I already had the tool

On By CarynIn music

I’m a little chagrined. I have changed out the strings on nearly every musical instrument in the house, but haven’t on my husband’s Seagull acoustic guitar because I didn’t intuitively know how to deal with the bridge pins.

Photo description: Seagull acoustic guitar, ready for new strings

On classic guitars and ukuleles, I can see how the strings are twisted to attach, on my mandolin, the ends of the strings are handy loops, on a cello there are little colored cylinders (called balls?) that hook into a fork like apparatus, all very straight forward. Turns out the guitar is also straight forward, if you have the right tool (and YouTube).

Photo description: pin pulling end of a guitar string winder and cutter tool

Once the tension is released from the strings, the bridge pins pull straight up, releasing the ball (still don’t know why the little donut is called a ball) on the end of the string. I put the pins back in place so I wouldn’t loose them or forget which was the matching hole (theoretically they should be the same, but the guitar is 31 years old, and things shift). Putting the new strings in was straightforward, although I appreciated the tip from one YouTuber about bending the string at the top of the pin hole, it helps keep the pin from popping up until tension is applied.

Photo description: Seagull acoustic guitar with the frets polished, everything dusted, and new D’Addario strings installed

I tuned up the guitar, and all the the other hand-held string instruments because I like to, and played it a bit, but it hurts my left hand, not the fingertips, those are developing calluses nicely, just the position of my hand on the neck. Hm.

I did look it up, and the ends of the strings for instruments did used to be a small sphere or bead, it is just easier to manufacture and wind cylinders, but the “ball end” name stuck.

Corner-to-corner patches

On By CarynIn Craft

I’m a little obsessed with the corner-to-corner crochet method. I’ve been making 7×9 inch rectangles for Warm Up America with scrap yarn, but I have even smaller lengths of yarn and wondered if I could connect small C2C squares.

Photo description: corner to corner 2×2 squares connected on the go with scraps of acrylic yarn, Missy the dog and her ball in the background

I used a wood K crochet hook, which has been working well for my Tunisian crochet experiments, but was a little too big for this project. I do like the idea of the connected squares, so I’ll give it another go with a smaller hook.

On another rabbit hole, C2C crochet can also be used to make pixel art blankets. It is fun to scroll through the images, except the AI ones, those are frustrating and should all have disclaimers.

More African violets!

On By CarynIn Flora

I told my plant friend (who is also a singing friend) how I’ve been researching the African violets and how well the ones I have are doing, and she sent me home with a new African violet and two leaves from a miniature African violet! The collection grows!

Photo description: African violet with medium dark green leaves and a frilled bloom with purple and white coloration

I also found out that once a plant has lost its identity and name it is called a NOID, or No-ID. There are so many named varieties (16,000 according to the African Violet Society of America FAQ) and African Violets bloom differently under different conditions, which makes identification of a named variety impossible by visual means. A hybrid plant is named if it comes from a traceable named source. Most big box store African violets are not named, according to the AVSA. So I will be learning the descriptive terms and use those to describe my violets. I like that there are so many varieties, and they are growing well for me.

Photo description: tiny makeshift greenhouses made from ceramics cups with plastic liners filled with African violet soil and each pot has a cut leaf from a plant for propagation purposes, small cow creamer being used to carefully apply moisture