Captain's Log, Stardate . . .

[ursulas_alcove]

Still working on inventory. At some point, I have to move the wall of grid walls without flipping my displays. I have wool stored in a cupboard behind the whole setup. Small spaces. Normally my shop takes up a 14'x 14' area. This 6' by 12 ' in front of all my cupboards may look nice on camera, but for daily functioning, not as handy. Mostly I have been thinking about shelving, painting and stripping wood and staining it. I also need new windows in the studio. The cranks are pretty cranky. They are hand-crank casements that are a bear to get closed for the winter. Since there is no AC in the attic, cross flow of air is important in the summer. Meanwhile, the cleaning continues as inventory is done.

I kitted up more shawl projects. I should have enough to do into next year.The only color I am short on is blue. I hope the indigo reseeds so I can fix that. I've been dreaming of 2021's garden already. Sigh. It will be a while yet. Meanwhile, the grow tunnels are doing well. I harvested celery yesterday and leeks today. It may not be much, but food is available even in the dead of winter.

Some of the projects I'm working on:
36" of shawl are woven. The loom is fighting me. The tension is shot on the loom; bolts are stripped. I have to hold the warp beam with my feet. The cloth beam sometimes also gives out. Just three more feet! Then I will switch over to the 24" loom with ratchet tensioning. Old looms may be charming but they've had a life. It was not designed to be robust either. It's rather rickety.


Then I ran out of thread on the triangle loom. Fortunately, I can just spin up some more.



And because the teal looked so pretty, I had to card and spin it up. I think it may actually work with some of the Bollicine fuzzy stuff I have laying around. Add that one to the kits of shawls once I've finished spinning it.


I have also been plotting for this year's Pennsic. I realize that it may or may not happen. It depends on how fast vaccines can be distributed. I don't expect anyone from Drachenwald either. The news on how the US has bungled the vaccine and the whole pandemic has reached even my friends in Iran. They wrote to check on me. It was very sweet. They sent me Yalda pictures. OMG, the fresh fruit! Yes, I definitely live in a northern land. It got me thinking about planting more fruit trees. On that tasty note, I bid you good night.

Comments

[haertstitch]

stripped screws- on the metal/wingnut side, pipe teflon helps
on the wood side woodglue and tooth pics with the screw put back helps temporarily
or the next size up
of screw and wing nuts

It's not quite made that way

[ursulas_alcove]

The toothpick might work. It's a threaded rod that goes all the way through, 20" of toothed undercut wood. It's a bitch to replace. I hired a guy to try once. He gave up. I still have his attempt. I will hold this one with my feet and retire the loom like I did the other one. The wood bracing is also held by bolts. The design is bad. The wood going front to back should have been put on the bottom edge to reinforce it. Instead, they wanted a channel to rest the heddle in and to save weight, they put the side pieces up about halfway with no support. Over time, the bolt holes elongated until it's rickety as heck. Some parts are held together with glue and a tiny nail. It was never intended to last this long or be used in production. We think this one is from the 1950s. My other one is from 1975. I have developed work-arounds over the years. But I also have a 24" wide loom with a ratchet system that I can pull a chair up to. It has a stand. I plan to switch to it once this one is done. I have 5 times the number of projects to make on the triangle loom. The only other rectangular shawl I have planned is rose and brown to match the triangle one I already made. There might be a second in raspberry and brown. It all depends on if I have enough yarn. The point being to stash bust. I am trying to use up the stuff taking over my life and my space.