If only i had more hands......

I wish I could have gotten a video of Lu "trying to steal Magnus's bottle" unfortunately I only have 2 hands. To hold the bottle in one and magnus in the other makes it very impossible to the camera as well! Every time Magnus noticed that Lu was close to the bottle actually washing the milk off of his chest he would slap at her.
Instead I have magnus learning to pounce.. he chickened out though...

he is such a charactor getting all sassy with his adopted mommy.

For the Love of Magnus

I really do wish i could share with you all the joy of raising this kitten. watching his eyes open for the first time. Seeing the first wobbly steps. the miracle of him climbing into the litter box himself and begin the scratch.I do not think i would be doing so good at raising him if it had not been for my Lusitania. Lu took over the mommy cat duties of washing and pottying him. She showed him the litter box, I was not sure what she was doing when she went in and sprayed everywhere but he soon followed and is now using the box.






Today is the second day that he has had baby meat to eat. I takes him a minute but he does eat when he gets a bit in his mouth he starts to suck it all up.
This has been a miracle for me.

I saw this really kewl you tube on James Rollins blog so i borrowed the link. watch it through it says a lot.

So far the eucalyptus sap dye has been a disappointment i have the wool soaking in the bath one last time i have heated it again in hopes that it will help but i am not holding my breath. i did notice that as it was hanging on the line it began to change color intensity in spots. so hopefully this bath will help it gain depth of color even if it is brown.
The alpaca that had been in the kino bath is now in the exhaust of the apple wood as a curiosity experiment. the two hanks were the same color so i will see what happens when they are rinsed and dried.
Magnus is turning into a sassy little fellow, he wants his food now! not when it is cool enough to safely drink. i have been offering him baby meats but Lu is eating it for him. i do put at least one scoop in his mouth first before she can snag the whole plate. She enjoys licking the milk off of him. My lovely Lusitania is such a wonderful mama to Magnus.

update on kino experiment

It made such a beautiful color in liquid. such a disappointment on fiber.
the top picture is with ammonia

the foamy one is plain water. I will have to try the experiment again using alcohol.

the plain water was the most disappointing.
i added fiber to both and let soak, finally i added vinegar to the mix and got a bit of stain on the yarn. when i took it out of the bath and squeezed the liquid out it lost its colour when i gave a slight rinse all but the slightest trace left the yarn

finally starting the Kino experiment

I have enough Kino *eucalyptus sap* to divide it in half to test in two different ways.
1. sap in plain rain water
2. sap in rainwater with ammonia.
both colored beautifully but i did not get pictures before it got to dark i will get them tomorrow.

In plain water in five minutes i had a dark rusty red liquid
In ammonia water it went blood dark red.
I have alpaca soaking in plain water. I am thinking of soaking some wool as well.
the next question is what if any mordant.

I also have some bark soaking for dye, the liquid is almost black it is so dark. the previous experiment with bark was a light tan. The leaves gave me a rust to rival Robber.

Almost tempted to soak my hair in it to see what happens.

VACATION

Magnus is doing good.


Who would have thought that when I requested time off I would have a baby to share it with.


Lusitania went with us to the beach and got her toes sandy. She had to be re-fit to a new harness as hers no longer fit. She is now 16.5lbs and is wearing a small dog harness. The neck is at the smallest setting the girth is at almost the mid point. She had the boy in the carrier with her and was with him the majority of the time. She did come out for pictures though so I am hoping the camera worked. I think the film broke since it seemed to advance and the tension was tight and when I checked the rewind when I started questioning how many picture were on the roll it popped in real fast after the initial stiff grab. It must have been jammed which totally sucks! Lu is so beautiful and what I saw in the view finder was killer.

She is starting to surrogate some of the care of Magnus, Just this morning when I could not find him I saw her washing her paws... she had an extra paw!

Isadora had a special surprise for me this morning. She has caught her first gopher and was very proud of herself. She did not share but I praised her anyway.

I want to go to Muir Woods soon, maybe tomorrow.