I liked the two-tone Jacob’s sheep roving spun up so much that I decided to make more marled yarn with the other two colors of Jacob’s roving I bought from Sweetgrass Jacobs farm.
I pulled the ends from both balls of roving and am spinning them together on my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel.
It will take longer to spin this two color yarn, just because there is more. My plan is to chain ply it like I did for my other marled yarn, and then make plans for a warm vest.
I found a puffball mushroom in our yard. I have read that they are edible, after I threw one over the fence after finding it last year.
I broke this one open and the inside is soft and spongy, rather like pound cake, but it smelled of dirt. I hope a critter on the other side of the fence enjoys the snack.
I was cruising the aisles at TSC and couldn’t find the seed and fruit cakes that fit my suet feeder. They had huge ones, but nothing to hold them. They also had “stackers”, which are seed cakes with a hole in the middle, like a donut. They did have the holder for these, and it was inexpensive, so that is what went into my cart.
I put out all this birdy goodness then realized it was going to rain soon. To protect my investment from washing away without going through an animal’s gullet, I fashioned a rain cover from a disposable pie tin lid with a hold cut in the middle, because that is what I had on hand.
I have to make a confession. The food out there “for the birds” is really for my squirrels. The birds are an interesting side effect, but I really like to watch the squirrels. The cute little land otters that they are. The squirrels and the birds agree though that the suet cakes aren’t worth their time or effort. Maybe suet is favored more with northern critters.
This post is to document that my Thanksgiving cactus is still blooming in April.
Texas is starting to warm up, which means the window this cactus leans against will warm up, and quit inducing buds. I’ll get to enjoy them for a little longer.
I made this spindle whorl awhile back using a laser cutter. The dragonfly design is my own.
I had an empty shaft and decided to give the whorl a whirl while I was spinning my Black Welsh Mountain fiber.
I should have sanded down the shaft some, the top hook did not stick up far enough which made it difficult to wind yarn on and off. The single layer whorl also didn’t feel substantial, and although the size was large enough to keep momentum, I struggled with it bumping into me. It is slightly better than using a CD as a whorl, but only because it has dragonflies. Back to the design board.
Critters and Craft 