Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

8. Use Magnets to Track Pattern

The bottom of my beater bar is metal, so I attach my treadling pattern to it with magnets. Instead of marking off where I am, I group blocks (typically 4 picks) and then slide the magnet to the next block when I complete one.

This is faster than pulling out a pencil and makes it easy to visually see where I am and what's next.

#weaving

2. Maintaining the Cross

Lease sticks maintain your cross while dressing the loom to prevent counting mistakes when threading, but many instructions have you remove them after threading, I (like some Scandinavian weavers) leave them on to the end of the project.

This saved me in this project when I notice threading mistakes after I start to weave, and when a warp thread was missing entirely.

#weaving

The second attempt is looking good for this 3D printed case for my knitting clock. Along with fixing some mistakes in my design, I also modified it so that it could print for the most part without supports. There was one area where that was unavoidable, so I added in basic supports. While there is a little cleanup where it bridged there, it's much less than I saw when I enabled internal supports in the first print.

#3dprinting

See if you can spot the treadling errors! I managed to make the same mistake three different times in pattern repeats so far. Combined with the threading mitsake from earlier, this is rapidly becoming the "warm up" towel where I hopefully get all of the mistakes out of my system before the next two.

#weaving

We are 40 hours in and the structure that holds the knitting machine itself is completed. All that is left are the walls which also have button and motor mounts in them.

#3dprinting #knitting #electronics

After almost 16 hours, the case for my knitting clock is starting to take shape. You can now make out the central structure that will hold the knitting machine itself in place. While I tried to reduce overhangs, due to the nature of this model there still are quite a few so there will be a lot of internal support material to remove when this is done.

#3dprinting #knitting #electronics

I've been quiet about my hackaday-inspired knitting clock project ever since I decided to replace the 48-hook machine with a 22-hook model, but that's because I've been busy learning 3D modeling!

I realized the new 22-hook knitting machine fits on my 3D printer bed, so instead of a wooden case, I designed a custom case for it using Tinkercad. I just started an epic 2 day, 8-hour print of the case that takes up my entire print bed!

#3dprinting #knitting #electronics

After weaving quite a few inches into the towel I thought something looked off and discovered I was missing a thread!

If you find the pin in the picture you can see that part of the pattern just looks a bit off. Follow that line up to where the thread finally is threaded and you can see where the pattern got corrected after I added a new warp thread.

#weaving

I finished tying on the new warp to the old and have started weaving the first of three towels. Beyond the different colored yarn, I also modified this design in two ways, taking advantage of the reversible nature of this doubleweave overshot pattern:

1. Since there is no "right" side to this, I reversed the color for almost 2/3 of the hem at the bottom so when I fold it, it matches the color on its own side.

2. I extended the inverted color of the pattern stripe.

#weaving #Fiberuary

Halfway through tying a new warp onto the remnants of the old. Wow this is tedious work, and there is at least 3 more hours to go, but I still think it is faster and less error-prone than re-threading it.

#weaving #Fiberuary

I'm weaving a new set of towels using the same doubleweave overshot pattern as the last set, but this time using yellow and brown unmercerized cotton.

Because the pattern is the same, I can save time by tying my new warp onto the remnants of the old warp that are still threaded in the loom. You simply use a weaver's knot to tie each individual new warp thread to a corresponding old warp thread and then wind it back on. Only about 550 warp threads to go!

#weaving #Fiberuary

More progress on my knitting clock. I've mounted all of the main components to the backer board. I also wired two buttons to GPIO pins and wrote a simple script to advance the machine forward and backwards one stitch with the buttons. I'll likely use this when I'm casting on and casting off.

The top of the clock will be where the stepper motor is. Now that I know how the pieces fit, I will cut the top so it is house-shaped, and build the sides and front of the clock.

#knitting #electronics

I knitted a shawl! Well, the flatbed knitting machine did a lot of the work, but I helped. This was the second attempt as I ran out of yarn halfway through for the first attempt and the local yarn store only had the single skein. I ended up selecting a different yarn for this attempt.

#knitting #machineknitting

All the functional pieces of my hackaday-inspired knitting clock are in place:

* Working circular knitting machine
* Spare Raspberry Pi I had lying around
* Adafruit motor control hat
* Spare stepper motor from a broken 3D printer
* Software to control the stepper motor

The next and more challenging step is to figure out the best way to attach the motor to the knitting machine and build an attractive case to mount everything.

#knitting #electronics #rpi #raspberrypi

I rotate through my set of favorite razors whenever it's time to change the blade. The Gilette Fat Boy and Slim (far left in picture) are great razors, as is the red tip (3rd from left). Yet each time I rotate to the Stahly Live Blade (center of picture) I'm surprised and impressed again at how well it shaves.

I don't know if it's the fact that it vibrates, or the design of the head, but with a new sharp blade it beats everything else in my collection. Underrated razor.

#shaving

The best way to get over the fear of messing up something you have handwoven is to put it to use right away!

#weaving

I finished weaving my pair of doubleweave overshot hand towels! I'm really happy with how these turned out.

In these pictures you can see how the colors invert on the opposite side of the towel. On one towel I experimented with inverting the colors for the stripe and I think it does add an extra dimension and visual interest to it, but I'm also curious which of the two you prefer. I also subtly modified the pattern on that one so the pattern around the stripe was symmetrical.

#weaving

Another batch of vintage Knitking magazines arrived! This is an even larger batch than the last one from the late 80s and early 90s, and spans the years 1972 through 1978. I have the full year's worth of issues in some cases in this batch.

My wife reviewed the last batch and while she found many of the pictures amusing, she didn't want me to try to make any of them. We'll see whether this batch from the `70s does any better!

#knitting #machineknitting #vintage

For the second fancy hand towel, I'm experimenting with inverting the colors for the stripe section. I like the effect but now I'm wondering whether it would be even better to invert the colors for the borders around the stripe as well. The problem is, now that I've committed to this, I can't really try that idea out on the other half of this towel without making it asymmetrical.

#weaving

I finished weaving the first in a pair of fancy hand towels. From this angle you can see how the doubleweave overshot technique makes the pattern reversible--the opposite side of the fabric has the same pattern but the colors are inverted. I also somehow leveled up on my selvedges partway through this towel.

These are for us to use and don't have to be a matching pair, so I'm going to experiment with a different stripe pattern for the second one.

#weaving