We’ve been busy here since February just living life and working. I’ve also been trying to take it easy on my elbow tendons and thumb’s IPT joint. They’re all still acting up since the renos last summer.
I’ve been doing some sewing machine servicing but it takes a toll on both. One machine takes me the better part of a day because I have to modify my grip for my thumb and the tendons burn for a couple of days afterwards. Super fun.
So let’s see, what’s been happening? (spoiler, as usual – it’s a lot.)
I mentioned in my last post that I was doing some server work here at the house – and actually somewhat enjoying it this time around. Though truthfully, it’s likely as much about seeing things I’ve wanted to do for ages finally come about. As of this writing, it’s about 85% complete and I’m taking a small break to write a couple of posts. As I write, data is being copied from one drive to another, so it’s sort of wasted time anyway if I don’t do anything else.
See, when it’s projects that disrupt the house or my daily procedures, I tend to get obsessed. Shocking, I know! 8 days straight of obsession like this though and I need to reset my sleep schedule so I can go out and run errands / see clients during the day.
A lot of years, it’s not until the year end wrap up that I truly understand how much I did during the previous 365.25 days. This year even though the total yarn mileage was a bit of a shock, I was completely aware all year that I was busy. I nearly didn’t do this post at all.
2022 ended with us knowing we were going to be redoing the shower in the bathroom. After way too many trips to hardware stores and bathroom showrooms, we finally decided and by the end of May, that hurdle was cleared. No more water issues in the house. Or so I thought. Continue reading 2023 Year End Wrap Up→
I’ll preface the info below by saying that if you’ve ever purchased from the shop, your data is safe.
As it pertains to security issues in the IT community, there’s a thing called responsible disclosure and today it failed miserably thanks to a lack of communication.
Typically what happens is a software vulnerability is found, disclosed to the developer. They fix it and release the update and after a couple of days, the vulnerability is shared with the public as a whole and hopefully by now, most people have already updated. We all go on with our lives a little safer for this process. This is supposed to allow things to get fixed before they’re exploited by “bad people”.
I alluded to this in my previous post. A number of years ago, the power switches for the Pfaff 1222 type machines went “NLA” or No Longer Available. As usually happens, it takes a while for existing stock to disappear so many of us didn’t know until it was too late. Around the middle of 2020, it finally happened. Not long after my first order went unfilled, I started playing with the idea of rebuilding the switches. The reason being that it’s a single piece of (sometimes 40+ year old) injection molded plastic that fails. Every single time. Could it be 3D printed? After all, several years ago, I’d determined that the rest of the switch is high quality, modular and relatively easy to rebuild. In October of 2020, I received 4 Pfaff 1222 machines in for service and you guessed it, there was a broken switch among them and I had no more switches in stock.
After a series of unfortunate (family/personal) events that Fall, I finally began on Christmas Day 2020, and by a couple of days into the New Year, I had a working design and it took me about 15 minutes to disassemble the machine, disassemble the unnecessarily complex switch, replace the defective part, reassemble the switch and the machine. This could be a viable solution! The problem was Continue reading Pfaff Power Switches coming back!→
As I mentioned in the last post, in October I became obsessed. All summer and throughout the entire Tour de Fleece it felt like I was in crisis mode. Then as Fall descended, I began working on things outstanding. I probably put in a couple of hundred hours at various computers. I needed a break from all of the adulting. In the back of my mind, there were so many craft projects started and unfinished. This is something I don’t often do. I’m largely a serial crafter and often don’t have more than a home project and a travel project on the go at once.
When I started the Tour de Fleece this year – before all the drama started – I had 5 PHDs (Projects Half Done) of which 3 qualified as UFOs. During the tour, I finished 2 of the projects, turned one UFO into 2 PHDs and one abandoned project, and started one new project. Here’s what the “To do list” looked like at the end of the tour: Continue reading October’s Obsession→
By the end of August, I was starting to feel a little persecuted by all the water problems and exhausted by self-imposed deadlines. We needed a break.
The last week of August was a staycation (The vacation fund having been decimated for many years to come thanks to the house) that started with replacing that dishwasher. We made a day-trip to Jasper on the 31st and I took about 140 photos in the few hours we were in the park. Mostly of waterfalls and such. Additionally, I had the opportunity to shoot the night before which was the Perigee Blue Supermoon. It was marginally successful. That’s the photo I used for the header in the last post.
When last I left you, I was planning to slink off and recover from the July from hell. I posted that on Wednesday August 2. The very next day – I kid you not! – I walked into the living room as a truck was pulling into our driveway. What? I had no appointments or machine drop offs scheduled. Then I noticed the decals on the truck. Continue reading Approaching Autumn→
In the several months since I last posted, a few things have changed. I mentioned previously that I’d started to digitize my negatives. Well, OK, I’d made a false start in 2021. In February-ish, I started again and this time, I got through the entire 222 archival sheets of negatives. About a third of the way through, my ancient Minolta Dimage Scan Multi 2 film scanner started giving warnings that bulb failure was imminent. This is a (mostly) irreplaceable part. I did find a thread on photo.net that discussed building one and even provided the source for the CFL tube.
At that point, I wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of possibly shorting or frying something with my seriously rusty electronics soldering skills*. Nor did I love that the bulb site provided moneygram, western union or a Paypal transfer address options instead of a proper purchasing route. So I opted to hold off and see if the bulb survived the project. In retrospect though this may have been self-sabotage.
Lately I’ve been finding that sock sizing on the CSM is a little variable. When I knit socks for a friend – who has the same size feet as I do – hers are too big by about 3 rows and mine are too short by about 4 rows. At first, I thought it was because I was throwing mine in the washer and hanging to dry and she was hand washing. She’s blocking her socks. I can’t be bothered.
This could definitely be a factor but then she threw me a curve ball: she tossed the last batch in the washer and hung them to dry. Result? No shrinkage. Well. What the heck?
