The MacGyver Spindle

I've been talking to Mr. Bear for a while now about how I want to make my own spindles. I have visions of creating beautiful resin things containing thousands of flower petals, or small stones, or seashells. The spindle I'm about to show you is not one of those spindles.

I explained to him how you can make a functional drop spindle with a pen and a cd, and it got me thinking about making functional spindles out of whatever was on hand.

Tonight, Mr. Bear spent the evening cleaning out his office, and he found a bag full of random objects he had been given by his Air Force recruiter. The usual mostly useless swag; lanyards, keychains, antenna balls, pencils, foam baseballs, plastic coins, etc. He asked if I wanted any of it, so I pawed through it to see if there was anything in there I could make a spindle out of. I ended up taking an unsharpened pencil and one of the hard foam antenna balls, and stole a paperclip from his desk.

The usual useless stuff recruiters throw at you.

round thing + long skinny thing = spindle

The antenna ball already had a hole half-way through it, and I shoved the pencil into it, pushing and twisting the ball until the pencil emerged out the other side. I bent the paper clip into a hook and twisted it around the end of the pencil. I had some bamboo fiber on hand to test it out with. It actually spun.

Action shot!

If you don't have a wii, any game controller can be used as a makeshift niddy-noddy. Or, you know, use your hand.

It's much to light to spin anything heavy on, but I managed to make a very small skein of 2-ply bamboo yarn on it. All in all, a successful experiment in turning disposable items into a functional tool. I've decided to turn it into an actual activity. I'm calling it Guerilla Spinning(some people use that term to describe any act of spinning in public, but I'm taking it up to 11). Keep some fiber in your purse or backpack or wallet, and when you're out and about, see if you can put together a functional spindle from items on hand. I'll keep you posted on what I manage to throw together. Happy spinning!

Tiny skein of bamboo yarn, courtesy of the USAF

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Farm Chicks Antique Show

This past weekend saw the Farm Chicks Antique Show out at the fairgrounds. Sadly I'm flat broke and so came home with no treasures beyond a poster Mr. Bear thoughtfully purchased for me. The show filled me with inspiration for the house, however.

It was indeed fun, as advertised. So many vintage feedsack cloth stacks and beautiful pyrex bowls and colorful furniture!

Desi and I are now on a mission to thrift armfulls of slips, which we will dye and embellish.

I so very badly need this mirror and attendant letters in my house. Specifically my boudoir.

Mr. Bear emphatically stated "I absolutely did not call!"

Loveliest liquor cabinet ever. Like it was pulled from a ship captain's quarters. The bottles read Bourbon, Scotch, Rye, and Gin.

I don't care how overdone the whole eyewear-on-the-tophat look is, I love this guy's ensemble. And I had a much more fetching pose and expression on my face before Mr. Bear made me laugh as he was taking the picture!

Ah, typewriter keys. I've long had an idea to fashion buttons with them for the front of a corset...

Garden shed with a trowel latch? Yes, please! This would look so lovely in my garden.

And a greenhouse made from old windows. Perhaps the answer to my seed starting problem? Actually, I think not waiting until May to start is the answer there.

Burlap sack plant pots! If I had any money, I'd have taken some of that orange mint home!

These ladies are fabulous.

This osteological display case belongs in my future library. And how.

Future wedding dress?

We are obsessed with vintage hats. Riding hats, bowlers, flowered and veiled hats, hats of every shape and color must grace our heads, but sadly not our homes.

Too cute, no?

Ah, these look unsettlingly familiar...



And this is how we used to educate our children. Seems a tad suggestive.

All in all a lovely outing! Oh, the poster, yes. Here:

Too pretty to resist. It'll look so nice once it's framed and on the wall.

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Animal House

So Blogger is being weird and not letting me respond to comments on my blog. For those who asked, I got Mr. Bear's engagement ring from a company called Kinekt Design, and I highly recommend them. On to the content!

Butters is getting bigger and bigger. It seems like we just brought her home and already she's hopping up onto the couch. Ponyo is dead jealous of her. When I let Butters hop about the house, all Ponyo wants to do is lay in my lap and force her head under my hand so I'll pet her. She is not at all interested in playing with the rabbit.

Butters, for her part, sniffs at Ponyo when she's hopping past, but not much more than that. She's having too much fun exploring the rest of the house.

She's a literary bun.

And adorable.

She thinks she's still smaller than she really is, and sometimes it causes her to get stuck.

We cleaned out her kennel the other night, and in the meantime flipped the lid over and placed her in that. She decided to take the opportunity to practice her jumping.

See that look right there? She's thinking "I can totally jump that far..."

Which she did. Not pictured are the numerous times she missed and fell into her food bowl.

See all that scattered food?



She's also decided her new litterbox is the perfect place to lounge, much to Mr. Bear's consternation. Sigh.

In other animal news, Ponyo has gone into heat, which necessitated certain...adaptations.

She hates me so much right now.

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Friday Harbor

You've already read about my epic beach proposal, but here's how the before and after went.

Mr. Bear is lucky enough to have family who live in Friday Harbor, so we periodically make the trip out there to visit. We drive to Anacortes and take the ferry, and this time we took Ponyo with us! She was very excited. It was very windy.

I mean, seriously windy outside.

Ponyo was on constant alert to protect us from pirates.

The family house has it's own beach, which is marvelous because I'm a hardcore beachcomber. We caught an early ferry and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening letting Ponyo explore. She's never had that much room to just run since we've gotten her, so she was pretty stoked.

Our very first time out here, Mr. Bear took me out in that rowboat for a romantic interlude.

I found all kinds of beach treasures.

Of course, Ponyo thought they were all food.

Mr. Bear is awesome at skipping stones. I asked him to teach me when we were first dating, but I never could get the hang of it.

I love beach glass.

The main house is gorgeous, but we stayed in the barn, which is just visable above the rowboat in the above picture. It has basically a full apartment; two beds, living room, bathroom, full kitchen. And it's adorable to boot.

Mr. Bear has been learning to take pictures from watching me. It's his superpower, he watches someone do something, and then he can do it.

Ponyo completely loved Papa Bear.

That was our first day on the island. The second day was spent with me a nervous wreck over getting Tony to the place I had picked to propose and trying not to clue him into anything.

Look how calm he is. He has no idea he's getting proposed to today.

Seashore lupines thrive in sand dunes.

You all know how that day ended.

The next day we headed up to Roche Harbor to have lunch and poke around. It really us beautiful up there.

I managed to talk everyone in to going to the lavender farm. Nothing was really in bloom in their fields yet, but inside the visitor center it smelled like heaven. I bought three different varieties of lavender plants to bring home.

I want to hang bunches of the stuff from my rafters, too.

Our last evening there, Mr. Bear took Ponyo and I to South Beach, where he had once tried to teach me to skip stones. Ponyo loved climbing all over the driftwood, and we saw deer and foxes.

I told her not to eat that half a crab.

We stumbled across another driftwood house.

I now kind of want to build some sort of driftwood gazebo in my yard.

It was a wonderful memory-making weekend. I feel very lucky.

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