Japanese Honeysuckle, the red blooms poking through are native honeysuckle. I really need to get out and thin down the mound.
I still haven’t found my weaving shuttle. Hm. So I made one. I’d seen some trapezoidal shuttles on Pinterest, so grabbed a small thin wood sheet and cut a shape using a coping saw. The shape isn’t sellable perfect, but it works quite well, once I sanded it down.
I was then able to weave my new band pattern. It was quite cool to see the muddy mess of warp threads focus into a distinct pattern as I wove. The main experiment in this round was to see if staggering the turnarounds on the edges made the transitions smoother. They do, but it still isn’t as nice as having the edges a consistent direction, but I didn’t have to deal with warp twist. I did discover that I could tell where I was in my pattern by when the “A”s lined up. Every fourth turn, the cards line up, and since the pattern is based in 4, it meant I only had to move my pattern marker every fourth line. I need multiple cues to remember where I am in a pattern; sometimes I forget to move my marker.
I did discover my original pattern had errors, which I fixed as I wove. I went back to the pattern editor and updated it as shown above. I also really like weaving with variegated yarn, it gives added depth to the pattern.
