I Like Making Things...

So, I'm spinning. I have even MADE REAL YARN. I am so impressed with myself :-)



Anyway, Yarn Skein One was done up on a niddy noddy made of TinkerToys. Hey, I needed one, and we had them hanging around in a closet (Aside: we also have Lego and Duplo bricks, Brio trains, and wooden blocks. I keep them around for visiting small people. Or big people who like to play with Lego.)



That niddy noddy was good for one go around. I was skeining up some yarn last night, and it just really did not want to stay together. I could buy a nice wooden niddy noddy, but it would take long driving (Newberg, Carlton), or ordering online (waiting....). And it would only make one skein size.

Enter the PVC niddy noddy. All credit goes to The Anticraft, which provided the instructions and parts list.

A walk to Home Depot, where there were approximately 2 sales people for every customer (Black Friday, big day, all hands on deck), and one attached himself to me, so I read off my parts list and he helped me find everything. He was not inclined to cut it up for me (foo), so it was either going to be the hacksaw at home, or investing in a PVC cutter. Now there are other people who cut up PVC at our house a lot more often than I do, so I bought one. Plus I can cut it up now, too, should I have the overwhelming urge to reduce a 10' length of PVC to its component molecules. We did cut it into 2 pieces, which made the walk home easier.

Pedestrian aside: Between my house and Home Depot, a distance of, oh 1.5 miles, there are darn few sidewalks, narrow streets, ditches, poor sightlines... Walking holding 2 long pieces of PVC does cause motorists to notice. No one interfered with me in the crosswalks, or buzzed me on the walk home.

Sanded all the printing off the PVC. I started with coarse sandpaper and a sanding block, then finished it with very fine sandpaper. Wiped everything off, went inside, measured, and cut. I also wrote the resultant skein length on each body section, so I'd not have to look it up. By swapping out the body section, I can make a skein of a different diameter. One bit of clarification on the instructions - they call for 7/8" O-rings. By that they mean 7/8" OD (outer diameter) O-rings.



Pics detailing the construction.

Meet my Uncle Arthur

In previous posts, I've alluded to my uncle, whose life experiences got me into cycling. He's led a couple of bike tours for AYH, way back in the day, owned a bike shop, and is still riding. Arthur is my mom's younger brother. He's 12 years my senior.



He's currently on a road trip around the country, visiting relatives. He was here this past week, and he brought his bike, so we could go for a ride. First, there was a tire with a slow leak needing fixing, plus some brake adjustment. How many former shop owners and amateur wrenches does it take to fix these things? :-) My job was to provide tools - "do you have an (x)?" I always produced the (x). Arthur was impressed. The only tool I would have wanted to have that I didn't (and he didn't ask for it, but it would have been cool) is the Park Master Link Plier.

That all managed, I had to provide a route. Would we do an inner-Portland coffee-shop ride, or some of my favorite countryside around Forest Grove? Friend Rickey emailed wanting to do a ride as well, so we settled on a 20 mile flat loop out of The Grand Lodge, in Forest Grove.

Rickey: "you don't look old enough to be her uncle!". Art: "I'm not."

So we (Fitz, Art, me, Rickey, Kyle) headed out of Forest Grove on the following planned route:
W on Pacific,
L on Ritchey,
L on Stringtown
R on Dilley
R on Hwy 47
R on Old Hwy 47, go to the Lake Store
continue S to Gaston (forget the road names)
East on Gaston Rd to Spring Hill
R on Fern Hill
return to Grand Lodge.Eat tots.

Stringtown Road did not disappoint - the nursery out there was spectacular.

As we were riding with Rickey, there was a route adjustment - he wanted to climb Carpenter Creek and descend Plumlee. Those not up to the climbage could either take the original route, or walk it. We all went for it. No one walked it.





A pause for pictures and admiring the view, then on through Dilley and Old Hwy 47 to the Lake Store, for snacks.



Through Gaston and heading back north along Spring Hill, again by another favorite nursery where Hardebeck Rd comes in. The wheatfields smell heavenly.

At this point we've probably ridden a bit further than Arthur is used to. But it is flat now, and really, we are just about done. Really. Only a few more miles.



Nice lunch at the Grand Lodge afterward.

A Lace Scarf

A friend: "isn't making lace done by tatting?". Well that's one way. Also bobbin lace, crochet, and knitting.



I've been wanting to try knitted lace. The Branching Out scarf pattern seemed a good place to start - it had all the lace techniques (well, most of them, and all the common ones) in it, and, in theory, wasn't a hard project.

I had a large amount of Schaefer Anne fingering weight yarn leftover from some socks, by weight it appeared to be sufficient.

And so I cast on, and started out. Having learned from the Pink Ribbon Socks that it is really annoying to rip the whole thing out when you've made a mistake and can't figure out how to fix it, I put in lifelines after each pattern repeat (10 rows). The first 6 repeats were error-free. Piece of cake. I almost did not put in a lifeline after repeat 6. Good think I did - I think I did repeat 7 at least 5 times.



Error analysis showed that something was going wrong between pattern rows 3 and 5. I'd probably forget a yarn over.

My error correction techniques involved blowing up the lace chart so it was more easily readable and marking out logical (to me) groups of stitches, putting markers in the knitting, and running an additional lifeline after row 4. And slavishly counting stitches at the end of each row.

It worked, and I proceeded along with much less ripping out. My plan was to use up the yarn, so I kept doing repeats until it looked like I wouldn't have enough for a repeat and the five final rows, and bound it off last night.



Blocking wires had been borrowed from friend K; it is now blocking on the floor in a spare bedroom. It looks way cool.

The Gitane, again

fork needs love
Originally uploaded by periwinklekog

The front fork finally had a good look-over. As it turned out, nothing wrong with the headset - the fork crown had never been faced. Friend and bike mechanic B. went at it this evening, and it is much better.

Next step - get the broken stem bolt (rust, fortunately it did not die when I was RIDING it) rewelded...

More pics on the front fork - just follow the link attached to the original picture.

Its Done!

Installed the fenders. This required a phone call to husband "do we have a rattail file? where is it?", as the 28mm Armadillos wanted the fenders pulled up further than the L-bracket opening would allow. Finally got them on.

Then pulled out the eBay *Jim* Blackburn rack, unbent it (why the deck was bent up, I have no idea), then pulled out another mounting bracket, went over to use my dad's vise, and installed the rack, tweaking the fenders yet again.

The handlebar tape was the easiest part of this whole thing. New Velox bar end plugs, too!

Found a water bottle cage in the garage, and it is ready to go. Need to go to the hardware store for some teeny nuts and bolts for the cable guides on the top tube for total completeness, but it is now rideable for any conditions here.

Yay.

Pics from start to finish here

Progress on the Gitane

The weather being awful this weekend, no riding happened. So I spent this afternoon taking the Gitane apart.

Set up in the living room, borrowed a worklight from my dad, brought in a box of random wrenches and screwdrivers and set to.



Mostly everything came off fairly easily. It all needs a very thorough clean.



Once I got to removing the front derailleur cable, it was time to go to Bike Gallery to buy a tool - I need my own cable and housing cutter now, what with 6 bikes to oversee. I thought I'd take the Gitane along as well; and get the crank and bottom bracket removed - the new crank (Stronglight Impact compact double) will have self-extracting bolts, so I'm not needing to buy a special crank puller.



BG was very quiet. I practically had to wake Mechanic Mark up from a nap :-) Off with the crank. Off with the bottom bracket (a Campy clone, so it used the Campy tool). The original grease was still in there. Looked like mud. But the bottom bracket is in fine shape, and there is no rust inside.

For fun, Mark also pulled the freewheel, because he's got the Very Special Tool, although he mostly uses the bottle opener feature these days.

I forgot to have him remove the headset - it is indexed, and needs an adjustment as well as a cleaning and new grease and all that.

The rear freewheel is a 14-16-18-20-22-24. In concert with the soon to arrive 48-34, it still doesn't give me the gears I want.

This bike won't be for brevets or other long rides. It might be a daylight commuter, errand bike, and ride around to coffee shops on the east side sort of bike. Still trying to arrive at a combination of cogs that work. Yes, some are available. I'm thinking a 14-16-20-24-28-32.

What it will look like when I'm done. Well, less surface rust. Shinier chrome. I'm replacing the brake levers with Cane Creek SCR-5C in pewter/gum hood, and replacing the crank with that Stronglight Impact. It will have a new seat - a Terry-something. Probably black Bontrager handlebar tape, because my uncle tossed some in the box.

A rack. Fenders. But Planet Bike Cascadias or Velo Orange? Hard decision. Should I move the rack from Bleriot once the weather gets decent?