Well.   2020 is over, to the relief of most of the world, I’d think.  In reality, this annual post almost didn’t happen.  It wasn’t until I went back through the photos on my phone that I saw I wasn’t quite as idle as I’d thought.  I mean, I took almost 4000 pictures… I had to have done some things, right?

I was pretty sure I’d done nothing this year but between getting to know 2 new kittens, refurbishing a loom, finishing a spinning wheel, prepping 3 fleeces, reupholstering a chair for the first time, and moving my office to the basement and the loom and spinning wheels to my office, it looks like I managed to spin, weave and knit a little. I went into 2021 with 5 UFOs – and lowered that by 1 at the end of January.  In fact, my to do list is at a reasonable “less than 15 items” length for the first time in years.

The kitties are settling in.  They’re training us well.  In fact, Ryan played a game of fetch with Bandit as I was writing this.   Well, Ryan would throw the toy, Bandit would chase it and tag it with his paw and wait for Ryan to come collect said toy and throw it again.  Obviously, Bandit thinks Ryan needs a little exercise. 😀   Grey has learned to snuggle with me.  When she got here, she was very much a “don’t touch my tummy!” and “don’t hold me!” cat.  She’s discovering the joy of the tummy rub and the snuggles these days.

I wrote previously about refurbishing the Fanny (loom).  That went really well and I’ve warped it 3 times and finished projects way faster than with my previous loom. The ergonomics are way better for me and that makes a big difference.

March saw our local spinning/knitting group start a SKCAL (Spin/Knit/Crochet along).  I chose to try to spin a 3 ply fingering weight out of merino/silk.

In April, I finally started to work seriously on prepping (skirting was previously done, first washings were completed but more was required, and combing/carding) the 3 fleeces – and a couple of grocery bags of raw Llama clippings) – I had sitting here waiting for spinning.  That took me literally months of dedicating a couple of hours a day to it – until my chiropractor said I needed to take a break because I was making a mess of my already weak hands and shoulders. That took me into the end of August. At the same time as I was doing this prep, I also started spinning the first fleece – a Southdown/Jacob cross (the off-white one below). Grey was extremely helpful here.

In May, I warped the new-to me-loom for the first time and less than 30 days later, I took the first completed project off it.  Projects on my Jano had usually languished for months.  I had a little help from Bandit too.  He thinks a dressed loom is the. best. kitty. hammock. ever! *sigh* Grey had a tendency to periodically chew through warp threads too, so the loom’s days in the dining room were numbered.

May also brought a slightly insane purchase – given the financial state of the world and not a lot of personal financial security as a result.  In April, Gord Lendrum started producing his Saxony wheel again.  This is a wheel I thought I’d never have – due to the rarity of them and the fact that no one I’d ever read about having one had said they didn’t love it – I didn’t expect to see a used one hit the market.  I pondered for days about if this made any sense at all….. then ended up ordering the whole thing.  All of the flyers (both DD whorls, both Scotch Tension flyers, and the super fast flyer) and the wheel.  After all, this option may not come again.  On average, I think it’s often 8 or more years between runs of these wheels and Gord’s bound to want to retire one day.  In May, the wheel arrived, unfinished as expected and so that became my new project.  I finished it in late June.

More importantly, it arrived in a perfect kitty trap!

It’s almost everything I dreamed it would be.  There’s one noise issue to deal with, that will likely be a replacement DD whorl and the drivebands are too long – both of them.  So I will be making some new ones unless I can figure out exactly what the heck!?!? is wrong?

I justified this purchase by making space with the sale of 5 sewing machines that had been sitting waiting for me to move them along, my Jano loom and 2 spinning wheels that it was time to re-home.  This also had the effect of narrowing my spinning wheel focus to Canadian built wheels only.  Including the one below.  It’s a Hutterite wheel built in Manitoba.  As you can see, our kittens are very much fibre kitties.  Which is what lead to some changes….

On Canada Day – a day both Ryan and I planned to sleep in – we were woken at 5:45am by what sounded to my mostly asleep brain like someone kicking the front door in.  It wasn’t the door, it was “someone” probably not sticking the landing here and bringing everything down on top of themselves.  This is right on the other side of the bedroom and brought us running right quick!

This lead to plotting how my office could be moved downstairs to the studio and the loom and wheels moved into the office.  I started on the graph paper above and eventually, everything managed to fit in there! Well, all but one wheel which lives in the bedroom.

A lot of the summer, we spent less time than usual doing the motorsports we enjoy because the tremor in my hands had been getting worse. I didn’t feel as steady so it felt safer to stay off things that could fall down if I twitched wrong.

So, I’ve been playing more and more with CAD and the 3d printer.  I’ve been challenging myself to learn at least one new tool every time I design something.  That’s making me faster and more accurate every time I design now.

Some of this year’s accomplishments:

• A first try at an Elna accessories tray.  I talked about that back in this post. I got the base finished but then borrowed an original tray to take dimensions off of.  That’s on my desk right now to finish.
• Version 1 of the eSpinner – it’s all about function right now.  I’ve been testing it extensively over the past year and it’s doing wonderfully.  This year will hopefully be either V2, which will address appearance and some usability improvements, or the wheel in wood – which was the original plan but routers and tremors don’t get along well.  The fibre on the bobbin is from Danielle at Spun Dreamz.

  

• (My APQS) Lucey finally got the side trays I’ve been wanting.    I used a couple of IKEA cutlery trays and modeled brackets for them to fit Lucey’s rails.  They serve to hold things I need at hand, and also to raise the side clamps so she doesn’t run into them.  I’ll take a pic of those one day when there’s a quilt on her.

At the beginning of October, I also decided I’d had enough of looking at my very threadbare bubblegum pink Queen Anne chair.  It’s the chair I spin in, and read and cuddle with Grey when we’re in the loom room.  It was a little low for the spinning but most of all, the foam was coming through the arms and the sides had been shredded by another kitty before I got it.  Bandit could smell this and thought that was permission to scratch, and so I needed to do something about it. I performed my first re-upholstery job.  It’s far from perfect but I’m happy with its refreshed look, and Grey has accepted it. 🙂  The after photo is just before the final stump panel (the front of the arm) went on.

This isn’t to say I didn’t take in any sewing machines to work on.  There were a few – I was just far choosier than in previous years – mostly from trusted people who weren’t going to be bringing unhealthy machines to me.  I figured that if some folks were willing to bring me machines with mouse feces on them before, they could be bringing me all manner of nastiness now!

One of the fun projects was 4 Pfaff 1222Es in October.  The goal was to get at least 3 working machines out of 4 machines that were all running but had a variety of issues.  I managed to get 3 working very well and ended up with a parts machine as a result.  It needed a power switch (discontinued), a presser foot lever, a cam, new feet for the bed and had possible electrical/electronic issues – the electrical/electronics issue is why it became the donor for all of those parts to the other machines.

Since October, I’ve  been playing with a permanent fix for the switches.  Initially, it was a 3d printed collar to replace the one that breaks but I’m working with a supplier for a far better, permanent solution that will be available at the distributor level for people around the world – hopefully in the next several months. I’ll post about this more as I have more concrete information.

In the meantime, I found a replacement for the presser lever on one of the 3d printing sites and designed and printed feet for the bed.  That means if I can work out what the electrical/electronics issue is, I can replace the cam and get this machine back into use, either with me or someone else.

Then in November, we had a death in the family which blindsided us both. That’s Ryan’s tale though, not for me to tell but I will say that and the aftermath had the net effect of grinding absolutely all momentum to a halt and making us stand back and re-evaluate a lot of things in our own lives.  I didn’t even manage to keep the indigo and madder plants that had been thriving inside all year alive.

Around the same time, we also finally found out why I had the tremor (and other symptoms I’d been ignoring or misdiagnosing as pandemic stress or me being “of an age” according to the medical system).  Hyperthyroid.  Luckily at this point, all testing has shown it to be “simple” uncomplicated HyperT – no Graves, no Hashimoto’s, no tumor. So, the short term plan starting in mid-December was meds – which we’d find out a couple of months later weren’t going to work for me.  They were causing all sorts of issues with my kidneys.  So as of writing, I’m off those again and waiting to see what happens now with T4, T3 and TSH levels.  In the meantime, I’m just trying to live clean and avoid things known to encourage the thyroid to overwork.

As for the 4000 photos?  A large number of those were product shots for the shop and the other projects mentioned above that I did this year. And of course, there were many many pictures of kittens…. So, all in all, it was a relatively quiet year after all – I just spontaneously took on a lot of larger projects.

Despite that, my final finished items for the year was fairly impressive:

As with the end of every busy year, I vow to take on fewer big projects the following year.  Maybe just a weaving bench, and a yarn ball winder, and maybe a sectional beam and tension box for the loom, other than the double ended bobbin winder, of course….. yeah.  It never really stops. 🙂

Today’s title: Joe Bonamassa – Bridge to Better Days

I think for me that this past year was in some ways a little bit of a blessing in disguise.  I know for sure that our family was moving too fast and not stopping to fully experience life as we raced from place to place.  This world event has made us stop and appreciate what’s important and that’s us.  Our family.  Our friends. Not things, not work, not sports, not concerts, not the dinners out.  Us.  Do I miss dinning out and hitting a movie/concert from time to time?  Definitely but it’s not as important as us, being here for one another and being healthy. If we can carry this forward post-pandemic, I believe we’ll be healthier for it.

Thanks for being here for me and for us. All of us.

How about you?  How was your year?