Photo by Henry Skodell www.reenactment.de

On January the 22. we lost our very close friend Oleg Zacharov.  Here are my words of farewell.

Den 22. januar mistede vi vores meget nære ven, Oleg Zacharov. Her er mine afskedsord.

Oleg,

You were one of a kind. Your special appearance, your forthcomingness and your joyful mood, your appetite on life, your spontaneity and your ever exploring nature. Your caring and helpful character and your tireless energy.

Warrior, multi-artist, wandering encyclopedia, scientist, nerd, initiator, problem solver, playful child, craftsman, drinking brother, husband, son, brother, father and friend.

Many are we, whose life you have touched on your way, and many are we who miss and mourn. Your journey on earth will be remembered for ages to come.

Your departure has brought us together, old friends reunite, old disputes are forgotten, so that we may share our sorrow and our memories.

It has been an honor, a privilege and very, very entertaining to be your friend. For that I am eternally grateful.

The world moves on, like nothing happened.  A strange feeling.  But we have to hang on and keep going, until everyday life catches up with us; until the memories can be put to rest in a beautiful, inner treasury, to be brought out and enjoyed in a peaceful mind. We must help each other do this, we who are left behind.

You drank life in big, thirsty gulps –Hope you enjoyed it fully.

And yes, I will be looking after them for you.

Honored be thy memory,

Kathe

Oleg,

Du var en ener. Din specielle fremtoning, din imødekommenhed og dit sprudlende humør, din livsappetit, din spontanitet og dit evigt udforskende væsen. Din store omsorg og hjælpsomhed, og din utrættelige energi.

Kriger, multikunstner, omvandrende opslagsværk, videnskabsmand, nørd, igangsætter, problemknuser, legebarn, håndværker, drikkebroder, husbond, søn, bror, far og ven.

Mange er vi, hvis liv du har berørt på din vej, og mange er vi der savner og sørger. Din færd på jord vil der stå frasagn om i lange, lange tider.

Din afrejse har bragt os sammen, gamle venskaber genopstår, gamle tvister glemmes, at vi kan dele vores sorg og vore minder med hinanden.

Det har været en ære, et privilegium og særdeles underholdende at være din ven. For det er jeg evigt taknemmelig.

Verden går videre, som om intet var hændt, en underlig fornemmelse. Men vi må hænge på og følge med, til hverdagen igen indhenter os, til minderne kan lægges i et smukt lille indre gemme, man kan dvæle ved og glædes over med fred i sindet. Det skal vi hjælpe hinanden med, os der er tilbage.

Du drak livet i store tørstige slurke – gid det bekom dig vel!

Og ja, jeg skal nok se efter dem for dig.

Æret være dit minde,

Kathe

Two days ago one of my angora rabbits died suddenly, leaving 3 babies aged 15 days. So what to do?

Of course we have to try hand feeding them, even though the chances for their survival is not the best.

We gave them an emergency meal of lactose, water and whip cream, planted a cage in the middle of the living room… next day we got hold of some kitten milk formula which is supposed to be the closest you can get to rabbits milk.

Malte, our male dog has taken them in as his own, carefully guarding them and (not so carefully) washing them – well, for that part, better him than me…Nøvsen, our female, is visiting but doesn’t really want to be involved.

Today is third day of handfeeding them, and they are doing just fine. They feed only twice a day, so it is a quite easy job.  And here they are:

Malte watching over his family

Cute as can be

Dinner is served

Falling asleep on a full tummy

Bestest friends

Nøvsen taking a sniff, "who are you?"

Aren’t they just scrumptious?

A few days ago I managed to finish this for a customer:

I used Effetre 221 as core, covered one end with Cim Lapis, the other with Effetre 081. Swirled some SI stringer around the center, pressed and made spirals.

Silverwork, sterling, by yours truely.

It was recieved well!

Today was clear, sunny and very cold, -1 C, but the wind was strong making the equivalent of -16C. Brrr! Nevertheless I was crawling around on all four in the hedgerow, taking this picture of the first springflowers breaking through on a southern slope. Don’t know if they are snowdrops or crocus, but never mind, I just love their persistence and the promises they make…quite heartwarming!

This winter has been very, very mild, it is actually the first real frost we have now. Yesterday I was pruning some fruit trees, the buds are swelling, and the green has started to show on the raspberri buds. Too early, way too early! I hope the frost will set them back a bit, so they won’t flower prematurely….

Sunup: 8.29

Sundown: 16.35

The day is 1 hour 18 minutes longer.

Once again we hit the shortest day of the year, to me it is the day that marks the beginning of a new year, a day that is full of hope and celebration. This day means more to me than christmas and New year together!

It is also our wedding day, this year our 15th, so plenty of reason for celebrating this dark day in December.

In the coming year I will try to make a journal based on what is happening around us in the nature. Eventually with drawings, but for now photos will have to do.

This first entry is about light in the dark – as solstice is to me, a heartwarming reassurance that the light will return, the days will get longer and warmer.

Todays facts:

sunup at 8.53, sundown at 15.41. Length of day: 6 hours 48 minutes.

Weather is mild, dark and wet, we have had no snow till now, and hardly any freezing nights.

I got hit by the murrini bug a little while ago, and have had loads of fun (and frustrations) construction murrini canes. I find using cutters for cutting murrini slices difficult and was advised to use a glass cutting machine in stead, but I wanted a less costly solution. Here is the result:

This is a 2.3 mm shaft diamond cutter, in a flexi-shaft mounted in an old hanging dentist drill. Available online at goldsmith suppliers, or google “mini diamond cutting disc”. Choose the fine grate type. Price about $20
You might be able to use a Dreml or similar machine, if it runs slow enough. My Dreml can’t go slower than 5.000 rpm, and that is too fast for this!!!
then it would be better with a flexi-shaft mounted in a household (battery) drill.

Holding my hands over a pot of water and keeping my left hand wet allowing enough water to run and keep the cutting place wet. Otherwise stop the cutter and dip.

Close up of the cutting – it is extremely important you hold the handle with the cutter as shown. If you hold it like a pencil, you have no control of it and you risk injuring yourself badly. Both wrists must rest on something steady (here the edge of the pot), and you need to tighten your hands and press your right thumb agains the glass rod to press agains the rotation of the cutter.

A nice thin slice – can be thinner still. They all land in the pot, in stead of flying all over the place.
All glass dust is wet and therefore harmless.

Here is an explanation on how to use the pickups, as well as I can:

For picking up dropped stitches you here see the hook or dental pick, the pickup and the transfer tool.

As you see, the pickup is pointed as the hook and has the eye like the transfer tool – this makes it so much easier to insert into the dropped stitch, especially in very fine and dense knitting, and easy to transfer the stitch to the needle.

The transfer tool can be very difficult to get into the tiny stitch in the first place, like here:

The hook is fine for that – but when it comes to transferring the stitch, it is easy to miss the needle when using the hook, especially if you are doing fine knitting and eyesight is not what it used to be….with the pickups you can FEEL that the tool is in place on the needle before flipping the stitch over, ensuring that you won’t drop it again.

It goes like this:

Insert the tip of the tool (I turn it sideways) into the stitch.

Now the stitch is secure on the shaft, and the curve of the tip prevents dropping it while working, for instance if you are crossing stitches and using two at the time..

place the pickup on the needle, wiggle it a tiny bit sidewas to make sure the needle is in place if you have trouble seeing it

and flip the tool up to transfer the stitch.

You can buy the pickups by sending me an email, I want to keep costs down so I prefer not to post them on etsy, ebay etc.

I make them myself, including the handturned wooden handles, which are all different.

The pickups can be used with standard (4.5mm) or fine (3.6mm) machine, the pictures are showing a standard machine.

The price is 12 € plus posting.

Posting as a letter to European countries is €2, the rest of the world €3.

Email me at kathe@mycrafts.dk

I have made these for sale, after quite a few requests from members in the KMaholics group:

This tool is my version of the bent pickup tool, I call them “pickups”. they are made from polished steel, mounted in a handturned wooden handle, which I also make.

The Pickup is suitable for FINE and STANDARD gauge knitting machine, it is app. 15 cm long, and makes picking up dropped stitches so much easier!

Price: € 12 (90 DKr) + shipping (50 g letter), please drop me an email if you want one, on kathe@mycrafts.dk.

Payment is done by Paypal.

I thought I knew most about what there is to know about spinning – I have studied it for many years, and the many new spinning books and videos that have been published over last decade, have had little news to me. And I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I have had the best tutoring since I was about 10…..

Until last night, where I was kicked back to beginners class – in a very good way, by Margaret Stove, who’s video “Spinning for lace” is for sale at Interweave right here, for $10,xx, or about 55 DKK. The best money I have spent in years!

I have only watched the first part yet, there was so much in there I just had to try, so I paused and dug out some very fine fleece that I washed, blew on it to dry it quickly, and tried spinning by Margarets method. She is right! And I love the way she explains why it works, backed up by microscope pictures of fibers and other graphics.

I strongly recommend this video for all who wants more control over their spinning, and wants to spin thin, even yarns from raw fleece.

I am working on samples of fleece and thin spun yarn to show you, one of these days… I am so glad I got this kick, it has really awakened my lust for spinning. I work best when challenged!

Thanks Margaret!

I was so inspiret by a bracelet made my Corina Tettinger here (scroll down till you find Etched Batique Mini Orrbs), and wanted to try making that particular colour combination/reaction, so I set out to play:

Some of the dots are made with a homemade blend of 1 part Cim Leaky pen and Effetre Petrol 218 – refered to as mix in the following recipes. E is short for effetre:

1:  E-224 + Cim leaky ink

2:  E-244 + E-036

3:  E-224 + Kugler Silver Blue

4:  E-224 + mix

5:  Cim Fremen + E-218

6:  E-232 + Leaky Pen

7:  Cim Fremen + Mix

8:  E-228 + E-218

9:  E-236 + Leaky Pen

10: Kugler turqoise + Mix

11:  Kugler turqoise + Kugler Silver Blue

12:  E-228 + Kugler Silver Blue

13:  Cim Electric Avenue + E-218

14:  E-228 + Mix

15: E-218 + Kugler Silver Blue

16:  E-218 + E-036

17:  E-224 + E-218

18:  Cim Celadon + mix

Maybe I need to put a name on the Effetre numbers?

Here they are:

E-217…………..Light Copper Green

E-218……………Petroleum Green

E-219…………….Copper green

E-224…………….Light Sky Blue

E-228…………….Dark Sky Blue

E-232…………….LIght Turquoise

E-236…………….Dark Turquoise

E-036…………….Dark Aqua

Have fun!