Maintenance

 

Work has come to a halt on the spinning front.  I have an electric spinner, and it has, slowly over time, been working more and more erratically, as in not holding the speed it has been set to spin at.  At first it was only a mild fluctuation, but gradually the variation has gotten worse, to the point where it was frustrating and my results were...variable.

Having a handy in-house maintenance person who seems to enjoy tinkering, I explained what was going on and when I finished the burgundy rolags, he tore the spinner apart to see if there was a bad solder connection or some other reason for the inconsistent behaviour.

When all looked to be ok there, he called someone he knew to come and take a look at the speed controller and after taking a long hard look at the set up and then using a testing tool, he diagnosed that the part was not working properly and needed replacing.

Doug is never shy about checking websites, and eventually between Jim and himself, he found a supplier of the part and just now ordered some spares.

Thing is, the business that made this spinner is no longer in business and whatever warranty they might have provided (plus my initial inquiry about the problem to the business wasn't very helpful anyway) long ago lapsed so I had no qualms about letting Doug and Jim have a go at getting it working again.

My desire to spin down my fibre stash is strong, so I even paid for courier delivery from the warehouse in Texas, and Doug bought four of the parts.  They are 'cheap' and the point is to have a part that works, plus spares should they be necessary.

All being well, the parts should be here by the end of the week.  

So, my spinning is on hiatus until the necessary maintenance is done.

In the meantime, I have hemming again.  Yesterday I finished the grey warp, cut/serged the mats, wet finished them, including their hard press.  Then because that warp seemed to go ok, I wound another mat warp.  This one will be a gift for the guild treasurer, a thank you for all the work she is doing with the Sunday Seminar Series.  I have two more colour combinations pulled and may do a couple more warps on the Leclerc before I switch back to the Megado and start making scarves.

I realized that my making dozens of things in order to use up one of my yarns entirely (or as close to that as I can manage) probably isn't the best strategy right now.  So I expect that my series weaving will be shorter - both in terms of numbers of things woven and time involved.

The tea towels served a purpose and I'm not sorry I made so many.  Once I had the nuts and bolts of the quality of cloth I wanted, I didn't need to think much any more, just choose colours that appealed to me and then just go do.

But hopefully the pandemic will begin to be suppressed now and I'm beginning to look forward, to the 'after', the life beyond the pandemic.

The first of the seminar series happened on Sunday, and there is a pretty good chance that I will do more for 2022.  But that decision will be made around May or June.  In the meantime, I'm making a list.  If there is someone *you* would like to participate, I can consider that person if you let me know.  Email please laura at laurafry dot com