Where Has the Time Gone?

I'll tell you where...  right down the drain!



Skip this paragraph to avoid egregious whining.  I started this post with a long description of my last five weeks or so, but no one who happens to read this is interested the gory details.  So I will simply say that I had the flu and it took forever to recover.  Last weekend was the first time since mid-December that I felt good enough to do anything I didn't absolutely have to do, and I took full advantage of the day. Enough said!

So to catch up with the end of 2013...


Late last spring, I came across a spinning wheel that I just fell in love with.  Came to find out it was made by Betty Roberts, lady in Washington state who builds the most beautiful wheels.  She makes several styles  in a number of different woods.  What makes her wheels easy to spot is an inlay of wildflowers and butterflies with different colored backgrounds.  After several email conversations with Betty,  I found myself ordering a custom-made castle-style wheel with a Chinese red inlay.  It arrived in November, and has been gracing my living room since then.  I'm sorry to say that I was so busy making pens that I didn't have time to do more than admire the wheel until this month.

I've had just a little time to play with the new wheel this month.  It's a double-drive, which I've never tried before, and I'm challenged by a bit of a learning curve...  so far I've managed to spin the drive band right off the wheel within seconds each time I begin treadling, but I WILL get it together.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying just gazing at her while pretending to watch TV and trying to get her to tell me her name.

Last weekend I felt great and spend most of my free time in the shop turning pens.  I had several "novelty" pen kits that included fanciful details and thought it would be fun to do those as well as my favorite Manhattan style pens.  Also had a couple of pens that needed adjustment and took care of those.  Results:

Manhattan Pen in Green/Terra Cotta Acrylic

Knight's Armor Pen in Ironwood

Detail of Knight's Armor Pen

Celtic Pen in East Indian Rosewood

Detail of Celtic Pen

Manhattan Pen in "Lava" Inlace Acrylester

Royal Pen in Holly

Detail of Royal Pen

Detail of Victorian Pen

Victorian Pen in Mahogany

Detail of Nouveau Sceptre Band

Nouveau Sceptre Pen in Laminated Woods

Manhattan Pen in Olivewood from Bethlehem

Lancer Pen in Violet Inlace Acrylester

And had time to inventory my unused pen kits (100+!) plus get a dozen or so in the prep stages before turning.  All I need know is a few more days in the week.

Also started a couple of baby blankets in novelty yarns.  Actually meant to do only this one:

This is Loops and Threads Pom Pom yarn from Michaels.  Didn't start it until Wednesday night for a baby shower on Saturday - not realizing that knitting between all the little pom-poms would slow me down so much -- not that I'm a fast knitter to start with.   Realizing after a few hours of knitting that night that I wouldn't be able to get it done in time even if I did nothing but knit until Saturday, I made an emergency dash to Michael's Thursday afternoon and found this:

Bernat "Tizzy" super-bulky baby yarn in "Green Pea."  Even though it's highly textured, this yarn knits up really fast and I love the feel of it.  Reminds me of a thick shag rug, but in a good way, and I'm tempted to make a lap-robed size for myself.

I did manage to get about a third of this done before the baby shower.  Good thing Baby Z isn't due for another month or so...  I WILL have it done by then.





Last weekend I was invited by a friend of a friend to go to an "Eat 'n Stitch Yarn Swap" with her crochet/knitting group. Karen is a new spinning wheel owner and we were both planning to bring our wheels along for the group to try out.  Never having been to a yarn swap, I imagined each person bringing a few skeins of unwanted yarn, doing a little horse-trading back and forth until all the yarn was traded and we got on with our knitting/crochet/insert-name-of-craft here.  I didn't have time to grab anything out of my stash, so I decided to go just to meet Karen and her friends, and see what they were working on. 

To my surprise, when I arrived I was handed a large space bag (one of those giant baggies you vacuum the air out of to compress whatever is in it) and ushered into a garage bursting at the seams with bags and plastic tubs full of yarn.   I tried to demur, saying that I hadn't brought anything to share, but the hostess, Heather, insisted that most of the yarn came from her stash and her goal was to have it all find new homes.

I liked the way she was doing this exchange -- she had an app on her iPad, and when she spun a virtual wheel, it randomly picked a name.  Then that person got to choose five skeins of yarn to take home.  After this had gone on for a while, I think Heather realized that we could be there for a few days before all the yarn was taken, so she announced that it was time for people to just start stuffing their bags with yarn.   It was actually a lot of fun - there was no grabbing or fighting -- in fact there was more "enabling" going on than anything else.  You know, where you find a yarn that someone else would like and make sure they have a chance at it.  I came home with several really nice skeins - some sock yarn that I will use to make socks I can donate to a project my sock knitters' club is starting, and some heavier weight yarns that might go into the shawl-making bin or get passed on to friends.  I hope I'll get invited to one of these again, because I would love to destash a few cubic yards of yarn that I will never touch.

Just a Little of the Yarn Being "Swapped"

  After all the swapping was done, we retired to the house, where we chatted, snacked, and knitted/crocheted/spun.  I had a chance to let people try out my Hansen MiniSpinner, and just had a nice, relaxing afternoon.


Yesterday I went to a crank-in at my new friend Loan's home in Calabasas.  We've been in the same spinning guild for a couple of years, but as I told her, I've been in such awe of her spinning skills, I have been afraid to talk to her.  We got to know each other a little through Ravelry...  She was one of the first people to join the SoCal Crankers group I started for circular sock machine enthusiasts.

My loss for letting two years go by without getting to know this remarkable and talented woman.  Not only am I in awe of her spinning, now I'm in awe of her knitting skills.  There was only one other guest, Anita, at the crank-in, so it turned out to be a private knitting lesson for the two of us.  Loan could sit down at either of our machines and crank out a perfect heel, and she could tell us what was causing any problem just by looking at the knitting in progress.   Loan has (by my count) four working CSMs and one she is restoring.  Which turns out to be a good thing, because somehow I managed to leave my yarn guide (the y-shaped thingy that sits on top of the yarn mast) at home.  No problem...  Loan opened a cupboard door and pulled out the mask from her antique Gearhart machine.  It fit my machine base perfectly and I was in business.  Kinda.  The weight from my mast was way too heavy and made the heel spring not work properly, so I spent a lot of time tensioning the yarn myself.  And Loan, bless her generous heart, spent quite some time holding the yarn for me.

I meant to take photos when all the machines were set up, but naturally I forgot until Anita and I had already put ours away.  But here's a photo of Loan's living room, which was the perfect setting for several people to sit and crank.  In the foreground with all the holes is my traveling machine table - I got it with a coupon for about $12 at  Harbor Freight.  This was the first time I'd used it and I was concerned that it might be a bit flimsy.  But it was plenty sturdy and didn't even wobble when I cranked.  Plus it's light enough that it takes almost no effort to fling in the back of the car.

The table to the left is Loan's.  I'm pretty sure it's this projector table from overstock.com. Very attractive table and Loan says it's sturdy enough to hold two machines at once.  If I didn't already have my Erlbacher table, which I love, I would seriously think about this one.  The table to the left of the fireplace is Loan's Erlbacher table.  This is the one she takes to all of her demonstrations.  And Anita uses a barstool for her machine.  All four great choices for supporting a machine.  (Note - barstools should have a weight hung over a rung on the side opposite the machine to provide some extra balance).

Speaking of portability, I used my Fat Max (how offensive is that name?!) rolling workshop to transport my machine and tools.     Bought it several years ago for another hobby and haven't been using it lately so I thought I'd give it a try.  Not good.  Getting it in the car was a challenge - it's pretty bulky and VERY heavy when loaded with everything.  Getting it out at Loan's house was worse.  Getting it back in yesterday afternoon was even worse -- I'm not even going to try to explain the massive bruises on my leg but I will say it's not a good idea to use one's leg for leverage.  And I waited until this morning when I absolutely HAD to unload the car to try to get it out.   Going to pick up this rolling workshop on my way home from work tonight because it can be broken down into three separate pieces for transport. And probably ordering a transporter made to fit in it from Dewberry Ridge.  I've been eying this ever since it came out and it looks like I will be traveling with my machine enough to justify paying for the added safety.

By the time we left, Loan had gone through heel-turning on each of our machines, had Anita finish her first cast-on bonnet, turned a sock and grafted the toe so we could see her Kitchner technique from start to finish, and done a lot of hand-holding and cheerleading.  As much as I learned (and forgot) at my first crank-in, I learned even more from Loan.  I feel like I could go home and make a sock now.









As an added bonus yesterday, we had a nice lunch, and Loan served her homemade (!) macarons for dessert.  They were perfect.  Even though I told her I shouldn't have all the calories, I didn't exactly object when she sent me home with this box. 

All I will say is I didn't exactly share them when I got home, either.

I wonder if there's a low-calorie version of these?  I would totally love to learn how to make them!











In other CSM-related news...  I've failed to mention that a few months ago I joined a newly formed society for CSM enthusiasts...  which is now called the Circular Sock Knitting Machine Society.  There has been at least one organization for CSM users before this, and I gather it imploded last spring.  I don't know exactly what happened (and I don't particularly want to know).  But the new society's board was looking for writers and an editor for their newsletter, and I volunteered to write.  When no one came forward to be the editor, I volunteered and somehow I find that I'm not only the newsletter editor, but a board member. (Thanks, Mom, for teaching me that if you're going to join an organization, you should be an active participant.  Am I being sincere or sarcastic?)

I have to say that every one of the board members is really dedicated to getting this organization off the ground and has put in many hours of work in meetings, budgeting, dealing with governmental red tape, writing articles for the newsletter, etc..   I spend about 40-50 hours myself just assembling one issue of the newsletter and collecting all the bits and pieces that fill it in.  Not complaining, because I really enjoy it, but thank goodness it's not a monthly! Although the newsletter is a members-only benefit, we made the very first issue public.  Last month I redesigned it to complement our new website design, and have replaced the ugly graphics with a very attractive (I think) design.  We're also getting some great content.  If you happen to have come to my blog looking for CSM info and you're not already a member of CSKMS,  I hope you'll consider joining us.  We're already planning a conference to take place in August 2014 - and hope that it will be just the first in a series of annual conferences. 

At long last, I think I've found my calling!

I have been happily turning wood since my last post a month ago.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a table in my friend Gail's booth at WEFF to sell my sock blanks.  I took some of my wood items almost as an afterthought.  And sold enough of them to make it worth having gone, but not enough to make me quit my day job.  It was pretty thrilling to have the things I have so enjoyed making be appreciated.

Took the  pen class at Rockler, learned some new techniques, and had a ball.  Same students and teacher that were in the first class and it's a very congenial group.  Came home with a handful of beautiful pens.


Rather than writing more about this last month, I will let photos tell the story.

Shawl Pins:

Black Locust

Osage Orange

Black Locust

Black Locust

Birch

Birch

Still Turning

It's been a very busy couple of months since I last blogged.  I've become totally obsessed with woodturning.  To the point that my dad's shop is becoming a full-fledged woodshop.

Katie and I took a pen class at Rockler and came home with two more (I think) gorgeous pens each.  I also took a class on grinding gouges so I can sharpen my own tools - came home from that with a new slow-speed grinder and Wolverine jigs.

And it hasn't been enough to just turn ready-made blanks into pens.  No...  I have to learn to laminate my own blanks and make other things.  I loaded up on pen and accessory kits from PSI and a box-'o-blanks and was on my way.  Turns out that the b-o-b was a really good choice - it came with photos of the woods so I could identify each piece once it was turned and the woods included are all beautiful so far.

Resurrected my scroll saw that has been sitting unused for a couple of decades, and put it to work.  A sheet of veneer, big bottle of wood glue, and I'm making all kinds of laminated blanks.  This is a perfect craft for the packrat in me that can't throw anything away.  Scrap of wood too small to make anything?  No problem - just glue it to another scrap and presto!  And reading some of the forums, I see that people are even saving sawdust and shavings to include in casting resin.   My casting molds are in the mail as we speak.

I love, love, love what I've been doing.  I'm a little bit frustrated by the ever-growing need to have the right equipment for the right job and my own lack of knowledge about tools in general.  And had one major meltdown over drilling issues that resulted in me raising my voice (yes, I did!) and actually throwing a problem blank on the ground.  It was already cracked so at least I'm not living with that guilt.  And my rage lasted long enough for a trip to the hardware store to get a real drill press.

So here are a few of the things I've been making:

This is the idea that started me in this new direction.  I wanted to make some tools for my fiber arts - nostepinnes, shawl pins, a dealie for controlling yarn at the spinning wheel orifice, latch hooks - I have loads of ideas I want to try.  This one is a latch hook made with mystery wood.  A very simple profile and originally somewhat visually boring, so I added three lines with burning wires.

This tool is a bracelet helper.  If you were a teen in the sixties or seventies you probably think this is something else, but you would be wrong!   The clip on this gadget holds one end of your bracelet so you can use your free hand to clasp the other end.  This is made with Honduran Rosewood.

This next gadget is made from a piece of spalted curly maple.  The first photo shows the whole thing assembled.  The gold bit pulls out of the wood and, surprise!  it's a seam ripper.  The handle is designed to fit back in the wood, so you have a tiny point on the ripper to fit in tight places, but a substantial handle to hold.

Next is a perfume pen.  Another blank from the b-o-b, this is Yucatan rosewood.  A built-in container holds a piece of very porous material.  You fill it with perfume by dipping the wick that protrudes from the barrel into the perfume of your choice.  For those whose spinning wheels have easily accessed oiling spots, this might be a fun way to carry their machine oil.






 A twist pen (uses Cross pen style refills) in black palm.  I've noticed I tend to make the lower parts of my pens especially bulbous because I'm more comfortable with a substantial pen.  Everyone who has picked up this one has remarked on how good the size feels.

This is another twist pen made of bocote.  I chose to make this one without a pocket clip.

 

And this is a work in progress.  Made from a 2x12 piece of cherry, this is a nostepinne.  Look it up!  It's a little on the heavy side, so it should be used by someone who needs a really substantial tool.  Or wants something lovely that can double as a self-defense device.  I need to cut off the waste wood at the bottom and finish the ends, but couldn't resist including it in today's post.  I have a whole line of nostepinnes in different sizes and weights in production right now.

Now, on to my favorites to make and to look at so far - the laminated woods.  I had an aha moment last week...  Years ago, when I was living with my beloved dad (who could do ANYTHING), I often went out to his shop and found a piece of my good kitchenware being used to soak old oily Model A parts.  Well,  I found myself needing to soak a piece of veneer in water and automatically made a beeline for the kitchen, where I grabbed a loaf pan.  Later realized that I had just done what used to drive me crazy.  Except that I can and did return the pan to the kitchen afterward.  Don't think I could have done the same when my big stockpot was used to soak transmission parts.   Anyway, I guess I am now channeling Dad when I work in his shop (now my shop, but in my heart it will always be Dad's).  Maybe I'll get lucky and channel some of his talent and ingenuity.

 

This pen was made from my first laminated blank, using bocote, maple veneer, and bloodwood.  The veneer was pretty brittle, but a good soaking in warm water softened it enough to fit the curves in the two wood pieces.  I loved how the curves in the bocote nearly followed the curves I cut on this side of the pen.

For my next laminating project, I wanted much more contrast in colors, so I chose some blanks in bloodwood and yellowheart. Again, using maple veneer between each piece of wood.

First, I made a piece with more curves than the bocote/bloodwood pen.

Another surprise... this is a secret compartment keyring.  Just the perfect size to hold some toothpicks, a couple of aspirin, or maybe some mad money.  As a fiber arts person, though, my immediate thought when I saw this was "needle holder!"

My favorite pen to date.  I cut random blocks of each wood and simply glued them together in alternating colors.  I intended for the stripes to be a little more off-kilter, but held back when cutting because I thought I was getting carried away and would have problems clamping the pieces together.  Will trust my instincts next time.  But I still love how this turned out.

I was actually planning to keep this pen for myself, but it's too big to be comfortable in my hand.  Darn it!  It will have to wait for the right person to claim it.

Finally, here's a little stylus for a smartphone or tablet.  The little black thingy fits into a headphone jack when you're not using it so it won't get lost.  This is made from the same blank as the pen, but I cut it in half lengthwise and offset the pieces to make it far less uniform. 












So what's next?  Well, the nostepinnes are waiting to be finished.  Lined up in my shop, I have about a dozen pen kits glued up and waiting to be turned.  And a few surprises in the wings.  Not to mention the UPS truck.  Plus an advanced penmaking class at Rockler next month. And a bandsaw class at Woodcraft in December.

Turning in a Slightly Different Direction

During a hiatus in my TriCommunity weaving classes, I was perusing my mental bucket list for something fun to do.  Because I don't already have enough stuff to keep myself busy.

Still resentful that back in my school days girls were channeled into home economics while boys got to take woodshop and metalshop (apparently I can hold a grudge an awfully long time), my thoughts turned to woodworking.  I have always wanted to learn to do woodwork, and lately I have been noticing spinning and weaving tools with lovely wooden handles.  Eureka!  Time to learn to use a lathe.

When you think about it, woodworking is not all that far from fiber arts.  A tree, after all, is composed of fiber.  The cellulose that makes up 40-50% of a tree's bulk can be used to make fabric such as rayon or viscose. So what if it takes gallons of chemicals and reducing that tree down to its cellular level to get there.  It's still a fiber. So using a lathe to turn wood would simply be an extension of my fascination with all types of fiber arts.  Right? 

Anyway, over the course of a few hours, that thought turned into one of my typical obsessions.  The internal dialogue goes, "I MUST learn to do <<enter name of craft>>.  I will just take one class, and get it out of my system.  I don't need to buy any equipment, tools, or materials.  Or books.  Or magazines."  Then I go off and start searching the web for classes, which leads me to forums on the craft, which lead to conversations about all the cool equipment needed, which lead to books, and before I know it, I've ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com and started a list of things I MUST have do learn the craft properly.

At least this time I actually made it through the first class before I was over at Harbor Freight looking at the lathes.

There are several places in Southern California that offer woodturning classes, and I was lucky enough to find Rockler Woodworking in Pasadena.  They were offering a 3-week class on woodturning beginning in just a couple of weeks... perfect to fill in a big chunk of the TriCommunity hiatus.  And the teacher was Pete Carta, whose name and photo popped up on so many websites that I recognized him immediately when I walked into the store.  He does some fabulous pieces, and turned out to be an excellent teacher.

The one thing I was a little shy about was entering a brand new arena all by myself.  So I sought among my family and friends for victims people to go with me.  Then one lovely evening, my sister Katie, friend Mary, and I marched into Rockler's and started our first class.

I LOVED it.  There were only four in the class (our fourth was a very nice college student named Michael), so we each got plenty of help from Pete. 


The first night we were introduced to the lathe, talked about safety, and started learning some basic techniques. First, we took a rough-cut chunk of liquid amber wood and used a roughing gouge to trim it down to a cylinder. This part was really easy and fun. 

Then we used a smaller spindle gouge to start learning to make beads and coves.  This was not so easy.  I think I was so excited to be playing with all the cool tools that I didn't take my time to make each cut thoughtfully.  I did get some shapes I really liked, but they did not much resemble the shapes we were supposed to be making.  And I had this unfortunate tendency to tilt the tool the wrong way and create fuzzy edges.

Here's Mary Concentrating on her Spindle-to-Be

Our first class was over before we knew it and each of us proudly took home our very first spindle.   Unfinished and slightly fuzzy, but still  an object that warms my heart.  I've had it sitting on my desk at work ever since and it just makes me happy to look at it and think of all the possibilities it holds.







Our second class was on turning bowls.  I wasn't all that interested in bowls at the start.  What I really wanted to do was learn to turn fiber arts tools.   My attitude changed completely when we got started.  I'm not going to describe the techniques in any detail because I'm sure to get things wrong.

We started with already roughly shaped blanks. I could kick myself for not having taken a "before" photo or more "between" shots for that matter.  We started with what was to be the top of the bowl attached to the headstock.  Then we shaped the outside of the bowl. 

Everyone's bowl had a different shape.  I was fixated on getting control of my tools, so I made a very straight line from top to bottom.  The others made their bowls more curved.  Truth be told, I think theirs are more pleasing to the eye than mine, but I was really happy to have actually been able to do what I set out to do. 






Here, you can see the guidelines we had for the bottom of the bowl.  The outside circle was used as a guide for the outside edge.  We used the inner circle as a guide to cut a channel for the chuck that held the bowl as we hollowed out the inside.

Here you can see the bowl with the bottom now mounted on a chuck that has jaws that fit in the channel we carved.  We're ready to hollow out the top of the bowl!

This is Pete demonstrating the technique on Katie's bowl.   He makes it look so easy!

 Here's Katie's bowl after she finished hollowing it to her taste.   After this step, we sanded the bowls with five increasingly fine grits of sandpaper.  Then we applied butcher block wax liberally and buffed it. 


















The final step was turning the bowl around and trimming out the base.  Here's Katie's bowl remounted and ready to be trimmed.  I love the curves she put in her bowl.















This is my bowl after sanding and waxing -- ready to be remounted and have the bottom finished. 

 Here is my finished bowl from three different angles.  I was thrilled that the shape turned out exactly as I had envisioned it, and at how the grain and color really popped after polishing.

And these are the four finished bowls.  Michael's on the left -- he was the bravest and made his bowl very thin.  Mine next then Katie's, then Mary's.  I think they're all beautiful!  And now I want to make more bowls...

Our third class was on pens.  Once again I went in thinking I would like learning more techniques but I was not all that interested in pens.  Wrong!  I think this was my favorite of the three sessions. 

Before we started on the actual pens, we practiced by using the rough gouge to trim a piece of wood down to a cylinder, then we used the spindle gouge to shape it.   Before we started, the piece was square and looked like the dark bits on the ends.


I had fun practicing tapering and shaping with the spindle gouge.  It seemed much easier this time and I didn't end up with all the fuzzy edges I made the first week. 

What surprised me was that we used the same large gouges we used the first two weeks.  I had assumed that on a more delicate piece we would need smaller tools.  Wrong!

Pete had pen blanks already pre-drilled with tubes inserted and we got to choose from several different woods.  Mary and Michael chose bloodwood, Katie chose tulipwood, and I chose walnut.  It turns out that bloodwood is also known as logwood, a common natural dyeing material.  I happened to have a ziplock bag in my purse (girl scout training, dontcha know) and Mary went home with a nice bag of logwood sawdust for the next dying session.  See - I knew I could turn this into a fiber art topic.

Each blank was mounted on a #1 Morse taper mandrel (I think).  Here's mine in various states of completion:

Blank mounted and ready to turn

Cut to a cylinder

Ends tapered roughly to fit the bushings

Shaping completed

Polished and ready to assemble

 After shaping, we once again sanded with five increasingly fine grits of sandpaper.  This time we used a sealer on the wood, then polished.  Then it was time to assemble the pens.  Pete showed us how to use a pen assembly press to insert the end cap, point, and "transmission" - the part that twists to extend or retract the refill tube.


And voila!

Katie's pen - tulipwood

My pen - walnut

Mary's pen - bloodwood

Some of Pete's pens - to show us some possibilities

During the course of the class, I managed to acquire a lathe and basic set of gouges.  I know people either love or hate Harbor Freight -- I happen to be on the love side because I haven't yet had a bad experience with their tools.  The only down side to the one I purchased, a five speed benchtop model, is that I failed to notice how the speed is controlled.  On this one, you have to remove a couple of lids from the body of the lathe and physically adjust the drive belt.  This is not going to be as easy or convenient as a variable speed drill with a simple dial on the front.  Darn it!  And the gouges are nowhere near sharp enough to cut wood cleanly, so I am also the proud owner of a bench grinder.  Already signed up for next month's class on sharpening the tools and there's another class on turning pens in my future.

All in all, I think the whole experience was a resounding success.  I loved just about every bit of what we did, and have all kinds of ideas for things to make bouncing around in my head.  And everyone came home with the same number of eyeballs and fingers as they started with. 

Now if I can just figure out how to stop thinking about the cnc router I saw at the Rockler store...