nostepinne imposter!

say nostepinne imposter three times fast! ha!
Yes, some of you guessed it, that is indeed the center part of the body of an alto recorder being used as a nostepinne in the video. The advantage of this in your spinning basket is that if you get bored spinning, you can always put the three piece of the recorder together and make music!

it live, the video that is

spindling video almost

whew! the spindolyn video is almost done! I am s-l-o-w-l-y learning amateur video editing, and I finished the replacement video for the new updated spinolyn, showing how it spins-YAY!
Jimmy is here this weekend to lay down a music track for it, he tried a couple of "pretty" compositions, with strings, but I was thinking of something more like a samba!?!
He left his sustain pedal back in Nashville, so I may have to wait for the music and the upload to google video till mid week.

lights, camera, spin

working on the new spindolyn how to video, when not in the shop, freezing to death.
I am not the kind of person who can just set the camera up and go...oh no, I have to...run out of batteries, trip over the usb cable, accidently delete the best footage, realize there is a glare on the lens from a fingerprint, wipe it off and discover a rabbit hair on the lens, burn my main spinning finger while putting wood in the stove, finally get the perfect footage only to realize their is a giant, glaring grease stain right in the middle of my shirt. Professional? ha!
On a postive note, I am getting a lot of yardage of yarn spun! (anther ha!) and am enjoying the actual spinning time.

why spin -reason #27

sometimes you gotta make something you like, before you can like what you make.

wild hair

found this on the path to the old barn, fresh wild rabbit fur.
I ask myself, isn't it beautiful!? isn't it not that different than the years I spent spinning angora? yes, its short, but I shall just whap felt it when it is done.
The cards I wanted to use to blend it with the dyed lambs wool and dark dog fur are somewhere in the unheated bedroom...nope too cold to dig around in there, so I shall blend it with my hands..this would work better if my hands werent so cracked and dry, but progress! a spindle full and enough for maybe three more spindles full. A good reason to stay up late on a friday night, letting a podcast read to me by the firelight, spinning and imagining wild rabbits and owls in the dark.

photo measuring for knits?

Oh man! I want this software mentioned below.. well, the price tag is out of the question for me, but just imagine the knit design implications of this, or around the farm, measuring for chicken fencing, etc! or how about spindle specs, etc, etc!! the scientist in me just drools....

Kevin C. Tofel writes "Using a simple concept, iPhotoMEASURE software can measure any objects you can take a picture of. Include a printout of a 7.5- or 15-inch sqaure in the photo and the software can measure any distance or object in the pic to within 99.5% accuracy. Although geared towards contractors, there's any number of consumer usage scenarios as well. Enough to justify a $99 price tag? Jury's still out on that."

Weebles, a spindle makers tale of woe and wobble

So i have been gluing spindolyns this morning, inspecting, and tossing rejects into the reject box and thinking about wobble and weebles.
Not the wobble from smelling glue, nor the wobble from the earth being out of balance both weatherwise and spiritually (from too many people straying too far off the beauty path)
Nay, I have been thinking about the physics of wobble, acceptable amounts of wobble and design issues.
Years back on some yahoo group about spindle making (forgive my forgetfullness) there was a great discussion on the physics of wobble, faster spin, center of gravity, etc. I learned and applied alot of the information when working on spindle designs between the pleasant spindle and the spindolyn.

But, the spindolyn is a different animal, it rides in a tube, and the tube has space between it and the shaft and it will ride about in that space a little bit. Not a great wobble, more like a slight gyration.

Not enough to slow down spin, nor to interfere with the aesthetic experience of spinning on the spindolyn but enough to cause a wrinkle in the forhead of some spinners who do not understand the physics of the supported spin and only have one criteria with which to judge spinablity, that of movement away from the center. There are, of course, other criteria, such as speed, comfort, and "handiness".

The matter is complicated for the maker by the following circumstances.
If the whorl is not flat, or centered, or it has warped from the finish (which some do, because of the lay of the grain within the whorl, you oil that puppy and it curls up like a tater chip) or the ring is warped or has warped from the finish, or was out of round to start with..these things cause real wobble, and even though you inspect and reinspect at each step of their creation...you can end up with a weeble.
The weebles go in a big box. What do I do with the weebles?

steady working

working quietly and steadily on spindolyns and a custom knitting chart today, hope my customers can be patient, but with 49 in the cabin, the finish is drying slower than expected. I have rearranged the bird feeder outside of the window to have company while I work, and am noticing individuality. Its tempting to to post more photos on my other blog but photos of birds are like photos of flowers, you have to have been there, maybe.

new spindolyn

and I spun yards and yards this morning before daylight, because that is a good way to bring in the dawn of ground hogs day, and because I didn't want to get out of bed too early on my birthday. I like the new spindolyn base best, I think, for spinning in bed and because it IS my birthday, I can fill this post with lots of "I" "I' "I"s.....I like spinning natural white when it is snowy, this yarn hopes to be toe warmers for in my boots.