Winter Hobbies and Crafts

Obviously, this topic is a little early for the Northern Hemisphere, but here it is. Use it for displaying/discussing hobbies, crafts or winter projects.

@sanderson wrote:Obviously, this topic is a little early for the Northern Hemisphere, but here it is.  Use it for displaying/discussing hobbies, crafts or winter projects.

You do realize that I will be discussing my "virtual flying" hobby or perhaps I can present some of Mrs TD's hobbies, crafts. 

I will be using my spare time, between painting house, cooking, cleaning, swimming, playing music, winter garden work, washing clothes, plowing snow, shopping, housework, remodeling,  and lots of other chores. In my spare time I'll be making my surf fishing lures still. We did this as a business for the past 30 years, this year was our last.
Since having all equipment and material I will continue working on these just to have something to do....

@trolleydriver wrote:

@sanderson wrote:Obviously, this topic is a little early for the Northern Hemisphere, but here it is.  Use it for displaying/discussing hobbies, crafts or winter projects.

You do realize that I will be discussing my "virtual flying" hobby or perhaps I can present some of Mrs TD's hobbies, crafts. 

I will be looking forward to your results, TD, having happy memories of last winter.

For myself, I will be getting back to tracing my ancestry, and catching up on my letters to my birth family in England, to find out more about my mother and her siblings.
Starting this effort some years ago, I was instrumental in bringing  two branches of the family together who had lost touch in the 1960s. It was a request of mine in the 1990s about a great-uncle and his three sons.  This year, 2016, I had a reply and it turned out there were four sons and the reply was from his grand daughter. When I mentioned it to our family historian, he said he knew of the fourth son but had lost touch with that side of the family.  Since then there has been a blizzard of letters and I owe them a letter.  This is when I am happy that my gardening is seaonal, too many other things to do.

@sanderson wrote:Obviously, this topic is a little early for the Northern Hemisphere, but here it is.  Use it for displaying/discussing hobbies, crafts or winter projects.

Early?   I started months ago. I'm almost finished with Christmas knitting, about to start back on rock painting. The difference is that I need something to do all summer when it's too hot to go outside and play.

@countrynaturals wrote:

@sanderson wrote:Obviously, this topic is a little early for the Northern Hemisphere, but here it is.  Use it for displaying/discussing hobbies, crafts or winter projects.

Early?   I started months ago. I'm almost finished with Christmas knitting, about to start back on rock painting. The difference is that I need something to do all summer when it's too hot to go outside and play.

We are egocentric, we forget this is a big continent(world) with different seasons at the same time.

 So what should we call this thread?  Off season activities.

I was thinking "Winter Hobbies and Crafts"

Thought I would share with you what Mrs TD is doing.  These are fishtail blankets that she is crocheting for the grandkids. She has two more to make.

That's neat.  Keeps them snug. 

Now and then I take up knitting, it is really very soothing, but my Jazz could not then sit on my lap so I gave it up after a while.  I used to knit slippers for Ronald MacDonald Home visitors.  I had a whole load of yarn given me, all colours and thicknesses, and the beauty of it was that I could knit the same pattern every time and the result was sure to fit someone.

I wonder of Pal would allow me without wanting to play with the yarn.  He is a grownup cat and not a kitten.

Good luck! Prey is prey at all ages.

TD, do those fish tail blankies go all the way around so the kids can stick their legs in there and have mermaid and merman tails?

@CapeCoddess wrote:TD, do those fish tail blankies go all the way around so the kids can stick their legs in there and have mermaid and merman tails?

Absolutely. They are like tubes that they get into. The shark is quite effective! 

Part of my winter time will be spent returning to a hobby I started 35 years ago , that of lost wax casting to make small cast in metals such as brass . copper gold & silver etc .  using investment powder cast ceramic moulds to hold intricate hand made  wax forms that I'll make .

 As a present to Alison,  just after she moved in with me in 1986  I made her nine small cats playing with a ball of wool in 18 carat gold and a larger 1" high one of a cat sat tall in lead ,   plus one of a set of three hand made filed and drilled  small thin ingots in silver that contained the initials of DAPP  joined together ( David , Alison , Peter & Paula ) P&P are the initials of my children from my first marriage .

 I was going to give her the set of nine cats as the big ones , but couldn't afford the fortune for the 2 ounces of gold needed to do it at the time .

 Shhhhhh ! .........It may happen this time though if she still has the larger cast lead cat in her jewelry box


 It's been an expensive re learning curve ,  I'm currently trying to locate British company's that sell small batches of vulcanising rubber  for me to make the moulds for repeating my models in hard casting wax .

 I've also got to make nearly all my own equipment as well for again I can't find any company here in th UK that sells the equipments at prices I can afford or can justify paying for ..

 By this time next year I may have something worthwhile to show you guys & gals  .
.

Sounds fascinating.  I for one will all look forward to seeing your creations.

TD, I had to send copies to my mom. I know she'll get a kick out of them. She has knitted puppets in the past. I believe one was a shark...

Plantoid, Alison will be thrilled I'm sure!

Plantoid, can't wait

@trolleydriver wrote:

@CapeCoddess wrote:TD, do those fish tail blankies go all the way around so the kids can stick their legs in there and have mermaid and merman tails?

Absolutely. They are like tubes that they get into. The shark is quite effective! 

Those are adorable!  Nice work, Mrs. TD!

@sanderson wrote:Plantoid,  can't wait

Very very intriguing!  Fun!

@countrynaturals wrote:

@sanderson wrote:Obviously, this topic is a little early for the Northern Hemisphere, but here it is.  Use it for displaying/discussing hobbies, crafts or winter projects.

Early?   I started months ago. I'm almost finished with Christmas knitting, about to start back on rock painting. The difference is that I need something to do all summer when it's too hot to go outside and play.

Just starting on the rosemary harvest. The sprigs I cut last week are already dry. Time to order some little tulle bags for sachet and dryer bags.

@plantoid wrote:Part of my winter time will be spent returning to a hobby I started 35 years ago , that of lost wax casting to make small cast in metals such as brass . copper gold & silver etc .  using investment powder cast ceramic moulds to hold intricate hand made  wax forms that I'll make .

 As a present to Alison,  just after she moved in with me in 1986  I made her nine small cats playing with a ball of wool in 18 carat gold and a larger 1" high one of a cat sat tall in lead ,   plus one of a set of three hand made filed and drilled  small thin ingots in silver that contained the initials of DAPP  joined together ( David , Alison , Peter & Paula ) P&P are the initials of my children from my first marriage .

 I was going to give her the set of nine cats as the big ones , but couldn't afford the fortune for the 2 ounces of gold needed to do it at the time .

 Shhhhhh ! .........It may happen this time though if she still has the larger cast lead cat in her jewelry box


 It's been an expensive re learning curve ,  I'm currently trying to locate British company's that sell small batches of vulcanising rubber  for me to make the moulds for repeating my models in hard casting wax .

 I've also got to make nearly all my own equipment as well for again I can't find any company here in th UK that sells the equipments at prices I can afford or can justify paying for ..

 By this time next year I may have something worthwhile to show you guys & gals  .
.

 Pictures?

Sorry I'm totally bamboozled how to put picture on any website now I have MS Windows 10 , initially I was able to but after about two months  in June last year( 2018 ) I had an automatic update & everything went pear shaped .

 I can load the pictures  to a picture file but not get them from the file into a website , it keeps trying to get me to use faceache , twitter  & other associated platforms instead or use Microsofts cloud storage .

Don't worry ,  now summer is coming to a close I'll have a lot more time  to work my way through things…. Hhmmmm Microsoft cloud ?  That might be the problem . 

 I've made my metal melting furnace , lined it with refractory reinforced concrete  , put the furnace in a heavy steel frame and made it wheel mounted as it weighs about 300 pounds .
 Made a simple venturi burner that roars like a tank engine when lit and set to full gas pressure for heating the furnace . 

Obtained a graphite crucible from China , obtained the instatement powder as well as casting wax and some rubber sheet  treated with sulphur to make some vulcanized rubber moulds  to inject the casting wax into make forms for the lost wax casting . 

Before I can inject the warmed up wax into the vulcanised moulds I have to turnup a precision wax  injection device on my lathe & find a way of heating it just enough to plasticise the casting wax ready for injecting ..no mean feat I can tell you.

@Plantoid wrote:Sorry I'm totally bamboozled how to put picture on any website now I have MS Windows 10

If you'd like to send me some jpg files, I'd be happy to post them for you. If you want to, send me a PM and I'll send you my email address.

Plantoid...I feel your pain; Windows 10 is a bear when you need to send a file or picture without sending it as an email attachment. MS wants you to stick everything in their "cloud", and then charge you a fee once you've maxed out your allotted GB's. The heck with their Cloud Service, I'd rather just tell Microsoft to go "stick it" where the sun don't shine.

I'm whittling away at my huge rosemary bush. I harvested a nice bunch last week. It's already dry (high heat, low humidity). Today I started working on it. Plucking the needles is fun and smells great.


Here is the yield from this morning -- only the top inch or 2 from the box.


Yesterday, I ordered little drawstring bags from Amazon. Katie's charity (Love Your Pet Expo) is part of Amazon Smile, so she might get a nickel out of it.   Anyway, they were only $7.99 for 100 with free shipping. YEE-HAH! When they get here next week, I'll start stuffing them for dryer bags and Christmas presents.  

After I was finished, I had a pile of dry, fragrant stems left over. I broke those into little sticks for fire-starters this winter.


Obviously, I have way too much time on my hands.