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prototypediablerie2025-06-18 10:16 am
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-18 10:16 amEntry tags:
attempting to spin with a Turkish (drop) spindle
It's early days yet and I'm almost certainly botching the technique. Among other things, I'm pretty sure this isn't park and draft exactly (?) because every time I tried to do that I kept dropping the spindle or getting my hands tangled up in each other. What I'm doing in the video no doubt has issues, but some form of spinning happens...
ETA #1: a couple fine folks on r/handspinning are helping me debug; one pointed me to this video on How to Spin with a Turkish (cross-arm) spindle [The Woolery]. :3
ETA #2: Whoa, this is much better! I did look at this video once before, but that was a couple weeks ago when I couldn't even get the fiber to "stay" on the leader and kept dropping the spindle without having spun anything. I'm glad I asked for help!
The Woolery:
Jillian Eve (for later investigation)
Soulful Spinning (for later investigation)
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-17 11:00 am
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-17 11:00 amEntry tags:
Mingei (book report)
Amaury Saint-Gilles' Mingei: Japan's Enduring Folk Arts (©1983, Charles E. Tuttle Company) is a book I picked up at a library booksale while visiting family, not least because I'd owned a copy back in uni. According to the introduction by Dr. Martha Longenecker, mingei was coined by Dr. Yanagi Soetsu to refer to "arts of the people," describing "folk art" or works often made by "unknown"/unattested artists/artisans/craftspeople.
As I'm not Japanese or a scholar of Japan or art, I can't fact-check anything in this book, which is about 250 pages of a survey of various such "folk art" items of different types (woodworking, textiles, etc) and their cultural contexts. A few typical two-page spreads:
This one depicts higa-no-ita-kaku-riki or ita-sumo, wooden sumo wrestler toys, with some context on sumo wrestling (also a sport I know nothing of, alas.)
Here is described kataezome and aizome, two distinct types of indigo-dyed cloth, with a description of e.g. the dye stencil process. The use of cloth stencils is of course different from the use of wax + tjanting, but I am conceptually reminded of Indonesian batik techniques.
There are also a few color plates, like this one showing the making of a koi-nobori (carp pennant):
This isn't intended as instructional material; I imagine a skilled artisan in a relevant discipline could work out how particular items are made, but there isn't enough space to go into detail. As a survey, however, the book is a delight to browse through.
As I'm not Japanese or a scholar of Japan or art, I can't fact-check anything in this book, which is about 250 pages of a survey of various such "folk art" items of different types (woodworking, textiles, etc) and their cultural contexts. A few typical two-page spreads:
This one depicts higa-no-ita-kaku-riki or ita-sumo, wooden sumo wrestler toys, with some context on sumo wrestling (also a sport I know nothing of, alas.)
Here is described kataezome and aizome, two distinct types of indigo-dyed cloth, with a description of e.g. the dye stencil process. The use of cloth stencils is of course different from the use of wax + tjanting, but I am conceptually reminded of Indonesian batik techniques.
There are also a few color plates, like this one showing the making of a koi-nobori (carp pennant):
This isn't intended as instructional material; I imagine a skilled artisan in a relevant discipline could work out how particular items are made, but there isn't enough space to go into detail. As a survey, however, the book is a delight to browse through.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-16 11:45 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-16 11:45 pmEntry tags:
an untested DIY "watercolor dot" palette
I was looking to create a very light and thin watercolor dot "palette."
Platinum Preppy for scale.
...yes. Made of two card sleeves (Magic: the Gathering size) with watercolor ATCs for a bit of stiffness and washi-taped together. I suspect this will get messy, but when painting watercolor sketches on the go, I'm often mixing on the paper. It doesn't have to work for long, or at all; it was cheap from materials I had around the house and if it is unworkable, I can try something else.
Slightly eccentric choice of watercolors
- PR214 Old Holland Scheveningen Red Deep
- PV19 Old Holland Scheveningen Rose
- ?? Daniel Smith Amethyst Genuine
- PB60 + PBk6 Daniel Smith Indigo
- PB16:3 Old Holland Scheveningen Blue
- PY213 Greenleaf and Blueberry Quinoxalinedione Yellow
- PO48 + PY150 Daniel Smith Quinacridone Gold Deep
- PG7 Greenleaf and Blueberry Phthalo Green blue shade
If you must know the truth, I can't find my main stash of tube watercolors, so some of my go-to pigments aren't represented here. But for watercolor sketching and an experimental low-cost DIY travel palette, it doesn't matter.
Platinum Preppy for scale.
...yes. Made of two card sleeves (Magic: the Gathering size) with watercolor ATCs for a bit of stiffness and washi-taped together. I suspect this will get messy, but when painting watercolor sketches on the go, I'm often mixing on the paper. It doesn't have to work for long, or at all; it was cheap from materials I had around the house and if it is unworkable, I can try something else.
Slightly eccentric choice of watercolors
- PR214 Old Holland Scheveningen Red Deep
- PV19 Old Holland Scheveningen Rose
- ?? Daniel Smith Amethyst Genuine
- PB60 + PBk6 Daniel Smith Indigo
- PB16:3 Old Holland Scheveningen Blue
- PY213 Greenleaf and Blueberry Quinoxalinedione Yellow
- PO48 + PY150 Daniel Smith Quinacridone Gold Deep
- PG7 Greenleaf and Blueberry Phthalo Green blue shade
If you must know the truth, I can't find my main stash of tube watercolors, so some of my go-to pigments aren't represented here. But for watercolor sketching and an experimental low-cost DIY travel palette, it doesn't matter.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-16 09:08 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-16 09:08 pmEntry tags:
The Why of Sketching
I picked up George Hlavác's The Exceptionally Simple Theory of Sketching: Why do professional sketches look beautiful? in a used bookstore. It's an exceptionally slim volume, under 40 pages, with included shading practice sheets, and it's a treasure.
I'm not an artist, but just anecdotally, from my own experiences attempting to learn to draw, this feels true. Weirdly, it's the scribbly fast sketches that felt fluid to make that people respond to over the painstaking yet inexpert slow drawings. For that matter, this tracks my experiences in recreational friendly handwriting forgery: the fluid, assured, less accurate forged signature is much likelier to "pass" than the painstaking slow copy. (It was a family joke.)
I feel this is the single two-page spread that best encapsulates the book's thesis and approach: the left-hand examples are "more" accurate and painstaking, but look incredibly unconvincing; the ones on the right are less precise, but they have a dynamism that conveys assurance.
I had generally taken it as read that the way to dynamism was by starting with painstaking accuracy, but perhaps I was wrong and scribble-sketching was the road to greater accuracy! Possibly this varies by artist; I'm no art instructor either.
Regardless, I've been photocopying the exercises to do one by one. I have been attempting to get back into a sketching/drawing practice during these few weeks of vacation, where by "practice" I mean "one drawing a day." I'm recovering from some medical experiences, so I want to set the bar as low as possible rather than work myself back into the hospital.
I never push the darks dark enough (as multiple artists have gently told me), but it's all right: I know that's an issue, and since I'm aware of it, I can keep working on it, slowly, in my own time.
The Why of Sketching
Draw like a professional and you will be a professional.
Some people make rough, fast, nonchalant sketches and they look brilliant. For others, it takes hours of blood, sweat and tears to produce drawings that are accurate yet still look unprofessional. The question is why?
As a lecturer in cognitive ergonomics at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, I consider human reactions to visual information, and I also teachg sketching. So I thought that if I could analyze and describe how our mind reacts to different aspects of handmade sketches, I would be able to teach drawing skills much more easily.
Sometimes I meet an 'old school' teacher of sketching whose main aim is to teach people to draw accurately. I am convinced that this traditional way of learning to draw is fundamentally wrong, because even if people learn to draw accurately, their drawings do not convince.... (5)
I'm not an artist, but just anecdotally, from my own experiences attempting to learn to draw, this feels true. Weirdly, it's the scribbly fast sketches that felt fluid to make that people respond to over the painstaking yet inexpert slow drawings. For that matter, this tracks my experiences in recreational friendly handwriting forgery: the fluid, assured, less accurate forged signature is much likelier to "pass" than the painstaking slow copy. (It was a family joke.)
I feel this is the single two-page spread that best encapsulates the book's thesis and approach: the left-hand examples are "more" accurate and painstaking, but look incredibly unconvincing; the ones on the right are less precise, but they have a dynamism that conveys assurance.
I had generally taken it as read that the way to dynamism was by starting with painstaking accuracy, but perhaps I was wrong and scribble-sketching was the road to greater accuracy! Possibly this varies by artist; I'm no art instructor either.
Regardless, I've been photocopying the exercises to do one by one. I have been attempting to get back into a sketching/drawing practice during these few weeks of vacation, where by "practice" I mean "one drawing a day." I'm recovering from some medical experiences, so I want to set the bar as low as possible rather than work myself back into the hospital.
I never push the darks dark enough (as multiple artists have gently told me), but it's all right: I know that's an issue, and since I'm aware of it, I can keep working on it, slowly, in my own time.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-15 02:44 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-15 02:44 pmEntry tags:
readings: spinning
I picked these up by raiding the local public library.
- Alden Amos. Spinning Wheel Primer.
Very brief overview, with diagrams (lineart). I skimmed this.
- Amy King. Spin Control: Techniques for Spinning the Yarn You Want.
To my relief, this covered a number of plant fibers as well as wools, animal and other protein fibers, etc. Getting a general rundown/overview was useful. Also the photos of yarns/fibers/knitted samples are very pretty! I skimmed this.
I am starting to wonder if I am a yarn mutant because I hate working with fuzzy fluffy yarns (as opposed to petting a skein once, lovingly, and moving on), especially hate thick bulky yarns (and the fuzzier and fluffier they are, the more I dislike interacting with them), and usually want to kill them with fire; but I live in the US South so "warm" is a negative recommendation for climate reasons. Less surprisingly, "the yarn you want" is addressed almost exclusively to knitters, and to spinning wheel spinning (vs. spindles).
- Jillian Moreno. Yarnitecture: A Knitter's Guide to Spinning: Building Exactly the Yarn You Want.
One of the two objectives of this library outing, highly spoken of, but I didn't want to commit to buying a copy sight unseen. It has a section on spinning silk, which I am interested in. A lot of useful information on fiber preparation and drafting and dyeing etc. There are sections dedicated to specific knitting topics, some of which may or may not be of interest for non-knitters. I am, at this point in time, profoundly uninterested in knitting as a use case for anything usable I producde. (No shade to knitters! I'm terrible at knitting and didn't enjoy it enough, after a couple years of experimenting with lace knitting, to persevere.)
- Karen Pauli. The Care and Feeding of Spinning Wheels: A Buyer's Guide and Owner's Manual.
Lineart and detailed explanations/troubleshooting tips, plus a section of considerations when making a spinning wheel if one is a woodworker, which I am not. I want to read this one more closely.
- Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.
One of the two objectives of this library outing. I wanted to have a look since this book is highly spoken of, but also I don't have a strong urge to keep spinning wool, so I was reluctant to buy a copy. This looks like it focuses on animal fibers. Hilariously, it includes a brief section on "dog, wolf, and cat."
Also, for a wild outlier in more or less the same section as some of these books:
-Jacqui Carey. Beginner's Guide to Japanese Braiding: The Art of Kumihimo.
My feelings toward kumihimo aesthetically are equivocal - terrific art but not one I feel particularly compelled to dive deeply into. Still, I enjoy skimming/reading books on crafts I have no intention of taking up.
- Alden Amos. Spinning Wheel Primer.
Very brief overview, with diagrams (lineart). I skimmed this.
- Amy King. Spin Control: Techniques for Spinning the Yarn You Want.
To my relief, this covered a number of plant fibers as well as wools, animal and other protein fibers, etc. Getting a general rundown/overview was useful. Also the photos of yarns/fibers/knitted samples are very pretty! I skimmed this.
I am starting to wonder if I am a yarn mutant because I hate working with fuzzy fluffy yarns (as opposed to petting a skein once, lovingly, and moving on), especially hate thick bulky yarns (and the fuzzier and fluffier they are, the more I dislike interacting with them), and usually want to kill them with fire; but I live in the US South so "warm" is a negative recommendation for climate reasons. Less surprisingly, "the yarn you want" is addressed almost exclusively to knitters, and to spinning wheel spinning (vs. spindles).
- Jillian Moreno. Yarnitecture: A Knitter's Guide to Spinning: Building Exactly the Yarn You Want.
One of the two objectives of this library outing, highly spoken of, but I didn't want to commit to buying a copy sight unseen. It has a section on spinning silk, which I am interested in. A lot of useful information on fiber preparation and drafting and dyeing etc. There are sections dedicated to specific knitting topics, some of which may or may not be of interest for non-knitters. I am, at this point in time, profoundly uninterested in knitting as a use case for anything usable I producde. (No shade to knitters! I'm terrible at knitting and didn't enjoy it enough, after a couple years of experimenting with lace knitting, to persevere.)
- Karen Pauli. The Care and Feeding of Spinning Wheels: A Buyer's Guide and Owner's Manual.
Lineart and detailed explanations/troubleshooting tips, plus a section of considerations when making a spinning wheel if one is a woodworker, which I am not. I want to read this one more closely.
- Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.
One of the two objectives of this library outing. I wanted to have a look since this book is highly spoken of, but also I don't have a strong urge to keep spinning wool, so I was reluctant to buy a copy. This looks like it focuses on animal fibers. Hilariously, it includes a brief section on "dog, wolf, and cat."
Also, for a wild outlier in more or less the same section as some of these books:
-Jacqui Carey. Beginner's Guide to Japanese Braiding: The Art of Kumihimo.
My feelings toward kumihimo aesthetically are equivocal - terrific art but not one I feel particularly compelled to dive deeply into. Still, I enjoy skimming/reading books on crafts I have no intention of taking up.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-15 07:25 am
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-15 07:25 amEntry tags:
DIY backpack: research
I have had the devil's own luck with backpacks, probably because I am hard on my gear, so I'm investigating making my own, likely some form of canvas for a lighter weight, although leather is what I have on hand.
I picked up Vick Koling Hines' How to Make Your Own Lightweight Camping and Hiking Gear (out of print), likely off a rec on r/myog ("make your own gear"). I've only skimmed it, but this looks like an excellent resource although the notes on materials are likely dated: not in a bad way, but in the sense that there are probably modern materials whose performance isn't discussed.
I am particularly interested in camping/hiking gear because ruggedness is a prime consideration. I don't hike anymore (alas), but I often have to tote around a heavy laptop and/or books for work reasons. Having had multiple backpacks fail on me over the years, I'd like to either DIY or learn to repair the ones that break!
I admit being able to customize pocket size and placement is also very motivating.
At this point, the most common failure point is a zipper going bad, but I've had some strap failures as well (on one case, on a leather backpack, due to a friend well-meaningly mishandling the backpack and causing too much extra load at a particular stress point that wasn't designed for it). I haven't done a zipper replacement myself, although I've seen it done by family members who opined that it's Annoying Mode even for an experienced sewist on something like a backpack, especially when curvatures are involved. The strap failure is likely, in principle, a simple repair but I have put off going in with a seam ripper in preparation for cutting and sewing in a replacement part.
I'm not typing this out, but the Table of Contents starts with a discussion of materials, closures, hardware etc, then discusses sewing and techniques, then projects ranging from garments and tents to bags and ways to customize them.
My experience is a lot of books on patterns and/or making gear will assume some basic prerequisite knowledge of e.g. handsewing or curved seams, which is not unreasonable! But this does appear to be a book that could reasonably be used as an all-in-one basis for getting started.
An example pattern excerpt:
(I am unlikely to make a tent as I suspect the materials would be more expensive than buying a well-made manufactured one!)
I picked up Vick Koling Hines' How to Make Your Own Lightweight Camping and Hiking Gear (out of print), likely off a rec on r/myog ("make your own gear"). I've only skimmed it, but this looks like an excellent resource although the notes on materials are likely dated: not in a bad way, but in the sense that there are probably modern materials whose performance isn't discussed.
I am particularly interested in camping/hiking gear because ruggedness is a prime consideration. I don't hike anymore (alas), but I often have to tote around a heavy laptop and/or books for work reasons. Having had multiple backpacks fail on me over the years, I'd like to either DIY or learn to repair the ones that break!
I admit being able to customize pocket size and placement is also very motivating.
At this point, the most common failure point is a zipper going bad, but I've had some strap failures as well (on one case, on a leather backpack, due to a friend well-meaningly mishandling the backpack and causing too much extra load at a particular stress point that wasn't designed for it). I haven't done a zipper replacement myself, although I've seen it done by family members who opined that it's Annoying Mode even for an experienced sewist on something like a backpack, especially when curvatures are involved. The strap failure is likely, in principle, a simple repair but I have put off going in with a seam ripper in preparation for cutting and sewing in a replacement part.
I'm not typing this out, but the Table of Contents starts with a discussion of materials, closures, hardware etc, then discusses sewing and techniques, then projects ranging from garments and tents to bags and ways to customize them.
My experience is a lot of books on patterns and/or making gear will assume some basic prerequisite knowledge of e.g. handsewing or curved seams, which is not unreasonable! But this does appear to be a book that could reasonably be used as an all-in-one basis for getting started.
An example pattern excerpt:
(I am unlikely to make a tent as I suspect the materials would be more expensive than buying a well-made manufactured one!)
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-15 12:30 am
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-15 12:30 amEntry tags:
Turkish drop spindle
ETA: A couple kind people on r/handspinning pointed out I had the arms on upside down, whoops! Easily fixed, fortunately. :D
This is not good spinning, but it's spinning at all. I am having a deuced difficult time attaching yarn to the leader, which I'm told is a typical learning curve issue.
The Turkish spindle I have is much lighter, at most half the weight of the bigger drop spindle from the kit I bought off Etsy. I kept running into the issue that I was attempting to spin too fine for the heavier spindle, because the yarn would break. At some later point I'll show how the Turkish spindle comes apart by design, but there are plenty of internet pictures/videos showing this. The heavier spindle also hurts my hands after a while (medical issue). I may try the supported spindle to see if that's any easier on my hands as well.
I'm convinced this is a skill issue but I cannot handle Corriedale wool at all from the kit. I'm having much better luck with some of the Blue-Faced Leicester (I have since learned that everyone in spinning abbreviates it as BFL) that I inherited along with the spinning wheel.
I don't love wool generally and would eventually like to move on to cotton or flax (or, if I obtain some prerequisite of skill, silk or silk blends). My inclination is to want to spin fine; I disliked chunky/thicker yarns texturally even when I was knitting actively, and no doubt this has something to do with coming from embroidery and cross stitch first, or just plain sensory preference.
It's true that the drop spindle is much more portable than the spinning wheel.
Meanwhile, for fiber arts, I'm convinced the most useful knots are:
- overhand/trefoil
- square knot
- granny knot (there are times you want this!)
- half-hitch
- lark's head
Those are the only five knots I can manage without looking up a knot theory book full of crossing diagrams (heh), but they cover 90% of my typical use cases. (It is as well I'm no sailor!)
readings and resources
- Abby Franquemont's Respect the Spindle (~$20 USD) is a great overview; I would have liked more help troubleshooting but that's likely a me problem, or something that's best done in person!
- Amelia Garripoli (of Ask the Bellwether, a fiber blog) has a 40-minute video tutorial on Longthread Media (paid, either streaming or download, about $15 USD). I was baffled by written descriptions of how to use a Turkish spindle and had trouble finding a YouTube video that made it make sense to me, but Garripoli is terrific at explaining slowly and clearly. I'm also aggressively slow at working things out from text/video vs. having someone walk me through the thing interactively, which is a me problem. I'll be looking for more of Garripoli's videos as her teaching style works for me.
flowersforgraves (flowersforgraves) wrote in unconventionalfanworkex2025-06-14 10:44 pm
flowersforgraves) wrote in unconventionalfanworkex2025-06-14 10:44 pmEntry tags:
Deadline passed!
With the deadline behind us, I'm happy to say there are still no pinch hits, and reveals will go on as scheduled next week. Please feel free to continue working on treats should any other requests inspire you.
flowersforgraves (flowersforgraves) wrote in unconventionalfanworkex2025-06-14 10:05 am
flowersforgraves) wrote in unconventionalfanworkex2025-06-14 10:05 amEntry tags:
Deadline Approaching!
The deadline for work submission is in approximately 12 hours. If you need an extension, now is the time to ask! You can send a DW PM or an email to default or request an extension. Any pinch hits will be posted after the official deadline.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-10 05:44 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-10 05:44 pmEntry tags:
spinning wheel repair
This turned out to be a simple repair: the leather footman joint broke, so I put in a new one. It's literally a thick leather rectangle (I'm estimating that's 12- to 16-oz leather or thereabouts, I normally don't work with thick leather!) with two holes in it, affixed to the footman and treadle through a slot through which one drives a screw. The footman is the shaft that connects the wheel to the treadle for your foot. I'd never thought of using a piece of leather as joint material, but it works quite well here and is simple to replace when it wears out.
Because I'd been reading up on antique wheel repair, I was expecting shenanigans around prising out a nail, but no! It's a simple flathead screw! The repair took under five minutes. I had to replace the drive belt as well but after having to remember the use case for a half hitch knot, I had the wheel back up and running. The hard part now is learning to spin; I'm running into what I'm told is a common learning curve newbie issue of getting the fiber (Corriedale wool, in my case, to practice on) to attach to the leader. :p
reading
Parts of a spinning wheel. There are many types! I'm new to this so I'm only vaguely acquainted with a few kinds.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-10 05:21 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-10 05:21 pmEntry tags:
manual typewriter: Antares Parva
The Antares Parva had been recommended to me as an "ultraportable" typewriter, at a "svelte" ~8.5 lbs for the machine without its case. With case, it's more like 10 lbs. But that's light enough that I could reasonably tote it to my patio table during nicer days. The Olympia SM9 is more like 17 lbs, which is starting to be hefty enough to be a pain to move although it is technically portable.
The typewriter arrived in terrific working condition from the seller off eBay. The ribbon had dried out, which is common with a manual typewriter that hasn't been in use for a while. I plan on experimenting with reinking it. I am dying to find out if aloe vera gel can be substituted for glycerin, but it's probably safer just to obtain glycerin for DIY typewriter ink. I hear tell that one can use glycerin + tube watercolor paint to DIY typewriter ink for a reinking a sacrificial cloth ribbon, so that may be in the cards...I have to have a tube of sacrificial PB60 Indanthrone Blue watercolor around here somewhere; it's a lovely pigment but one I rarely paint with.
...it took me over an hour to figure out how to thread the ribbon correctly. It's been a while since I've done this on a manual machine! But now it types beautifully. This is an older style of machine where the shift button moves the entire carriage (?) up. My Olympia SM9 has a different, probably more efficient mechanism but the details escape me right now.
I had forgotten how obnoxious typewriter ink is when one is replacing a ribbon; toss-up as to whether bicycle chain grease or typewriter ink is more obnoxious!
It also displays the weirdnesses of some older manual typewriter keyboard layouts. Like the Olympia SM9, it has no 1 (one) numeral key; instead one substitutes lowercase l (ell / L) since they look about the same in this typeface, which I think is Courier or some relative. Ditto the hacky workaround where one types a single quote/apostrophe, then backspaces to put a period under (or v.v.) to get an exclamation point.
Unlike my particular Olympia, the Antares Parva does have # (hash/pound) and * (asterisk). Clearly, using the hash tag on social media posts is an urgent use case for this machine. :)
Also unlike that particular Olympia, I don't believe the Antares Parva has a touch selector (which lets you adjust the "stiffness"/how much force is required to strikes the keys), but the action is pretty light so I don't foresee an issue.
readings
Identification of Typewriter Ribbons from a 1956 criminology article. (I assume this was for forensic reasons?!)
Tiny red supergiant: Antares Parva. Disassembly and restoration.
1960 Antares Parva [Typewriter Database]. This one had the photos that helped me work out what I'd messed up in ribbon installation!
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-09 12:09 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-09 12:09 pmEntry tags:
Clover sakiori loom: warping a rigid heddle loom
...as far as I'm now concerned, the Clover sakiori (rigid heddle) loom has the One True Rigid Heddle Design because I am lazy. This is WILDLY more convenient to warp than the Lojan Flex (about $300 USD for 20" and ~$250 USD for the 12"), although this may be a function of inexperience. The Lojan Flex has the advantage of being "upgraded/converted" to a 4-shaft table loom (with a paid kit), and you can go back and forth. I also got a 20" Lojan Flex (weaving width) while the Clover sakiori (about $325 USD from Rochester Textile; you can find them on e.g. eBay for more like $200 USD as of this writing) has a weaving width of 40 cm or about 15". It may well be that the Lojan Flex is what I use when I want to weave a little wider!
Top-down view of warping just started. The removable pegs allow you to adjust the warp length.
Closer shots of the heddle (first from above, the second from an angle), which appears to be a "fin" that lets you just "slide" the thread into place through a narrow aperture that's reasonably secure for getting the thread in while keeping it in place under tension, without having to thread it through a loop.
I'm aware that this cotton thread is WILDLY too thin, but this is a test of the loom/heddle design rather than an attempt to create a specific serious end product in weaving.
Top-down view of warping just started. The removable pegs allow you to adjust the warp length.
Closer shots of the heddle (first from above, the second from an angle), which appears to be a "fin" that lets you just "slide" the thread into place through a narrow aperture that's reasonably secure for getting the thread in while keeping it in place under tension, without having to thread it through a loop.
I'm aware that this cotton thread is WILDLY too thin, but this is a test of the loom/heddle design rather than an attempt to create a specific serious end product in weaving.
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-08 01:45 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-08 01:45 pmEntry tags:
random discussion post
What are "making things" that you're taking up for the first time, or resuming, or would like to take up in the future?
I have yet to get to the "fun" part of needle lace; I'm looking forward to an extremely tiny mini-lathe so I can learn lathe 101 from people in my family (the eventual goal is pen-turning, for which a smaller lathe is acceptable), although I will need tooling and I expect it to be a steep learning curve.
I have a 2D videogame prototype I need to get cracking on in hobbyist gamedev mode, too; I think I've finally settled on a placeholder concept for a five-minute proof of concept using placeholders. How about you?
I have yet to get to the "fun" part of needle lace; I'm looking forward to an extremely tiny mini-lathe so I can learn lathe 101 from people in my family (the eventual goal is pen-turning, for which a smaller lathe is acceptable), although I will need tooling and I expect it to be a steep learning curve.
I have a 2D videogame prototype I need to get cracking on in hobbyist gamedev mode, too; I think I've finally settled on a placeholder concept for a five-minute proof of concept using placeholders. How about you?
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-08 12:33 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-08 12:33 pmEntry tags:
sketching
Jake Spicer's How to Draw Faces in 15 Minutes (that is, the session length with your subject) is by no means the only book on the subject of portraiture, but it's a pretty good one. It's designed so you can and should sketch practice in the pages. This one runs about $10 to $20 USD, depending on whether you find it new or used.
I cheated and sketched my husband with a rollerball pen, but you know. The tool you'll actually use is the best tool.
Spicer has written a number of beginner-accessible instructional books on drawing and/or life drawing and/or figure drawing. They vary in depth depending on length but tend to overlap in content. If you flip through one and the approach vibes for you, go ahead and try it! For dipping your toes into drawing/sketching/figure or life drawing, I suspect just picking the one that appeals to you and running with it would be a perfectly good starting point. I'd done some hobbyist art instruction before so I'm not coming to this cold; but reviewing fundamentals is never bad. Even the more "casual," more beginner-oriented books cover drawing fundamentals in a very approachable way. The instruction looks very solid in those books, which sets you up for going more in depth if you want!
Spicer's books often ask you to do drawing exercises in the pages, or at least invite you to. I like this because I tend to lose sketchbooks.
a selection of the books he's written:
more in-depth
- Figure Drawing
- How to Draw
more casual
- Draw Cats in 15 Minutes
- Draw Dogs in 15 Minutes
- Draw Faces in 15 Minutes
- Draw People in 15 Minutes
- Life Drawing in 15 Minutes
- You Will Be Able to Draw by the End of This Book
- You Will Be Able to Draw by the End of This Book: Ink
- You Will Able to Draw Faces by the End of This Book
I cheated and sketched my husband with a rollerball pen, but you know. The tool you'll actually use is the best tool.
Spicer has written a number of beginner-accessible instructional books on drawing and/or life drawing and/or figure drawing. They vary in depth depending on length but tend to overlap in content. If you flip through one and the approach vibes for you, go ahead and try it! For dipping your toes into drawing/sketching/figure or life drawing, I suspect just picking the one that appeals to you and running with it would be a perfectly good starting point. I'd done some hobbyist art instruction before so I'm not coming to this cold; but reviewing fundamentals is never bad. Even the more "casual," more beginner-oriented books cover drawing fundamentals in a very approachable way. The instruction looks very solid in those books, which sets you up for going more in depth if you want!
Spicer's books often ask you to do drawing exercises in the pages, or at least invite you to. I like this because I tend to lose sketchbooks.
a selection of the books he's written:
more in-depth
- Figure Drawing
- How to Draw
more casual
- Draw Cats in 15 Minutes
- Draw Dogs in 15 Minutes
- Draw Faces in 15 Minutes
- Draw People in 15 Minutes
- Life Drawing in 15 Minutes
- You Will Be Able to Draw by the End of This Book
- You Will Be Able to Draw by the End of This Book: Ink
- You Will Able to Draw Faces by the End of This Book
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-07 10:30 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-07 10:30 pmEntry tags:
index of posts
If I've missed a post of yours for this index, please feel free to drop a link in comments or to DM the mod (foxmoth) and I'll add it when I get a chance!
drawing
- sketching and brief notes on Jake Spicer's How to Draw Faces in 15 Minutes [i.e. a 15-minute sitting with the subject].
leatherworking
- WIP: pen holder/notebook strap; cont'd.
painting: watercolor
- untested DIY lightweight travel palette.
sewing
- Singer Model 20 SewHandy, a child's (functional) hand-crank single-stitch sewing machine. Threading the machine.
spinning
- Ashford Traveler (secondhand) setup; plus Adventures in ad hoc repair attempts for a broken footman joint. An actual repair of the footman joint (under five minutes!).
- drop spindle, high-whorl.
- drop spindle, Turkish.
typewriters
- Antares Parva manual typewriter overview.
- Olympia SM9 manual typewriter overview.
weaving
- Clover sakiori rigid heddle loom, warping WIP.
- Hello Loom (a small, affordable ~pin/potholder loom variant).
foxmoth) and I'll add it when I get a chance!drawing
- sketching and brief notes on Jake Spicer's How to Draw Faces in 15 Minutes [i.e. a 15-minute sitting with the subject].
leatherworking
- WIP: pen holder/notebook strap; cont'd.
painting: watercolor
- untested DIY lightweight travel palette.
sewing
- Singer Model 20 SewHandy, a child's (functional) hand-crank single-stitch sewing machine. Threading the machine.
spinning
- Ashford Traveler (secondhand) setup; plus Adventures in ad hoc repair attempts for a broken footman joint. An actual repair of the footman joint (under five minutes!).
- drop spindle, high-whorl.
- drop spindle, Turkish.
typewriters
- Antares Parva manual typewriter overview.
- Olympia SM9 manual typewriter overview.
weaving
- Clover sakiori rigid heddle loom, warping WIP.
- Hello Loom (a small, affordable ~pin/potholder loom variant).
foxmoth (foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-07 09:15 pm
foxmoth) wrote in prototypediablerie2025-06-07 09:15 pmEntry tags:
spinning with a drop spindle
I originally picked up a $20 USD beginner drop spindle kit from Walnut Farm Designs on Etsy to find out whether I'd enjoy spinning. (I suspected I would and I was correct.)
This is not a complex tool. You could DIY with a chopstick, a whittling knife, and maybe a sacrificial CD or something. But I decided I'd rather have a tool that, I hoped, someone who knew a dang thing about spinning had designed.
I was also told that not only does the fiber type make a difference (flax, wool, silk, etc.) but the breed of sheep (etc)! This makes sense, but I confess I have never thought much about sheep beyond the Shearing Incident a friend got into during high school. Corriedale wool was recommended to me by a family friend as a great starter fiber even if one wants, ultimately, to spin something else. I have ambitions in the cotton, bamboo, and (sigh) silk directions that will undoubtedly never be realized as I prefer finer yarns and threads, as someone more comfortable with cross stitch, embroidery, and hand sewing! I also live in a hot climate so staying cozy in wool isn't in the cards.
This is one of those skills where one can understand the physics just fine (conservation of angular momentum, among others) but founder on the physical skill. I picked up a book, Abby Franquemont's Respect the Spindle: Spin Infinite Yarns with One Amazing Tool (Interweave Press, 2009) because I couldn't figure out what was going on in YouTube videos and thought photos plus text explanation in a reasonably widely recommended book might work out better.
Franquemont suggests that it normally takes spinners two to six weeks to get the hang of this. Anecdotally (me, I'm the anecdote), this tracks. I'd been traveling but it was about two or three weeks of frustrating ????? attempts before I produced a tiny bit of the world's jankiest yarn.
(Yes, it broke. Which is fine; wonky beginner yarn is normal for early learning curve spinning! The fact that yarn happened at all is encouraging! Now it's down to more practice.)
I kept foundering on starting the yarn at all. My guess, as a novice, is some combination of the following:
- not nearly enough twist in the leader. It should, apparently, be twisted to heck and gone to work at all, not milquetoast weaksauce twisting.
- I kept switching to a fiber that was gifted to me by the family friend because it was prettier. (Look, everyone in fiber arts I've met is weak for pretty/pettable fiber!) She had, however, warned me that this would be harder to learn on and that the Corriedale I showed her from the kit was a much better "starter" fiber. The russet yarn/fiber is the Corriedale.
- I kept messing up the physical motion of switching my hand positions from adding twist to the leader to starting to draft, which is the part where you're tugging the fibers gently apart from your supply and "feeding" them to the spindle as you hold the yarn (+ leader, to start) pinched so that the twist is forced to transfer from the leader to the fiber-into-yarn as the spindle spins and "releases" the twist. I kept losing the pinch so that the twist "escaped." Or I just straight-up dropped the whole assembly!
- I kept trying instead the Turkish spindle (which is low-whorl?) that came with the wheel as an extra, and couldn't get the hang of it after acclimating (badly) to the high-whorl spindle you see in the photos. Maybe later!
Regardless, as I wait for a replacement leather footman joint so I can fix up the secondhand Ashford Traveller spinning wheel, I will practice with the drop spindle! What I like about this is that it's much more portable than a spinning wheel. The family friend also told me that a drop spindle is a great way to get started because it's much slower than a wheel, and it helps one become acquainted on a more physical, direct level with the mechanics of spinning. According to her (and I believe her), spinning with a wheel becomes easier after one becomes fluent in spinning with a spindle.
Down the line, perhaps the poor cat will have her massive amounts of hair worked into cat-hair-supplemented yarn? She's a medium hair with almost no guard hairs to speak of; her fur is incredibly soft, softer than most cashmere I've handled. I'm sure she's thrilled (not) at the prospect of furmination. :)
readings
Korean spinning wheel. Looks mayyyybe like it's a little like a charkha, but I haven't gotten a chance to look closely at a charka, although I have a more affordable 3D printed one on order (~$30 USD). The bamboo wheel construction looks clever: I'm guessing the strips for the outer rim of the wheel would have been worked with newly cut bamboo, possibly soaked to help it flex, and then allowed to dry/cure in place, but someone with real experience of woodworking and/or (e.g.) reed/basket-weaving would have to weigh in. I've read up on some of the technique but have not tried it myself.
First steps in charkha spinning. Apparently often used traditionally to spin e.g. cotton?
Paengi: Korean spinning tops. One theory is that they're derived from/related to drop spindles. Whipping this style of top to make it spin is surprisingly tricky. I've seen it demonstrated and never picked up the hang of it myself.
This is not a complex tool. You could DIY with a chopstick, a whittling knife, and maybe a sacrificial CD or something. But I decided I'd rather have a tool that, I hoped, someone who knew a dang thing about spinning had designed.
I was also told that not only does the fiber type make a difference (flax, wool, silk, etc.) but the breed of sheep (etc)! This makes sense, but I confess I have never thought much about sheep beyond the Shearing Incident a friend got into during high school. Corriedale wool was recommended to me by a family friend as a great starter fiber even if one wants, ultimately, to spin something else. I have ambitions in the cotton, bamboo, and (sigh) silk directions that will undoubtedly never be realized as I prefer finer yarns and threads, as someone more comfortable with cross stitch, embroidery, and hand sewing! I also live in a hot climate so staying cozy in wool isn't in the cards.
This is one of those skills where one can understand the physics just fine (conservation of angular momentum, among others) but founder on the physical skill. I picked up a book, Abby Franquemont's Respect the Spindle: Spin Infinite Yarns with One Amazing Tool (Interweave Press, 2009) because I couldn't figure out what was going on in YouTube videos and thought photos plus text explanation in a reasonably widely recommended book might work out better.
Franquemont suggests that it normally takes spinners two to six weeks to get the hang of this. Anecdotally (me, I'm the anecdote), this tracks. I'd been traveling but it was about two or three weeks of frustrating ????? attempts before I produced a tiny bit of the world's jankiest yarn.
(Yes, it broke. Which is fine; wonky beginner yarn is normal for early learning curve spinning! The fact that yarn happened at all is encouraging! Now it's down to more practice.)
I kept foundering on starting the yarn at all. My guess, as a novice, is some combination of the following:
- not nearly enough twist in the leader. It should, apparently, be twisted to heck and gone to work at all, not milquetoast weaksauce twisting.
- I kept switching to a fiber that was gifted to me by the family friend because it was prettier. (Look, everyone in fiber arts I've met is weak for pretty/pettable fiber!) She had, however, warned me that this would be harder to learn on and that the Corriedale I showed her from the kit was a much better "starter" fiber. The russet yarn/fiber is the Corriedale.
- I kept messing up the physical motion of switching my hand positions from adding twist to the leader to starting to draft, which is the part where you're tugging the fibers gently apart from your supply and "feeding" them to the spindle as you hold the yarn (+ leader, to start) pinched so that the twist is forced to transfer from the leader to the fiber-into-yarn as the spindle spins and "releases" the twist. I kept losing the pinch so that the twist "escaped." Or I just straight-up dropped the whole assembly!
- I kept trying instead the Turkish spindle (which is low-whorl?) that came with the wheel as an extra, and couldn't get the hang of it after acclimating (badly) to the high-whorl spindle you see in the photos. Maybe later!
Regardless, as I wait for a replacement leather footman joint so I can fix up the secondhand Ashford Traveller spinning wheel, I will practice with the drop spindle! What I like about this is that it's much more portable than a spinning wheel. The family friend also told me that a drop spindle is a great way to get started because it's much slower than a wheel, and it helps one become acquainted on a more physical, direct level with the mechanics of spinning. According to her (and I believe her), spinning with a wheel becomes easier after one becomes fluent in spinning with a spindle.
Down the line, perhaps the poor cat will have her massive amounts of hair worked into cat-hair-supplemented yarn? She's a medium hair with almost no guard hairs to speak of; her fur is incredibly soft, softer than most cashmere I've handled. I'm sure she's thrilled (not) at the prospect of furmination. :)
readings
Korean spinning wheel. Looks mayyyybe like it's a little like a charkha, but I haven't gotten a chance to look closely at a charka, although I have a more affordable 3D printed one on order (~$30 USD). The bamboo wheel construction looks clever: I'm guessing the strips for the outer rim of the wheel would have been worked with newly cut bamboo, possibly soaked to help it flex, and then allowed to dry/cure in place, but someone with real experience of woodworking and/or (e.g.) reed/basket-weaving would have to weigh in. I've read up on some of the technique but have not tried it myself.
First steps in charkha spinning. Apparently often used traditionally to spin e.g. cotton?
Paengi: Korean spinning tops. One theory is that they're derived from/related to drop spindles. Whipping this style of top to make it spin is surprisingly tricky. I've seen it demonstrated and never picked up the hang of it myself.