I collected the trail came videos from the last three weeks and realized that I need to collect them more often. There were 1,000 photos on one card and 4,000 on the other. Yikes. Mostly known cats, then a smaller percentage of opossums, raccoons, deer, and an armadillo.
I kept seeing pairings of raccoon and opossum photos, so I selected those for download.
Photo description: night vision view of a raccoon and opossum on a small wood porch
While not fighting enemies, these two aren’t friends either.
Photo description: same two animals, opossum has its mouth open
Still, they occupied the porch together circulating around the bowls looking for snacks for over ten minutes.
I love purple thistles. The adoration probably started when I visited Scotland where it is the national flower. Yes, they are prickly, yes, they take over wild areas, but the blooms are stunning and grow tall and strong.
Photo description: Texas Purple Thistle stand against a cloud dotted blue skyPhoto description: closeup of Texas purple Thistle in an empty lot
I had another knitter who wanted to talk brioche knitting, so I had to brush up on my skills. I found a beautiful variegated yarn and decided to work from the inside and the outside of the skein, which was stunning done in the two-color brioche ribbing.
Photo description: beginning brioche knitting with variegated yarn, orange leg out on the calico cat on my lap
The color shifts are stunning, but the mistakes in the knit were not. I have a 10 second rule: if a casual observer can’t see the mistake in 10 seconds don’t fix it. My mistakes added up and overwhelmed the rule.
Photo description: brioche knitting with numerous errors, a jag around row 8, misaligned yarn overs, and somehow loosing two columns, laying on a dilute calico cat
The yarn I’m working with is delicate, ripping out the knitting would have made the yarn unusable. Continuing on with all the mistakes was unthinkable, so I bound off and am going to try again.
And yes, those are pictures of two different cats on my lap. I have become a battle ground in cat chess.
I love knitting two socks at the same time on two circular needles, but I forget how to do the initial setup every time. Every. Time. So to help my future self, here is what worked this time (after many trials and errors.)
Photo description: loosely cast on 66 stitches using the long tail cast-on method with fingering weight wool yarn on Prym 2.5mm circular needlePhoto description: 33 stitches slipped knit-wise onto a second circular needle
With the first sock cast on and divided onto two separate circular needles, I cast on 66 stitches for the second sock and transferred all the stitches to a stitch holder.
Photo description: transferring 33 stitches from the stitch holder to a circular needle Photo description: all stitches for both socks transferred to two circular needles so that the “U” shape of each sock has the open side to the left and the closed side to the right
For me, the trickiest part is getting the two socks in the same direction on the needles, then keeping the stitches untwisted as I join the first row. After that, for me, it is smooth sailing. I never cross the two circular needles, always using the ends of one needle set to knit half of one sock, then half of the other sock (remember to switch yarn sources for each sock, so they stay separate.)
On this particular sock set, I will be knitting a 3×3 rib to start.
I’ve been twining with plant bast fibers (the long ones from the stems of plants), and wondered if I could twine long wool. I selected some Teeswater from my stash that has a staple length around 5-8 inches, grabbed a sponge and a spray bottle of water, and started twining. There was a bumpy learning curve, especially since I decided to learn to twine left handed to get an opposite twist. I wanted an S twist direction because my current favorite nålbinding stitch has a bias Z twist, and I thought the opposite twist yarn would help. It didn’t really.
Photo description: twined Teeswater wool and the beginnings of a nålbound pouch sitting on my jeans in the car while waiting in the pickup line
As I write this post, I’m wondering if the twist in my work is the stitch, or the method of construction I’m attempting. I’m working in the round, which is typical for nålbinding, but I’m working around a long base chain, which is a little different. I’ll keep on and see if things even out, either as I go, or after I block the finished work.
The exciting part of this project is there are no joins in the yarn, rather, the yarn is created as I go.
Critters and Craft 