Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

@yaelwrites The aircraft carrier tour was great.

@yaelwrites Having newcomers join a geeky thing triggers the well-actuallys in geeks. I'd say half of it comes from a good place ("let me help!"), the other half from a patronizing place ("listen to the expert, kid").

I've now hit the halfway point in #weaving this fabric for a tote bag. When I get to this point I add a series of colored stripes. This does two things:

* Adds a little surprise when someone looks at the bottom of the tote

* (More importantly) Marks the center line for the fabric so I have reference points to mirror the measurements on the second half, and also assists me when sewing up the tote later.

I finished #weaving the center pattern for this side of the tote bag. It will run horizontally across the center of the tote and the brown toned pattern above and below will act like a background.

@josh It was like watching a slow motion vegetarian slasher flick. You could see the path the voles were winding underground and the direction they were heading. Two days later the next plant would fall over.

@yaelwrites The most productive breakfast I have is a bowl of rolled oatmeal (coffee is first thing in the morning). It's fast to prepare (3 mins in the microwave), healthy, and most importantly, filling, so I can get pretty far into my day before I need to eat something else.

@JoanESheldon Thanks! Yes I ended up unweaving it at least *twice* because the first iteration of the new pattern had tan inside the purple block and I switched it to white.

But that's the risk when you are making a pattern up on the fly. Now there is no more improvisation to do, all the patterns are decided, so the rest should go quickly.

@josh @plants Voles are... challenging. After they decimated our vegetable garden one year, we ultimately resorted to moving our entire garden to raised beds with wire mesh at the bottom, and anything outside of that was planted inside a gopher cage.

Update: I slept on it and woke up early to try out a tan background with a different foreground pattern. I think this is the one. #weaving

I'm not entirely sure about this transition to white background and purple foreground. It seems almost too stark a contrast. I'm going to sleep on it but I might take this out and use a tan background instead.

@origamilady This is a four shaft jack loom I got for free on Craigslist along with shuttles, and bench, and accessories. I was told it was from the 1950s but no branding on it except for a wooden "Towle" on the first harness and research hasn't turned anything up.

I also have a Kromski rigid heddle that I started out with and still use when the floor loom is busy.

I added a fourth color and a new pattern to my fabric. It's starting to get... complicated... #weaving

@Thalass **looks around nervously** yeah I totally agree...

@jzb Yes I just got a flatbed knitting machine that is programmable with punch cards (https://social.librem.one/@kyle/109293539394599154), but apparently there are also electronically-controlled ones as well. This sort of tech seems to have hit its heyday in the `90s from the bit of research I've gathered so far.

Adafruit had a project to "modernize" the interface to one:

https://learn.adafruit.com/electroknit

Found out from my local yarn store that a regional yarn store had new-in-box electronic #knitting machines on sale incredibly cheap. Unfortunately (fortunately?) they had sold out by the time I called them. Not that I had the space for one, but it seemed too good to pass up.

@Viss Have you tried refreshing the tab to trigger it to reload?

@Wildbill @jorge And I'm digging having all the conversations I care about be over here now :) Looking forward to the day when I no longer have to do cross-posting.