Trendy Teardrops and a Plant Update

Well, here it is, over a week since my last post and don't have much to show for it. Craft-wise anyway. I have done some tatting; will get to it soon. I did a little chainmaille, but not much. I am offering free shipping in my shop, but from the looks of it, that may be useless right now. Apparently, Canada Post may go on strike Thursday, just before midnight. I may put my shop in vacation mode if there is a strike (just in case), but we'll have to see. I am, however concerned about a shipment of plants I have en route as we speak. The guy shipping them to me has been watching the Canada Post situation closely (as have I) and they should arrive before the deadline, but I'm still concerned.

As I mentioned, I did do some tatting this past week. I think I mentioned working on them in my last post. And here they are:

These are Yarnplayer's Trendy Teardrop earrings. I only made the earrings since I didn't have any matching size 10 thread to make a pendant. It's an interesting pattern (available in Yarnplayer's Etsy shop) that uses a new technique. Well, new to me anyway. That technique would be the Catherine Wheel Join. I tried the CWJ in a "practice" piece-so named a "practice" piece because I broke the thread during the outer round and didn't feel like reattaching the thread (didn't like the colour I used anyway). I decided, however, to not use the CWJ in the above earrings, I found it too, um, time consuming. It took me several minutes per join to do. I opted instead to do a Slope and Roll join. Much faster, albeit not as nice looking. I'll try the Catherine Wheel join again. Thread stats: for these earrings I used Krystledawne's Vineyard at Dusk HDT in size 20 with Amethyst beads. I really love this colourway! As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of pinks and purples, but this thread is different. The purple is there, but it's not really noticeable (to me, anyway). I do regret only buying one skein. Although, she does have more in her shop........but, I think I'll wait until I know what Canada Post is doing.

Finally, I thought I do a plant update. I posted a photo of my (at the time) one and only Tropical Pitcher plant (Nepenthes x Ventrata). Here is a fairly recent photo of the plant:

Well, one of it's pitchers anyway. I wanted to show how much bigger the pitchers are now. If you look at the photo I posted earlier (located here), you'll see that the one pictured was only about 1 cm long (probably about 1.5 cm when opened). Well, the pitcher above is about 3.5 inches long. And I'm hoping they'll get even bigger. I've started feeding it ants that I found around the house (hey, they're entering the house at their own risk!). I've added a few more pitcher plants to my collection:

I'm really glad I finally found the high plastic dome for growing trays. I've had a heck of a time finding them. I could mail order one, but it just seemed like the wrong type of thing to mail order. These ones (I bought a couple of them) are better than the ones I've seen in the seed catalogs, as they have two air vents on top that can be opened to let in fresh air, and reduce the humidity (although most Nepenthes like high humidity). I'm hoping they don't outgrow the dome too fast, but I'll adapt as they grow.

That's about it for now. I started another Windmills motif, in the size 10 Cebelia. Since I do like making the motifs (I just get sick of making them after awhile), I thought it might get me in the mood to do some serious tatting. We'll see. Till next time.