My small swatch of hand-spun merino/alpaca dyed yarn experienced a small amount of shrinkage after I rinsed it and let it dry.
The good news is that there was no visible bleed when I blocked the swatch. I was concerned that the beautiful dark red would bleed.
I spun up nearly a whole bag of alpaca/merino roving, filled up six small bobbins of singles, and two large bobbins of three ply yarn. The roving that remained was not enough to fill three more small bobbins, so I weighed it and divided by three.
Dividing the roving worked well, but I still had one bobbin run out of single spun before the other two when I was plying. To use up all the singles, I chain plied the last bits. Since chain plying creates a slightly different yarn than plying from three bobbins (there are U bends in the yarn, but it is still three ply), I knit up my swatch with this last bit of yarn. So I didn’t loose track of which part was chain plied, I knit straight off the spinning wheel. The yarn was nicely balanced, so this wasn’t difficult.
My spinning and plying created a “bulky” yarn, about 8 wraps per inch (wpi), so I knit with size 11 needles by Prym.
Thor the gray tabby made an interesting decision to hang off the side of the rocker.
What he was really doing was waiting for Missy the dog to run by so he could grab her tail.
My youngest’s Nintendo Switch lite broke. The left joystick actually flopped around, not just drifted. She received a new to her full size Switch for her birthday, so the old one was a wash. Since it didn’t hurt anything to try, I bought an under $20 joystick repair kit and found directions. The directions had 28 steps just to get the joystick out, then the same 28 steps were retraced to put it back together. The kit came with two joysticks, which looked identical, except for part numbers on the back. There was no indication anywhere which was left, and which was right. I picked one. The disassembly didn’t go too bad for the left joystick, although I did break the left speaker connection because I didn’t realize that the plug was a teeny tiny white part in a slightly larger tiny white socket.
Feeling brave, and while the device was open anyway, I decided to replace the right joystick as well, after all, I had the part. Oh dear. The right joystick is a whole different set of steps, and involves removing a motherboard. I didn’t break the right speaker, and I had to replace the motherboard three times before all the cables were in the right spots, I thought. I missed the fan cable, and when I tried to retrieve it through the motherboard, it tore. Nuts.
Things I learned in this process: don’t force it (honestly I really should have known this, this is not my first rodeo). The engineering and durability of these devices is amazing. If I hadn’t been ham-handed, this is a doable repair. Inverted washi tape rings make great holders for tiny screws. Label everything. I saw my eldest set up for a deconstruction this way with wells embossed into card stock and it is brilliant.
The number one thing I was forcefully reminded of in this project: stop when you’re ahead.
The pieces and parts are now marked for a trip to tech recycling.
I’ve wanted to try finger weaving since I heard about it on a Sprang group (it was misidentified as Sprang). In Sprang, there are no weft threads, the vertical warp threads are overlapped consecutively. In finger weaving the warp threads become the weft threads, similar to braiding, but with more threads. I watched video after video before I found this video showing the weaving going out from the center, which made sense to me, and seemed balanced.
I wasn’t sure how to end the weaving, I’ve seen some bands just knotted at the end, but I want to put it in my fiber book, so the finish needed to be relatively flat. I opted to run two rows of double half hitch knots along the angles of the weave, which I think came out complimentary.
This was an interesting exercise, and finger weaving is a nice addition to my craft repertoire. It is nice that it can be done by anchoring one end, rather than needing a loom, and it comes out thinner and more flexible than macrame. It is more interesting with multiple colors.
Critters and Craft 