Fancy a drink?

Poor kitty cat, finding a scorpion in your water dish was probably unpleasant. I certainly found it unpleasant. But there is the matter of how it got in there, so perhaps you already knew?

Bugs in the cat’s water dish

Or perhaps it is because the suckers can climb on walls. I’m not sure how well I will sleep to night with this new information.

Scorpion on the wall

Packing the spindle

Oops. I could probably reduce the amount of fiber I spin into singles, that spindle is very full and hard to handle! But I did it. I plied all three singles onto a single spindle! I was pleased also that the singles were nearly all the same length. When the first one ran out, there was very little left of the other two. Neat.

Spindle full of three plied yarn

May Day

Cutleaf Daisies

Well, it is not a basket of flowers on your step, but here is a picture of a pretty bunch of flowers from my meadow to you. Happy May first!

Round cat in a round pot

Cat in a pot

Because it has been such a long month, here is a cute cat sitting in a pot to end your April with a smile. No, I didn’t try to plant anything in this pot. I put it back out for the cat when she rejected the woven basket and then the woven basket developed mold. Ok, kitty, you can have the plant pot.

Lazy Kate mockup

Time to ply again! My spinning production took a dramatic downturn with the onset of the stay at home orders, which seems strange. Turns out that it had nothing to do with staying home (although with two kids and crisis schooling I have much less time for my crafts), and everything to do with not wanting to knit. I changed my plan for the yarn to a crochet vest, with motifs rather than a large solid piece, and suddenly I have motivation to spin again. I don’t know why, but even though I can knit, I don’t enjoy it as much as crochet or nålbinding. I like the stretch and feel of knit, I just don’t like ripping it out (which ALWAYS happens). I thought about nålbinding the vest, but that would be a two-year project, which also makes me go “ugh”. So the current plan is to make crochet motifs and join them together into a vest (note: this may change!)

Any who, I am still looking for the best plying method for me, and have been researching what works for others. I’ve seen many wooden contraptions, in many different styles. I like working in wood, and I have scrap wood in the garage, but before I render anything in wood, I thought I should try it in cardboard first. So I took the box that I tried a sideways method to hold the spindle shafts, and poked holes in it and tried an upright method. This worked better, but needs a weighted bottom. I actually think a slight angle on the shafts also works nicely. Now to think on how I want to make a wooden one.

Cardboard lazy kate experiment