I hate it when you’re trying to call someone and all you get all day is the busy signal. *grumble*
The Wheel Is Here! [FIXED]
I received my new wheel, a Louet Victoria (S95) last Friday, but with moving and such didn’t get to use it right away. On Saturday when I did try the singles I spun were great, the wheel was amazing, and everything seemed fine. The next day I tried Navajo plying the singles and it just wasn’t happening. Then the wheel started fighting with me, making this really loud screeching sound that worried me so I stopped to check things out. It turned out the wheel was forcing the screw holding the footman bearing into place out.
The screw could not come out all the way and thus make the bearing fall off because the footman was holding it in place. It could only come out as far as the empty space inside the cup of the footman would allow.
After asking around to see if this was something I could fix myself or not, I contacted the dealer I bought the wheel from to see what could be done. He contacted Louet and got them to send me a bolt assembly that could be used instead of the screw that would fix the problem. Apparently it’s not something that happens often, but it does happen. Rest assured, the letter they sent with the part mentioned that second-generation Victoria’s would be assembled with the bolt instead to prevent it from happening at all in the future.
The repair itself was pretty simple. You drill a hole through the wheel where the hole for the screw is, then put the metal bushing provided into this hole. After removing the white plastic bushing from the bearing, you put the bearing on the bolt provided, with a split washer and regular washer between it and the wheel, and then just tighten the bolt into the metal bushing.
I didn’t attempt pictures of this step because the lighting was bad and because a camera can’t really show you the inside of a hole that small very well either. But when you are done (and it’s easier than it sounds, the repair took a matter of minutes) you will have a nice secure bearing that won’t be forced out of the wheel. It’s much the same as the way the wheel itself is attached to the base.
It also doesn’t make the wheel look much different than it did before. In fact, I suspect other than the fact that the bolt used is black most people wouldn’t notice a difference at all.
Things are good
I’ve got a new spindle that is very beautiful and well-balanced which is helping immensely to improve my technique.
I’ve got the money for a spinning wheel and just need to get ahold of the not-so-local yarn store that sells them so I can go pick one up.
I’m making some progress on several of the pairs of socks that I started for myself last year.
I’ve started a pair of socks for Dean that is coming along swimmingly.
I’m working on Peacock Tapestry again.
I got a haircut that looks nothing like any haircut I’ve ever had before.
Disconnecting from teh internets now
So, I’m doing it again. It’s 2:30am and I’m still up doing a really simple assignment that I just can’t seem to focus on. I officially suck at this school thing now.
That's Enough School For Me
I’m really sick of school now. It’s very obvious when writing a presentation on weakness of will and yet displaying that same characteristic. The glaring criticisms in this essay are still not enough to motivate me.
After several failed attempts over the last few days of turning this into some semblance of a coherent presentation, I’m finally getting somewhere but it is slow going. I’ve been sitting here for the last three hours trying to get a handout together for the morning. It’s at the halfway point and I’m really getting tempted to just go to sleep. At first I wasn’t sure that Hill had it right that you feel shame when you realize your will is weak, but right now I’m ashamed that rather than doing my best I just want sleep.
I’ve emailed WPL and told them that I won’t be coming in tomorrow (I’ll most likely be sleeping in preparation for class or still trying to finish this thing) and am so scatterbrained at the moment that pretty much anything is a distraction.
What makes it worse is I know that I probably would have had this done days ago if I wasn’t so preoccupied with WLUSP stuff. Lately there have been a lot of updates to WordPress and I’ve been upgrading all the sites and trying to keep on top of all the plugins and necessary theme changes. Mix that with creating a hiring website, a lot of customizations to the other to get the Pages feature to behave like the regular blog posts and a main page that just won’t behave no matter what lengths I go to and you have one frustrated and distracted gal.
That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing since Friday morning, with my sporadic attempts at a presentation in the interim. I might have missed my academic counselling appointment on Friday as well, though part of me thinks it might be this coming Friday I doubt I’ll be that lucky. I guess tomorrow before my presentation I’ll find out about that and see what I can do.
There’s still three essays, a take-home exam, and a final to get through before this is over. I hope I don’t have a meltdown before I get there.
More Yarn!
Though it took a day later than I thought, I have pictures for you.
This one’s more accurate to the colour, though I used the magic of Photoshop to try and fix the other as well.
These skeins are the same size as the first batch. I have yet to measure and find out the yardage or weight of them though.
I made yarn!
I actually meant to post this before Reading Week, but in the midst of packing and such it just didn’t get done as planned. Anyway, I made yarn. In the last six weeks I’ve been taking a spinning class in order to improve my technique and to expand on what I’ve taught myself. The benefit to doing it is they let you borrow one of their wheels for the duration of the course. I don’t like this particular wheel much, but it has taught me what to look for and what to avoid in the one I get for myself.
So far I’ve made these:
The two on the outside are Crown Mountain Farms superwash roving in the Ain’t No Mountain High Enough colourway. It’s been two-plied into sock yarn. I really love this stuff. I finished some more sock yarn in Wild Thing over Reading Week and should have pictures of it later today. I also ordered a couple more colours that should arrive tomorrow.
The middle-right yarn was some roving we were given to mess with in class. I have no idea what it is. Wool, definitely, but beyond that I have no clue. It’s been navajo-plied, my first attempt, and that seemed to go really well. This yarn runs from lace-weight to worsted, since the green was an incredibly thin single, the white was slightly larger, and the blue was even thicker than that.
The middle-left yarn is a mixture of a whole bunch of fibres. We were learning to use hand carders and could pick from lots of stuff to blend. It has several different kinds of wool, mohair, and corn silk. Maybe some other things but those are what I remember.
The middle one was the first that I spun on the wheel. It’s wool again, but rather coarse. I brought it home with me and the cats confiscated it, so whether or not it gets found will dictate what it can be made into. My cats like eating things that resemble string.
I Had An Adventure
My computer has been making this weird buzzing sound pretty much since I got it but I’d been putting off doing anything about it, after the mess that resulted whenever I tried to get Dell to fix anything.
Turns out that was silly and I could have fixed this in November with no problems. I called Apple last Thursday and was only on the phone with them for 5 minutes (as opposed to the hour+ that happened with Dell every time) and they believed what I said and thought that it was my screen inverter being the problem.
I found out all I had to do was bring my computer in to any of the places around that sell them and they could fix it there. Sweet! At first I was going to bring it to UW since that’s closest but their tech guy isn’t around as much as the one at Carbon Computing is. So I dropped it off there.
After taking a look at it Dale (the really nice repair guy) called me and said that he can’t get it to make the stupid noise, but that half of the backlights on my screen were dead. I didn’t realize there was something that major wrong with the screen, but it explained a lot. My screen had always looked kinda dark since I got it, but I thought that was normal since people had said these screens had a tendency to be unevenly lit. Whoops.
So not only did they replace my screen, but the cables and inverter and anything else that might have been messing with my screen. Since I picked up the computer yesterday there’s been no more weird noises and the screen just looks so much BETTER. It’s scary how bad it was in comparison. Dell had taught me to accept crap as the usual way of things. *sigh*
This week I also bought one of those orange iPod Shuffle’s from the Apple Store. It’s so cute and works wonderfully. I had to go pick it up today since it was originally sent to the depot in Guelph and the Purolator guy has tried to deliver it since Wednesday with no luck.
I don’t know what’s up with that. For some reason he couldn’t figure out how to buzz up here or something, since he said he was here on Wednesday and didn’t know the number. It’s the same as the apartment number and they are clearly labelled! They apparently called here at 7am yesterday and woke Katie up, and she told them that the buzzer is the same.
That didn’t help, since the guy tried again and said he couldn’t figure it out. So I called Purolator myself and explained (while trying not to sound angry at the apparently simple people that work there). Instead of trying again today they gave up and dropped it off last night at the Purolator place by Conestoga Mall.
The whole thing just seemed so stupid. I honestly don’t think the guy actually found this place, since he claims to have buzzed but I have the tracking to know around what time and people were here. Hell, three of the four of us were here both times he claims he buzzed. I don’t know what to think. I’m just glad my iPod didn’t end up lost as a result of this.
Sleep is Good.
I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. I’ll either end up going to bed really late or getting up early and not being able to get back to sleep. Yesterday was the worst. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. When Dean left for work at 6am I tried again, and had just fallen asleep after 7am when my sister called. I might have been able to sleep after that but she was on the phone until almost 10am and I had to be at the library after that. *sigh*
Everyone's a junkie…even knitters
I finished knitting Monkey on Sunday and I have to say these are my new favourite socks. They are so comfortable and warm it’s great.
(click for insanely-large detail pic)
I’m a little obsessed with this pattern now since it looks so complicated but is very easy to do and remember. Though I will admit at first my sizing was a little off and I had to go up a needle size for the cuff. Plus as I was going I kept getting distracted and had to frog a few rows here and there since I lost track of my place.
Still, I love this pattern and see it becoming like Pomatomus and the Jaywalker sock patterns in the sense that every knitter in the blogosphere will have done it at some point.
Such patterns really are an addiction.