Mostly a little update really.  Earlier this summer I finally got out to the garage and spent a little time in serious negotiations with my router.  In exchange for it not killing me, I promised to… well not get hurt, I guess? I mean really, what’s my bargaining chip here?

The wood pieces look better now – though far from perfect.  The router and I don’t get along well.  It’s on the list to get a better routing table. The one I have has these ridges that you can wedge the wood into then fling it when the bit bites in too far.  Hand held: well even with firmly clamped guides, we have disagreements.  Therefore, I’m quite happy with how well this particular cut came out for a newbie.

So to recap:

Version 1 looked like this:

Version 2 like this:

And Version 3 (with a photo bomb from my indigo and madder plants that are begging me to bring them inside for the year now that we’re starting to get frost at night):

The points are printed in TPU (flexible filament) – instead of the soft PLA they were printed in before. I found with the soft PLA they were wearing just too fast.  The new TPU points have no wear after a little use.

I mounted the winder on the same trestle table as my yarn and ball winder. Hopefully that will keep it close at hand and at a convenient height.

(By the way, anyone considering the Knitter’s Pride ball winder on the right?  I absolutely love it.  It’s so quiet.  I tend to try to make the biggest skein I can when spinning and then it doesn’t fit well onto the regular ball winders when I go to use the yarn.  That’s not an issue with this winder.  Its capacity far outstrips my Lendrum bobbins. It’s also made mostly of metal and wood – it will last far longer than the plastic ones and it’s gorgeous to boot!  The belt is currently hanging in the spinning room. I forgot to bring it outside for the picture. If you’re local to me and want one, let me know. I can hook you up. It comes in a fairly big box so would be pricey to ship so local is best.)

The bobbin winder can wind weaving bobbins, cones (that’s what the red printed part is for. It’s an adapter to wind cones) and spinning bobbins.  In fact, I’ve started using it to wind some of my spinning off onto storage bobbins first.  Some say it evens twist out. It definitely frees up bobbins in large projects! Naturally, I have nearly nothing on bobbins at the time I’m writing this post though so no pics of that. 😀

The main reason for not much yarn on bobbins is I’ve been doing a lot of spindle spinning in preparation for teaching a class at the local library.

I’ll be teaching spinning on a cross arm spindle and the library will be providing some fibre and 3d printed spindles. Naturally, I’ve been testing spindle weights for the students. 😉 The class has just been postponed indefinitely though due to new restrictions just imposed here in Alberta.

Now that fall’s here though, I’ll be inside doing a lot more spinning on wheels soon.