mrdubyah

04:36 pm - New Spindle

The Hearthwise Spindle: Incredibly beautiful, pleasingly functional
     I had occasion at the Fiber Festival of New England to come into possession of one of the breathtakingly beautiful spindles made by Charles Arnold, owner of Hearthwise in Morrisville, PA.  The Hearthwise slogan is “Tools for a simpler life” and that fits their product line perfectly.  An amiable and apparently very practical man, Charlie makes hand turned drop and supported spindles that are decidedly eye catching and quite affordable.  Made of laminated wood, turned on the lathe to smooth and sensuous curves, and finished to perfection, each spindle is an individual work of art.  These babies look and feel fabulous. 
Still, I confess it took me some time to warm up to spinning on mine.  My first impression was that it was a bit too light and I had some difficulty getting the fiber back into the hook between drops.  However, you have to consider that I’d spent most of the day standing up and demonstrating DK spinning on heavier, large whorled and notched spindles for beginners at the festival.  I simply wasn’t prepared for this little beauty.  It really is something radically different.  Now that I’ve used it a bit, and gotten to know it better, I’ve come to see it in a much more favorable light. This is a relatively small, close whorl, high speed spindle.  It’s definitely made for spinning fine yarns rather than the heavy stuff.  It’s also perfectly tuned for spinning in a sitting position.  Heavier spindles, like my large Golding, are designed to keep on spinning for five or six feet of draft and to handle yarns up to worsted and bulky weights.  They’re a bit heavy for lace weight or “frogs hair” yarns and you really have to be standing to take full advantage of their weight and symmetry.  
     This particular Hearthwise, in contrast, is very lightweight.  It doesn’t have the power to spin heavy or bulky yarns.  That’s what put me off at first, but it’s also what makes it ideal for fine and very fine spinning.  Because it’s so light, it won’t break fine singles.  It also uses up its momentum in three or four feet of draft.  That’s too short if you’re standing up, but it’s just about right for spinning in a chair, a car seat, on a bus, or even on an airplane.  That’s where this spindle can really shine.  In addition, the smooth shiny finish on the bulb, while spectacular, made it difficult to get the yarn into the hook between drafts at first.  I finally solved that problem by starting a draft on the hook without a leader and then pulling the first bit of single down from the hook to wrap it around the shaft.  Keeping a standing loop on the side of the bulb provides a stopping point for spun single and makes it much easier to hook up between drafts.
     After working with it for awhile, I’ve become quite fond of this spindle and come to regard it as an important adjunct to my collection.  I’m not sure I’d recommend this particular model to beginners, but then it doesn’t seem to have been designed for them.  Instead, it’s a carefully crafted tool designed to optimize performance for the experienced spinner who wants to make fine yarn from a comfortably seated position. Viewed from that perspective, it’s actually quite a masterful design.  That also could be why Charlie decided this particular model would be right for me.  I’m sure other Hearthwise models are designed for different purposes and, now that I understand a little more about them, I look forward to the opportunity to try some of them as well. 
You can check Hearthwise drop spindles out on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hearthwise-Drop-Spindles-Nosterpinnes/216156715080835.  Charlie will also be at Coggeshall Farm this spring for the Rhode Island Wool and Fiber festival with a full collection of these drop spindles, supported spindles, and his nostepinnes, along with a line of Brittany American made birch knitting needles, magazines and other publications.  Look for him there, introduce yourself, and try out a few spindles to see if there isn’t one that might be just right for your collection!

07:31 pm

NESLBTW - The New England Society of Linen Bath Towel Weavers.  In order to become a member, you have to agree to weave at least two linen bath towels (minimum size 36" x 65") within one year of signing up.  I now have about 8 lbs of 30s/4 linen sitting on top of my loom waiting for threading.  Lets see... if I sett it at 30 threads per inch then 30 threads per inch x 36 inches, that would be 1,080 threads.  If I put on 8 yards of warp length, that'll come to 8,640 yards of linen.  Do you suppose my 8 lbs of 30s/4 will do it?

Here's what 30s/4 means.  30s is the number of lea needed for one pound of yarn.  A lea of linen is defined as 300 yards.  Since this is 30 lea yarn, that means it takes 30 x 300 or 9,000 yards to make up a pound.  That's pretty thin stuff.  However, the /4 then indicates how many times the yarn is plied.  Since this is 4 ply, it'll be 4 times the diameter and will weigh 4 times as much.  Therefore we'll only get 1/4 of the yardage or 9,000/4=2,250 yards per pound.  Still thin, but not AS thin.  Since I have roughly 8 pounds, then it follows that I should have roughly 18,000 total yards of linen.  Conveniently enough, it's on two spools of roughly 4 pounds or 9,000 yards each.  That gives me one 9,000 yard spool to use for the warp (8,640 yards as per above) and another 9,000 yard spool to use for the weft.  Looks like I do have enough yarn. 

Now all I have to do is wind and thread 1,080 pieces of yarn 8 yards long!

05:16 pm - Long emails

      Lately I've had a couple of people tell me that they didn't read an email because it was "too long".  These emails, mind you, were not treatises on the order of War and Peace or The Gulag Archipeligo.  They were two or three paragraphs of clear prose tailored to get the point across succinctly.  Perhaps these people are confusing text messages (160 character limit), tweets (140 character limit) and emails (no specified limit).  It could be that the "push" technology, which sends emails directly to cell phones and pda's is responsible for this and, if the whole message won't fit on the little bitty screen, then it isn't going to get read.  This is a spurious excuse.  Most of us read more text on-screen now then we do on paper. 
     I routinely carry text files and correspondence on my PDA and read them whenever I have a few spare minutes.  This works fine for me but I had a friend explain to me the other day that he doesn't like to read text on screen.  This is problemmatic.  In the modern world, documents are distributed via the web or via PDF.  Email has largely supplanted letter correspondence.  Except for contract-driven correspondence that must be in ink on cellulose and must bear a signature to be legally binding, everything comes and goes on email.  People are going to have to learn to read on screen, and agree to read the text containing the information they need, if this system is going to work.  So, in short, I'll agree to try to tighten up my email messages if you'll agree to read them when they appear on your screen.  Deal?

01:49 pm - Verizon Omnia GPS - This is broken

OK, sometimes you just have to vent.  I recently got a Verizon Samsung Omnia.  This is a fabulous phone that I would recommend to anyone sufficiently techno-geek to figure out it's many WinMo eccentricities.   This phone, as its name implies, does it all.  It even has a built in GPS; a very important component for a handheld and one of the phone's highlights for me.  Unfortunately IT DOESN'T WORK!  On contacting Verizon, I found out that VERIZON INTENTIONALLY DISABLED IT!  The Verizon model of the phone does not allow the user to turn the GPS on (or off).  This can only be done by Verizon and they'll only do it  if you're willing to pay them $9.95 a month.  Even worse, once you pay them and they turn on your GPS (for a non-negotiable battery eating 4 hours) IT ONLY WORKS WITH THEIR CRAPPY VZ Navigator SOFTWARE!  This is unforgiveable.  It costs Verizon NOTHING for me to use a GPS I already own, in a phone I already paid for, using signals from satellites put in orbit by the US government.  If you own an Omnia, join the groundswell demanding that Verizon fix this problem.  If not, go check out the Omnia at your local Verizon store.  Admire its many wonderful features.  Then, tell them you'd buy it IF ONLY IT HAD A WORKING GPS and walk out.  Thanks for listening.

Current Mood: infuriated

12:27 pm - Alternative Energy

      Here's a photo I snapped on the road in Germany of solar panels on the roof of a residence and outbuilding.  These are very much in evidence all over Bavaria, but are scarce as hen's teeth in the US.  Asking around, I found out that the German government subsidizes these types of alternative energy installations with tax breaks and low interest loans.  We really need alternative energy sources and decentralized power generation like this here at home.  Tax incentives and low interest government loans could really help.  Still, I don't expect a lot of alternative energy programs like this from our legislators as long as they get so much of their financial support from big power lobbyists.  I suspect PG&E isn't very interested in having us generate a substantial share of our own power at home when the alternative is for us to buy our power from them.  Isn't it about time for us to devote as much effort to becoming the greatest nation in the world as we've been devoting to declaring ourselves the greatest?

03:38 pm - IE7 Aggravation

Microsquish blows it again.  If I start to post all the things I hate about IE7 this post will be way too long so I'll just rant about the ONE thing that happens to be annoying me at the moment; IE7's bad HISTORY handling.  First, the history button (like most of the other most convenient buttons) has gone missing.  If you search hard enough you'll discover that the dropdown arrow next to the forward arrow hides your history.  (That's right, to find your history, look ahead*).   Then, once you display the history, instead of getting the customary list of URLs you've visited, you get a list of every file you've ever opened including all the files on your hard drive!  This makes it incredibly inconvenient to review recent URLs.  So far, I have not found a way to make this stop (at least not in WinXP).  This looks to me like another ham handed attempt by MS to pretend that the browser is part of the operating system in another desperate attempt to force us all to use their brand name software.  Instead, it's just another MS failure and one more of the many reasons why I'm going to remain a faithful user of Firefox.  My employer requires me to use IE at work, but they can't make me like it (or consider it "good" software).  
There, I feel better now!

* This is no more Orwellian than the now familiar clicking of "Start" in order to shutdown.

07:52 pm - Crisp

Most people love the heat of a wood stove on a cold winter night but I also love the feeling of going upstairs at night when the woodstove is burning and the curtain is closed so the heat can't get up to the bedroom. The downstairs is toasty warm but the upstairs is crisp and cold and perfect for sleeping. It's a little uncomfortable at first while I get undressed and pull on a chilly nightshirt and, if it's really cold, maybe a night cap. But then I slip into bed under the comforter, quilt and blankets and the bed warms up quickly. That initial cold feeling reminds me of many places I stayed as a kid that were heated with wood stoves but had unheated bedrooms. It brings up memories of winter vacation trips to ski cabins and old houses without central heating and it reminds me of trips to Europe where there was often a heater only in the living area. It's very nostalgic. When I lived in the dorm at URI I had a room mate who liked to sleep with the window partially open every night. Thanks to him, it was always cold in our room at night and sometimes the snow blew in even though the dorms were notoriously warm with excess steam heat. To this day I have trouble sleeping in the summer when the room is too hot . That makes me long for nights like we've had this winter. Somehow it's just easier to sleep when the tip of your nose is just a little bit chilly and the flannel sheets are keeping the rest of you toasty warm.  G'night!

05:03 pm - Snow Witch

Here's that same stupid snowman I showed you last Easter, only this time he's ready for Halloween.  A bright orange projo bag does for a gown.  Remnants of a black plastic bag from the local package store make a cape and hat (held on with rubber bands) and a pencil with a couple of post-it notes poses as the witches broomstick.  Tricia added the little pumpkin bucket and voila, he's ready for another holiday season. 

04:38 pm - Milkweeds and Monarchs

     Years ago beetsie taught piano lessons to a young boy who's family was visiting this country from Japan.  His father was a research scientist studying in the area and the family was living in Providence temporarily.  While he had his piano lesson, his mother used to like to play with his younger sibling in the back yard.  We would occasionally take little nature walks together around the woods and fields behind our house.   Her english was limited and my Japanese was non-existent, but we found common ground admiring the beauty of nature together and sharing it with the children.  
     One day in late summer I found some milkweed plants in the back field.  They were filled with ripe and bursting pods.  I showed her how the pods contained thousands of tiny seeds on little silken parachutes and taught her to scatter the seeds to the skies by blowing on the pods.  We brought a handful of the pods up to the house and stood with the children outside the back door, blowing silvery milkweed tassels into the air.  The kids chased them across the yard, puffing vigorously and competing to see who could keep them afloat the longest.  It was a lovely afternoon.
     Ever since that day, milkweed plants have been growing outside the back door.  They're kind of pretty when young, and when they flower they fill the air with a sticky sweet perfume that makes my head spin.  As the season drags on they dry out though, falling apart and getting kind of unsightly, so we used to pull them up and throw them on the compost pile.  We don't do that anymore.  
     Several years ago, I gave beetsie a butterfly bush for our anniversary.  She used it to start a butterfly garden in the back yard.  Over the years she's expanded that garden to include not only butterfly bushes of varying colors but a full range of flowering plants.  They keep the back yard in bloom all summer long.  Last year, when we were about to pull the milkweed plants, she noticed that they were covered with caterpillars, munching away on the leaves and stems.  She realized that they were monarch caterpillars.  Monarchs are one of few insects that will eat milkweed.  Its milky alkaline sap is too bitter for other insects and mildly toxic.  It's one of the things that protects monarchs, by making them taste bad to insect eating birds.  We decided to leave the milkweed there so they could feed on it.  Pretty soon we found a chrysalis on a nearby twig (a sprig of rosemary in the herb garden).  Then we found another and another.  We watched them carefully and in a few days they completed their metamorphosis to emerge as winged beauties, setting off across the yard to the butterfly bush.  Now the butterfly garden is filled with monarch butterflys, sometimes a dozen or more at a time.  They're feasting on the blossoms and decorating the garden with their bright orange wings as they prepare for the remarkable journey ahead.  Soon they will fly away to the south, to congregate in the warm winds of Mexico together.  We wish them well on their journey.  You can follow along and help track them at http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/ if you'd like.  
     Now the milkweed plants are old and yellowed and broken, too withered and dry for caterpillars.  But they'll be back next year and so will the monarchs (we hope).  We'll be looking for them when the milkweed starts to grow and blossom again.  When I see them I'll be sure to think back to that summer afternoon when two people from opposite ends of the world chose to walk together and share a little bit of nature with a pair of laughing children. 

Current Mood: nostalgic

02:16 pm - Water

WATER
You've heard it before and you'll hear it again.  Let the water do the work.  All this rain makes me think of how this entire region was once powered by waterwheels.  This is the dam and spillway at the Ponaganset Reservoir.  Listening to all that water falling made me wonder why we aren't still turning turbines with it.  I recently had occasion, through a strange set of circumstances, to become peripherally involved in an archaeological investigation that included the water wheel at the Moffett Mill in Lincoln., RI.   The historic Moffett Mill is described at http://www.blackstonedaily.com/communities/lincoln.htm as follows:

Moffett Mill (1812)
The newly renovated Moffett Mill was a two-story building [and] is believed to be the first machine shop constructed in Rhode Island. Wagons, wheels, and shoelaces are just some of the products that were produced here. Resting along the Moshassuck River, on historic Great Road, this old mill now serves as a tourist attraction.

Well, as I said, I was peripherally involved in an archaeological investigation at the mill.  When the archaeologists got to the wheel, they found it was a turbine, probably one of the first drop turbines in the state, and most certainly the first drop turbine to power a machine shop.  The water turbine was much more efficient than its predecessor, the overshot wheel.  The one at Moffett Mill was extremely well preserved because it was packed so tightly in fine silt.  After documenting it, the decision was made to pack it back into the silt so the preservation can continue.  I'm pleased to know it's there, reminding us what we can do with nature if we are industrious enough. 

We really should get new drop turbines up and operational and start cranking out electricity.  We're wasting energy otherwise.  Beetsie and I walked part of the Blackstone Bikeway a few weeks ago and stood in awe of the power of the mighty river sending its waters roaring over the Ashton Dam.  Those waters once powered an industrial revolution.  They can do it again.