The fruit of my frantic mind? AKA Random stuff I've made!
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afrayedknotter's journal
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DIY Kick Spindle –
Materials :
1 – block 4”x6”x12” ($2.00) I had to purchase an 8’ length but they were happy to cut it down into 12” chunks for me at Home Depot. A block this chunky isn’t really necessary, but the weight of it helps to keep the spindle from walking across the floor as you kick it. You could probably use a block 2”x6”x12” but I wouldn’t try anything thinner.
1 – 5” Pine Bun Foot ($8.25) Home Depot
1 – Dowel rod 3/8” x 36” ($1.09) I bought oak at Home Depot but you could use a cheaper wood
1 – Dowel Rod 1 ¼ “ x 36” ($6.88) Again, I bought oak at Home Depot but you could use a cheaper wood
1 – “L” hook – ($0.30) Home Depot (You don’t HAVE to have this. You could just use a big pencil sharpener and sharpen the tip of your shaft and use it that way)
1 – Ball Bearing 1 ¼” OD ($3.75) Got this at a good old fashioned Ace Hardware store – Home Depot didn’t have them
1 – Eye Bolt 2” ID ($0.39) Home Depot
1 – Wood Pole Socket 1 5/8 “ (the support sockets for closet poles) ($3.29) Home Depot
1 – Small rubber band
Wood glue
Tools:
We used a hole saw and a ½” power drill but I think that a spade bit for the power drill would work better.
Pencil
1 pair of pliers
Straight edge
Hack Saw
Measuring Tape
Clamp that will open to a minimum of 18”
Instructions:
Cut your 3/8” dowel rod to a 27” length. Cut your 1 ¼” dowel rod to an 8” length. Take your 4”x6” block and set it with the 6” side up. Make a mark down the center of it lengthwise. Drill a hole 1” centered on the line 1” from the end of the block. This is where your bearing will sit. Four inches from the other end, centered between the center mark and the edge, drill another hole 1” deep. This is where your support rod will sit. Drill a pilot hole for your eye bolt 1” from the end of your larger dowel rod. Screw in the eye bolt. Make sure that the eye of your eye bolt sticks out of the dowel far enough for it to center over the center mark. Center your eye bolt and glue the other end of the dowel rod into the appropriate hole. Clamp it with your wood clamp and set it to the side for at least 24 hours. (The waiting is the hardest part of the whole thing!) Use the pliers and remove the screw thingie that comes in the bun foot. Using the hole that’s left as your pilot hole, drill a 3/8” hole all the way through your bun foot. MAKE SURE THE HOLE IS STRAIGHT! While you’ve got that bit on your drill, increase the hole size in the closet support bracket to 3/8”. These two pieces should fit snugly on your 3/8” dowel. In one end of your 3/8” dowel, drill a tiny pilot hole and then screw in your L hook (If it came with a collar – take the collar off the hook, it just gets in the way.) If you choose to use your kick spindle without the hook, use a large pencil sharpener and sharpen one end of the shaft to a semi point. You can sharpen the other end too, to sit in the bearing, but it’s not necessary. Drop your bearing into the hole on your base. Don’t put the bearing flat into the hole, sort of lean it against the back so that it’s more or less at a 45 degree angle. I put mine with the collar up but you can do it either way. Slide the closet support onto your shaft (open side down). This will be your whorl. Thread the shaft through the eyebolt. Slide on the bun foot below the eye bolt and rest the tip of the shaft in the bearing. Slide the bun foot to a position where it doesn’t touch the base or the support rod. Lift the shaft and put the rubber band around the shaft just below the bun foot to hold it in place. You may want to adjust the position of the bun foot to make it more comfortable for use which is why I used a rubber band rather than wood glue.
It’s ugly as sin, but it works. I’ve managed to spin merino into sport weight with reasonable consistency after using it for only a few hours.
Total cost - $25.95
Total time – about 2 hours (not counting drying time for the wood glue)
nervous
creative
Oh boy - I really need to stop this. Now, not only do I knit and tat and make jewelry and cards and dolls - I've started weaving.
Eons ago, I inherited a Structo loom purchased in the 1950's from my ex-husband's grandmother. It sat in my closet for over 20 years. I played with it a little when I first got it but between raising kids and homeschooling, getting divorced and re-married........ it was ignored. When life, a social anxiety disorder & time allowed, I joined a knitting Stitch & Bitch group in a wonderful local yarn store whose owner is a true dyed in the wool (no pun intended) textile junkie. She felts, she weaves, she spins, she knits, she crochets, basically, she rocks. LOL She offers weaving and spinning classes. I'd like to learn to spin but weaving really caught my attention. The classes aren't cheap - nor should they be, because it's a time consuming process and until my schedule becomes more my own again, other commitments make them impossible at the moment. But my fiber-ista cravings just wouldn't be denied so I drug out the old Structo and played around with it a bit. Thankfully, the fiber fairies kept me from storing the thing in the garage for all those years and it is in incredible shape. There was one screw missing and one of the 4 heddles catches every now & then but overall it's perfect.
You can't buy the pre-wound warp spools anymore but the warp on it seems to be in good condition. Eventually though, I'll run out of that warp & have to warp the thing on my own. In preparation for that sad day, I started looking around on the net to figure out just how I'd be able to do that. Boy was I amazed at how much weaving information there was out there. (I know - stupid huh?) One thing led to another and I eventually decided that I needed to practice on something less intimidating than that Structo with it's fine 200+ warp threads and 4 heddles. So I decided to make a loom.
First I made a backstrap loom. I took a piece of craft wood 7" x 3" x 1/8" and cut slots & drilled holes in it with an el-cheapo rotary tool (big mistake - if you buy a tool, buy a good one. it's worth the money) to make a heddle. I warped it with Peaches & Cream and was off & running. Primitive, yes. Functional, also yes. Total cost? Maybe $5.00? I had the materials (with the exception of the $20 rotary tool that I'll end up relegating to polymer clay projects from now on) on hand. The whole point of it was to see if I even wanted to weave badly enough to tackle the warping of that Structo. Of course, the answer was yes. I want to WEAVE. Heaven help us! The warping thing is still a problem. Peaches & Cream is great for learning, but it's MUCH bulkier than what I need for the Structo - and besides, I can't weave fabric as wide as I'd like to on my backstrap loom.
Next step - I built a rigid heddle floor loom. Now, keep in mind, I have a small fortune - okay SEVERAL small fortunes, invested in my various crafts. I have polymer clay equipment and supplies, card making equipment and supplies, a sizeable yarn stash, three sewing machines and a serger and a bunch of fabric, three quilting frames, Elizabethan Blackwork stuff, probably 30 pairs of knitting needles, several dozen tatting shuttles, crochet hooks................ you get the picture. I was determined to build a loom as inexpensively as possible. Answer - pvc. I surfed the net & found this... http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/0
I built a second heddle using craft wood & string and it seems to work pretty well.
(Please forgive the coffee stains on the cushion. Ever notice how you never realize how nasty something is till you take a photo of it to post on the net?)
So, I'm learning to weave. I think. Maybe.... who knows?
productiveMultiple of 6 sts + 1
(Note - when instructed to slip a st, always slip as if to knit.)
Row 1: (Right Side) K1 @ YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1, K2tog, YO, K1; repeat from @ across.
Row 2 and all wrong side rows: Purl across
Row 3: K2, (YO, K3) across to last 2 st, YO, K2
Row 5: K2tog, YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1, K2tog, @ YO, Slip 1, K2tog, PSSO, YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1, K2tog; repeat from @ across to last 2 st, YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO
Row 7: K1, @ K2tog, YO, K1, YO, K1, YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1; repeat from @ across
Row 9: K2, (YO, K3) across to last 2 sts, YO, K2
Row 11: K1, @ K2tog, YO, slip 1, K2tog, PSSO, YO, slip 1, K1, PSSO, K1; repeat from @ across
Row 12: Purl across
Repeat rows 1-12 for pattern.
nostalgic
I have always been very reticent about discussing my post-op WLS journey with those just beginning the process because, frankly, it was TOO easy. I am one of those people who was blessed to have had zero complications. I dumped a total of ONE time (should have read the number of carbs on that stupid protein drink!) and I threw up ONE time (one too many baby carrots!). I lost my hair, sure, but it came back & in the process I discovered that I really LIKE wearing snoods. I had to have my gallbladder removed - not unexpected but definitely unpleasant! My boobs migrated south - but heck, I'm 47, that was going to happen anyway, and I now have batwings that make me self conscious in ways that my formerly over stuffed sausage wrapper shaped arms never did.
I wasn't ever really a fat kid. I was sporadically chunky I guess. Like most kids, I grew up, then I grew out, and then I grew up. Problem was, I only grew up to 5' tall. I grew out to almost 300 pounds. By the time I was 30, I had two kids, and almost two hundred extra pounds. But, hey, I was healthy, I was young, and I had time to loose the weight. I just needed to find the right diet or diet pill or magic trick or something.
I also had a wonderful, sweet, funny, kind, compassionate and HUGE hearted friend. Her name was Kay. She was, in many ways, a mentor and a pseudo sister. Her husband worked for the railroad & was always gone & mine was a long distance truck driver who was always gone. We did everything together. She had three teenaged daughters she was home schooling; I had a son & a daughter I was home schooling. We took field trips together, we camped together, we made a road trip from Houston to Atlanta to a home schooling conference together. When she was broke & they were eating beans & rice till payday, my deep freeze managed to mysteriously produce turkeys or hamburger meat to share. When the Easter bunny was too broke to hide eggs for my kids, baskets magically turned up in my back yard full of chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and peeps. We talked about everything, often till the wee hours of the morning. Kay was, without a doubt, the best friend I ever had. She was also almost 500 pounds.
Kay was wheelchair bound because her knees couldn't support her weight. She was totally dependant on her daughters for all of her personal needs. She couldn't walk to the bathroom and her house wasn't wheel chair friendly, so she used a bucket for a toilet. She bathed in a basin with a washcloth. When she couldn't stand it any more, she would come to my house and bathe in my garage with the garden hose. Her body odor was horrible. Between yeast infections in every fold of skin, and I DO mean every fold, the Houston heat & humidity (they had no air conditioning) and just plain ole dirt, it was sometimes difficult to be in the same room with her. We made all her clothes, from the skin out, because the ones commercially available were usually too expensive. We'd hold marathon sewing sessions at my house twice a year. I became really good at designing patterns for panties with gussets in the crotch or blouses & jumpers with extra room to get her massive upper arms through. She was very modest so we always had to pay special attention that her clothes were conservative as well as practical in her wheelchair. She loved pretty clothes and bright colors so all year long I kept my eye out for fabrics that she would enjoy. Any time we would go out, we would make note of Taco Bell locations or Exxon gas stations that had exterior restroom (those were the only public restrooms she would fit into).
A few years before we met, Kay had an ovarian cyst rupture & had to have it surgically removed. She was a self confessed weenie when it came to pain. While she was in the hospital, she complained while the nurses were trying to turn her in the bed and was told by one of the nurses that it wouldn't hurt so much if she wasn't so fat (she was about 350 pounds at the time) so she should just shut up and deal with it. In pretty much those exact words. Over and over they hammered her about it. Never, of course, in front of her husband. But eventually Kay was so humiliated and hurt by their treatment that she never said another word about the pain. Or anything else. She ended up with peritonitis and almost died twice before anyone realized what the problem was. Her husband threw a Texas-sized fit and it cost two nurses their jobs. But from that point on, she'd avoid medical personnel at pretty much all costs. She developed lymphodema about five years after we met. It started with a boil on the back of one calf and by the time she went to the doctor about it, it was an open weeping wound the size of a dinner plate. She had gangrene and they had to put her in one of those chambers they use to keep divers from getting the bends (I forget the name of it) to aid healing. She almost lost her leg, and I almost lost my best friend.
So I started investigating WLS. I researched, I investigated, I spent hours at the library (the internet was in it's infancy at the time) reading everything I could get my hands on. When I wasn't researching the surgery, I was trying to talk Kay into having it. I went over and over and over the pros and cons of it. I told her about the benefits, and about the risks. I swore to her that I'd be there every step of the way. I'd stay by her side the whole time she was at the hospital and heaven help the person who made one single unkind or hateful remark or mistreated her in any way. If anyone so much as looked at her cross-eyed, I'd rip their heart out and stomp it to mush at their feet. ANYTHING to get her to do whatever it took to save her life. She refused. So we dieted. We went on every stupid diet you could think of. Remember the Dolly Parton diet? Oh my, we thought we'd never get the smell of cabbage out of our houses or our skin! Weight Watchers, Atkins, modified Atkins, Susan Powers..... you name it, we tried it. And, of course, none of them worked. So, I kept at it with the WLS crusade. She never knew it, but I even went so far as to call Adult Protective Services to report her living conditions, figuring THAT would scare her into the surgery. It didn't. They came out, said, gee, it's a shame, and left.
Kay's middle daughter became a teen mother. I was there. I held her hand & told her we'd figure out a way for her daughter to go to college with a baby. I got divorced. Kay was there, and convinced me that a wandering husband wasn't better than no husband at all. Kay's middle daughter became pregnant again, and I helped her find adoptive parents for the baby. I got remarried and Kay was there, threatening my new husband with a fate worse than death if he ever betrayed me. Through good & bad we were there for one another.
Then Kay got a cold. Like most of us, she'd get a nasty chest cold once or twice a year. Since she hated doctors, she'd treat it at home with Vicks and chicken soup and lots of orange juice. I spoke with her on Sunday evening & she said talking made her cough so she'd call me back when she felt like she could talk without choking. Wednesday morning her middle daughter called & the first words out of her mouth were "Aunt Layne, Mama's dead." Just like that. The doctors said it was because her heart and lungs couldn't stand the strain. Between the congestion in her lungs, and the weight of her body, her heart as Big as Texas just wasn't big enough to see her through a cold.
Two years later, when I hit 287pounds and had a cholesterol level of 309, I realized that I was out of time. Morbid obesity had taken my best friend, I wasn't going to let it take my life. In July I went to my doctor & told him I wanted WLS. He agreed it was a good plan (I'd been going to him for sixteen years and he'd seen me through every wacky diet & prescribed every diet pill.) and referred me to a bariatric surgeon. In March, at around 250 pounds, I had a gastric bypass. In June I had my gallbladder removed. By Thanksgiving I weighed 140 pounds. For every weight loss goal I met, I bought myself a bracelet. (I couldn't reward myself with food anymore.) By Christmas that year, I was wearing 60 bracelets..... on each arm. LOL I jingled like Santa's sleigh when I moved, but every time I heard that sound, it was a reminder of how far I'd come.
Today, six years later, I weigh between 140 and 150 and, as of last week, my cholesterol level was 168. My red unbelievably curly hair, which was to my waist and so thick that my ponytail was as big around as my wrist, became so thin I could ponytail it with a baby's ponytail holder. But it's back now - thick and wild - if grayer - as ever - and I'm growing it long again. My skin didn't shrink as much as I'd have liked, but them's the breaks. I have to be careful about making sure I keep my belly flap dry or I get a heat rash, buying a bra for boobs that look like grapefruit in a tube sock is a pain and just the loose skin gives me a "muffin top" in most pants. But I get to hold my grandbabies - and Kay's too. I'm healthy. I'm alive. And I plan to stay that way.
Introduction to “The Art of Tatting”
By H.M. The Queen of Roumania
“Woman’s work” has become nowadays a word with such a very different meaning than in former days, that one is nearly obliged to explain what one means. When I say woman’s work, I don’t mean man’s work done by women; I don’t mean either the Amazons or the Beehives, as both are unsexed. I mean the work of women who can afford to stay at home, to have ten or twelve children, and be happy in bringing them up to be good, and clever, and useful. For the woman at home this book is written.
The Amazon-woman, the bee-woman, the man-woman need not even open it. But the solitary woman, who has time for reading and thinking – and there are many – may find pleasure in imitating some of our inventions and in adding some inventions in her turn.
To the solitary woman this book does go with the wish to become a companion. Here is pretty work to do during reading – much prettier than knitting. Nowadays work has become a great luxury, as everything useful and necessary is done by machines. Then let the luxury be as beautiful as we can make it. We offer here a kind of lace that long years of constant work have brought to us. It is such quick work – pretty to look at, and centuries won’t destroy it. It is quick work for clever fingers, just as the lacemaker’s fingers seem to fly, but it takes a great deal of quick working to arrive at making a large piece of lace stuff. But once one is clever enough to read and to work at the same time, it is pleasant indeed. I have known and loved a solitary woman, Miss Fanny Lavater, who used to embroider, as one did in the last century, in petit-point – scenes that look like water-colour painting. And whilst she did that fairy-work she always had a book open before her that she learnt by heart. It was delicious when she spoke about authors; how she could say by heart what they had written.
Nowadays nobody has time to do that, and learning by heart is distained. My great-aunt, the Princess Louise of Wied, who never married, and who was the great friend of Queen Adelaide of England, used to learn by heart every day, in order to keep her memory fresh. She wrote poems in English at the age of eighty-six – one very sweet one, “My little room.” I don’t know if the Amazon and bee ladies would write a poem about their solitary little room nowadays; the silence of it would become oppressive, as they would not hear the voices of their dear ones talking to them, as my aunt used to do. She sometimes talked to them quite loud.
I have often pitied men – in the first place because they can’t know motherhood, in the second, because they are bereft of our greatest comfort – needlework. Our needlework is so much better than their smoking; it is so unobtrusive. Our quite needle or shuttle, or whatever the instrument may be with which we can produce our modest kind of art, is a true friend, a safe companion, very busy and very discreet. The needle and the shuttle have never betrayed us; the spinning-wheel and the weaving-loom are a little louder, but oh! What a pleasant noise! Even knitting and crochet are a comfort, as it occupies the hands when we feel restless.
What a help when in conversation we do not wish to contradict’ we seem to grow silent over some intricate bit of work, and none can guess the little volcano that is covered with the lava of our work.
Some men don’t like when the ladies work. It is a mistake. Atavistically we can scarcely help ourselves, as our great-great-great-grandmothers did nothing else. We get into a kind of fever with doing nothing. A very wise country clergyman allowed the women to knit during his sermons;’ never had a preacher more attentive listeners; not one of them dropped asleep, as overworked women are apt to do when they for once sit down. They grow drowsy and can’t keep their eyes open. Allow them to knit or to tat and they will be able to tell you almost every word they have heard.
How much care and sorrow, how much deep anxiety, what profound sorrow and sadness is put into silent woman’s work. One ought always to look at it with awe and reverence, not only on account of the patience it teaches, but much more for the silently borne pain it has to hide. Many a woman can say: “What a blessing that my work cannot speak! It would be very startling if it were to lift its voice and begin to reveal the thoughts under whose wing it was hatched.”
There is many a tear hidden in woman’s work, many a sigh breathed into it, many a word repressed that spoken might have done irretrievable harm.
Luxury – perhaps! But so much more comfort than luxury, so much more rest than the harassing fatigue of bread-winning!
Tatting has the charm of lacemaking and weaving combined. It is the same shuttle as in the weaving loom, only that the loom is our fingers and the shuttle obeys our thoughts and the invention of the moment. The joy when a new stitch is found is very great. I don’t know if Madame Curie felt much happier when she found the Radium! Of course our work is small and modest and will never shake the world. A woman may shake the world once in many centuries, but she can find things in the quiet of her little room that give her complete and intense satisfaction.
Don’t despise our needle and our shuttle, don’t think that our thoughts need be small for all that! The mothers of very great men could only knit or spin. The weaving of Penelope has become symbolical.
I am atavistically mediaeval in my tastes. I love the chatelaine dans son donjon looking out over the lands and working with a lot of laughing and singing maidens weaving and embroidering around her. The minstrel must not be wanting, and the solitude need not be oppressive.
Woman is mostly solitary, even in her household, even doing man’s work. Only when she is made into the part of a machine does she stop being a woman.
Is there a prettier picture than a Roumanian peasant girl with her red or orange skirt, a yellow kerchief over her black locks, with dark-fringed large luminous eyes, the green pitcher on her head, walking through the fields and spinning, or the Roumanian woman, draped in the splendid folds of her white or yellow veil, sitting and weaving before her loom?
A woman’s hand is never so graceful as when working some lovely piece of art.
Open our book, dear solitary, lonely, worried, or content woman, who is not condemned to earn a hard bread wit hard work, and think of the peaceful hours it may bring you, and you will feel that we loved you well in publishing the result of our own loneliness.
Carmen Sylva – H.M. Queen of Roumania - 1910
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bitchy