Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

So I bought a set of vintage Knitking magazines from the late 1980s, early `90s so I could learn more about garment construction for my knitting machine and... wow...

#knitting #machineknitting

It was officially cold enough when I got to my office this morning (~5C) that I broke out my new fingerless mittens I made on my knitting machine a few weeks back. I did a pretty poor job stitching them together but they do the job!

#knitting #machineknitting

Just finished measuring out 600 2.5yd warp threads for my next project: a pair of hand towels woven with a doubleweave overshot pattern. In my enthusiasm I actually overshot (pun always intended) the thread count. I originally only needed 540 threads (16.75" wide towels), but now I'm just going to extend the warp to be 18" wide (576 threads) and have wider towels.

Why not use all 600 threads? My overshot pattern repeats at 18 and I don't want to figure out how to divide it. #weaving

The latest edition to my office is a vintage Warmink wall clock from the 1960s I got as a gift. Unlike the vintage alarm clock I tried in my office before, this has a quiet and slow tick, and a pleasant chime on the hour and half hour. Plus it tracks moon phases!

I will likely be spending the next few weeks adjusting the pendulum and minute hand so it keeps perfect time. #vintage #clocks

@kirschner I finally got a chance to sit down and read Ada & Zangemann and I enjoyed it! I thought it was a cute story overall, and appropriate for the age groups it is targeting.

I also appreciated how it took a traditional children's morality tale format and modernized it with practical hardware/software ethics in a relatable way, but not in a way that made you feel preached to or talked down to. Would recommend!

Thank you everyone for all of your great suggestions. It seems the consensus is to try out Tinkercad first so that's what I will do.

Hello 3D printing and CAD folks, I would like some advice:

I want to introduce my 10-year-old son to simple 3D modeling and CAD so he could design objects to send to our 3D printer. I am looking for software that is easy to use, even if functionality is limited, FOSS if possible. I have no CAD skills myself, and opening FreeCAD for the first time was pretty intimidating. I would also prefer something GUI/mouse-based, not declarative (ie not OpenSCAD).

#3dprinting

Beer Update: It's alive! The first few days the beer was perfectly still with no sign of life (the yeast were reproducing), but now a week in you can see bubbles on the top and the airlock is bubbling away. This means the yeast is alive and happily converting sugars into alcohol and CO2.

This is a lager yeast so it will hang out more at the bottom of the container compared to ale yeasts. In a few weeks they will run out of food and settle to the bottom.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

Walking through Universal Studios seeing a lot of Harry Potter scarves. I guess I am getting some confidence as a weaver (and even a machine knitter) because after inspecting one up close in a shop my first thought was "oh, I could make something better than that easily..." #weaving #knitting #machineknitting

I thought it would be nice to begin the year with a little Sense and Sensibility. I haven't read this novel yet, but I really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice when I read it about two years back so I have great expectations.

#reading #janeausten #books

All that's left is for me to clean my equipment. With the Grainfather this means pouring some water into it, adding some brewing cleaning (PBW in my case) heat the water, and then pump it through it and the counterflow chiller for 10 minutes, replace with fresh water, and then rinse for 10 minutes.

Thank you everyone who stuck with the thread to this point. It was fun sharing the brewing day with everyone. Feel free to post any questions you may have.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

With the last bit of wort pumped into the carboy, I pitch my yeast, add an airlock to the top, fill it with vodka, and the brewing process is done. I will move the carboy to a temperature-controlled chamber where it will ferment for a few weeks, then lager for a few more weeks, before I transfer it to a keg.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

As the wort pumps into the carboy, I redirect a bit into a cylinder so I can take a gravity measurement (in this case I was right on target: 1.050!). This measures the specific gravity of the liquid compared to plain water and approximates the amount of sugar you have in your wort. Later when the beer is done fermenting I will take another reading and use the difference to determine how much sugar was converted into alcohol.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer

With enough cool water flowing through the system, the counterflow chiller can chill the wort enough to go into the fermentation vessel (plastic carboy) within a few minutes. I have an in-line thermometer I use to monitor the temperature of the wort leaving the counterflow chiller and when it's within the right range I stop the pump, move the wort output to my carboy, and start the pump again, pumping the cool wort into the carboy.

#brewing #happybrewyear #beer