Missy the dog tries to lay right behind my feet when I’m spinning, which makes it hard to treadle. So I put her bed to the side, which was an acceptable offering.
I’m currently spinning Teeswater wool on my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel. Teeswater is listed as a critical in the Livestock Conservancy’s list of Heritage Sheep Breeds. I purchased roving from a rancher in Michigan, and I am enjoying spinning the fiber.
I thought I would be at the park and draft stage of spindle spinning forever. There I would sit forever, spinning the spindle to build twist, then catching the spindle between my knees, or under one leg, or arm, and only then letting the twist run into my fiber as I drafted. Managing both spin and drafting seemed unattainable. I was actually OK with it, except for the lure of an idea. The idea to spin and walk.
So I grabbed my Turkish spindle and some prepared merino roving and tried again. The spindle seemed too heavy, so I took off the arms and slid a light wood whorl down the shaft to make a bottom whorl spindle. (With park and draft I preferred a top whorl.) Oh my goodness, something clicked. Yes, I dropped the spindle a few times as I figured out which direction I was spinning (I couldn’t think S or Z, I had to think counterclockwise or clockwise). I tried using my distaff, but kept getting the fibers wrapped tight around it, so instead wrapped some roving around my arm. The fiber was bunching up, so I divided the roving in half. That seemed to do the trick! I was spinning while standing! Missy the pup helped me with the next step because when I am standing that means I can kick her ball, right? And if I can kick her ball, maybe I can walk and spin. For now, spinning will continue indoors, as it is cold outside. But when it warms up, it will be time to try to walk!
Having small toys roll under the couch has been driving me batty. So I thought I might stuff pool noodles under the edge of the couches to block errant balls from rolling underneath. Being the end of the pool season, I couldn’t find them in stores, but I found some lovely black pool noodles online. I industrially cut them to size and stuffed them under the edge, only to have the puppy take singular interest in pulling them out and tearing them apart. Sigh. I stuffed them deeper under the couch, which I’m not sure will actually help, but maybe it will a little. Puppies.
Our dog Griffin really likes his egg crate foam bed, so I made him another for his “place” (dog kennel). Since I am limiting my brick-and-mortar shopping, I bought a twin sized egg crate foam mattress topper online, cut it to size, and sewed a cover out of an old sheet.
This is the first sewing project that I have made time to do in weeks. But now that the CDC is recommending cloth masks for grocery shopping (yes, I’m a little behind the news, it is healthier for my sanity), I will try to make some masks.
Feeling a little silly. My spoiled pup has been itchy for awhile. I’ve tried skin sprays, ordered some probiotics, took all the artificially dyed treats away… what? I didn’t? Turns out our go to treat has red 40 in it. How did that miss the purge? We were buying it by the jar full. I must have assumed I read the ingredients label long ago. Nope. Sugar and red 40. All righty then, out they go. But the jars are so useful… I’ll make new labels with vinyl! (Told you this stuff is addicting.)
I washed out the jars and soaked off as much of the old label as I could. There were still sticky bits, so I decided to recover the whole middle in white vinyl. The indents in the sides of the jar made the vinyl pucker, so I filled them in with silicone caulk, smoothed it, and let it set. The vinyl went on better, but not as perfectly as it does on hard surfaces (the plastic jars have some flex).
I designed some new labels in Adobe Illustrator and cut them with my Cricut. The first design (above) was not an easy weed, and the tiny toe nail marks were too small to deal with! The second design (below) was very easy to weed, but larger than the white. Oops. I didn’t measure twice, cut once. But it does look like a little tiny dog ink stepped all over the jar, so I am going with it.
It was an interesting experiment, and I have useable, non-sticky treat jars for the new, natural dog treats. The dog is spoilt.
Critters and Craft 