sarahspins

Earlier this week I formed a plot to quiet my Hitchhiker’s noise while spinning.  Almost anyone who has spun on or been near one of these wheels spinning knows that they do indeed make a bit of noise.. and I’m determined to do some problem solving and fix most of where the noise is coming from.  I’ve identified several areas on my Hitchhiker that I can say contribute:

1. Mother of all bearings – mine are plastic, not sealed, and they sound like roller skates unless I drench them in oil… say every 20 minutes.  That’s far from ideal, and eventually they get gummed up and even noisier (soaking in hot soapy water and washing seems to help, but the cycle repeats).  I’m replacing these with sealed metal bearings, assuming I’ve ordered the correct size.
2. Brake band.  I noticed that mine makes a specific chattering noise, that I was able to troubleshoot down to blaming on the spring itself.  The monofilament wasn’t the quietest material in the world either, but a majority of the noise was in fact due to the necessary spring.  Monofilament on it’s own doesn’t really work out so well.  So I’ve replaced my brake band with 1mm stretch bead cord.  So far it’s working out *really* well.  It’s elastic, so no spring required, and it’s smooth and slick like the monofilament.   Time will tell how well it holds up, but I’m encouraged by how well it’s performing so far.
   
3. Whorl against the wheel.  This isn’t actually noise caused by the whorl traveling along the wheel (which does make some noise, but it’s not bad) but rather by the fact that the whorl isn’t held against the wheel with enough tension, causing is to bounce a bit as I spin.  This is impart due I think to a slight imbalance with the flyer, but neither flyer I have works any better, and some extra tension on the mother of all seems to solve the problem.  I’m somewhat convinced that this is due to the single spring hinge, so my plan is to replace the non-springy hinge with a spring hinge when I can find a replacement (I’ve found them online, but shipping is more than the set of 2 hinges is).

It will be interesting to see how much of a difference the new bearings and second spring hinge will make.  I will update as soon as I have replacements and can swap those out.

I’m also working on refinishing a few rough areas of my wheel, and finishing up a few parts I feel like I sort of left half-completed.  I have only been about 90% happy with how it turned out after painting it, but never really got motivated enough to fix what I didn’t like.  Now that my HH has reached 2 1/2 years old, I think some maintenence is due

Posted in Spinning | 2 Comments »

The bars are coming along.. I’ve fixed a few bugs that I had found, as well as a memory hogging issue, and I’ve got a few people signed up to test them.  If you’re interested in testing them too, please PM me on Ravelry with your email address and API key, and I’ll email you a code snipped to use.  The flash display is somewhat customizable – you can change the color of everything as well as which type of projects are displayed, and I’m working on the ability to change some other things as well.

I got distracted from my Lizard Ridge by a super cute hoodie pattern I’m testing.. I have about 2″ of plain knitting to go on the skirt and then I can do the lace part, then finish off the sleeves and work on the hood.  The test knits I’ve seen so far look impossibly cute – I can’t wait to get a little bit more done with mine.  If i like how it turns out, I’ll probably make a bigger one for Kaia

(excuse the lensbaby shot, it was already on my camera and I didn’t feel like swapping lenses to get a quick progress shot)

Posted in General, Knitting | No Comments »

All this week I’ve been working on a Flash widget version of the Ravelry Progress bars – it’s currently displaying my FO’s in the sidebar.  I’ve got a few more tweaks to do, and I want to add a few more features and I need to clean up my code a bit (okay, a lot) and add some more error handling, but it’s a huge step towards enabling those who can’t use JavaScript on their blogs to have access to Ravelry’s JSON output and add their WIP’s or FO’s to their sidebarstoo. I’m hoping that Casey will officially adopt it for Ravelry (and host the SWF file) when it’s completely finished.  Right now since I’m hosting it and I don’t want to unleash a can of worms, it’s not available for use by anyone else yet.  I will also release my source files when it’s all finished, for any Flash developers out there who want to play/tweak on their own

As if learning Flash and Actionscript 3.0 this past week wasn’t enough, the day before Halloween I decided to start on a *second* Lizard Ridge!  I’ve had the yarn for a few months and I was originally considering another blanket pattern, but the appeal of doing another LR was just too great, and I got started.  I’m knitting it all in one peice – no blocks or panels, and one week later I’m exactly 25% finished (6 pattern repeats in), and making steady progress.  I’m hoping to knock this out fairly quickly so that I can move onto some other smaller projects I’d like to get finished before the holidays.

I am absolutely loving how the colors (colorway #183) have been working out.

Celebrating Colleen at TLC was a resounding success, raising approximately $12,000 for Colleen’s kids.  I am just in awe at the generosity of all who were able to donate items for sale/auction/raffle, as well as those who spent freely to help show her family just how much she was loved, and will be missed.  I did my part by bidding on and winning the Vespa Handspun, which was spun by Sara from fiber dyed by Colleen.  This yarn is beyond beautiful.  I’m not quite sure what I’m going to make with it yet, but I figure I have a little while to decide – and even if I just stare at the yarn for a while, that’s okay to   It’s kind of hard not to – like I said, it’s GORGEOUS!

Posted in Knitting | 3 Comments »

With only 3 days to spare I finished Kaia’s costume yesterday.  There are a few things I’d change if I did it over, and I’d probably choose to use some different materials, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The wings were a total pain and I am thinking there HAS to be a better way – I know I’ve read about people using coat hangers and panty hose, and if I were to try again, I think I’d get friendly with Google and see what ideas other people have.

I did modify the body portion to make it two parts – a top and a bottom rather than one baggy bodysuit, since she’ll be wearing it to school tomorrow and they requested that costumes be potty-friendly, I thought it would be nice if she didn’t have to totally strip down That part worked out really well and I’m glad I thought to make it that way.  I even thought to put tags in it to distinguish the front from the back.

Clearly she’s not really thrilled about it though..

And you can see my pathetic, crumpled attempt at some wings.  Really, it seemed like such a great idea, but they got a bit mangled when I sewed on the velcro.  I think it would be better to make them with elastic loops for the arms – that way they might stand some chance of not looking so pathetic.

Now, don’t ask me what the boys are dressing up as.. I have no idea.  Seth has no idea what he wants to be, and I’m kind of counting on Odin’s costume from last year still fitting.  Perhaps I should try that soon

Posted in Sewing | No Comments »

I totally had a blast. Lost of people stopped by to see us, and Shelly and I were super busy the entire weekend! I managed to crank out one pair of socks Saturday morning in about 45 minutes, which I then took off the machine but left attached to each other, so Shelly and I could show what a pair looks like fresh off the machine. That worked REALLY well for demonstration purposes – quite a few people commented that I must not know what a foot looks like, since it was hard to make out just how what came off the machine became socks, but it was great to be able to show them all the parts of a sock, and how it all comes together when you separate them and close the toes. Most people were surprised that there was very little difference structurally between the socks we make on our antique machines, and the new ones you can go pick up at any store.

Shelly and I both have a lot of ideas on how to make things go a little smoother next year (or for any CSM demo, really).

sock knitter

Originally uploaded by yi
Yeah, that’s me – I was putting tags on socks!

Posted in CSM, General, Knitting | No Comments »