Category: Blog

Happy to be Home

Was gone most of the week in Salt Lake City for work, and found that they had a really cool little yarn shop- Blazing Needles!

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They have a lovely selection of beautiful yarns, including a whole wall of Malabrigo

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And also Brooklyn Tweed- they have such great greens.

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And some really interesting unspun icelandic

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I couldn’t resist picking up a braid of Malabrigo roving to take home. Mmmmmm

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And managed to get a fair bit of knitting done while I was away. I started an Estonian Sheep puppet especially for the trip-

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But it’s a relief to be home.
Home with The Man, and all the critters.
Right where I belong.

Oooh, pretty!

He’s got a walnut lid

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and little rubber feet now

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and the first Moto-spun skein

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The only thing remaining to complete my Moto is the configuration of his scotch tension. Still sorting out the options for rigging that up.

Dottie says “Stay Tuned!”

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Fleece, Wiring & Banana Bread

The makings of a good weekend!

Managed to get Edgar’s haircut finished up, and made a start on Dottie and Chone.

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Ooh- Ahhh- those do look like nice fleeces.

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As you might expect, Felix and Frank kept their distance.

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But Edgar was all about getting rubs after I got his neck and shoulders cleared off.

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Meanwhile, The Man is making great progress on the espinner project. Worked on wiring up all the components Saturday

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This was a dry run of how the elements will fit in the box once it is assembled.

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And then today we got the rest of the shaping done on the box.

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I think it’s all coming together quite nicely. Can’t wait to take it for a test spin!

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It might be bit yet, because of the box assembly and finishing and such, but for now there is banana bread.

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In The Shop with The Man

Edgar is feeling better, and I am much relieved.
We haven’t gotten the toxicology results back yet from Idaho, but the bloodwork that was done locally indicated he had a high phosphorus level and low calcium. Not sure what exactly would set up that sort of situation.

With Edgar back on his feet, I pressed ahead this weekend with hoof trimming and CDT boosters. Nice to get that all finished up. Shearing is ongoing- with everyone in different stages of crazy haircuts 🙂

And we were able to get back into the shop to work on the e-spinner!

The box that will house the components is coming together

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Still have to shape the front and rear panels to create the equivalent of maidens to hold the flyer. Hope to sort that out today.

Here is how the control panel will sit in one of the side pieces of the box (on/off switch, speed control dial, direction switch and little red and green led lights to indicate direction of spin) 

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Neato frito, eh? Yeah, The Man is pretty good with this kind of stuff 🙂

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the round hole in the back side is where the power cord will go.

And here is a little video of testing the rpm range on the largest whorl of the flyer

(Pretty sure the bobbin clatter at the higher speed will resolve with a little oil.)

We’re right on track with having an operating range on the flyer of about 450-1200 RPM. That should cover everything that I usually spin. And if a need ever emerged to go higher, we could use the next smaller whorl.

For reference, if you’re operating at a ratio of 8:1 and treadling once per second, your flyer is doing about 480 RPM.  So assuming 60 treadles a minute rate, the espinner is designed to have an range equivalent to ratios from 7.5:1 to 20:1