Sewing, cycling, and a game

In the last blog I talked about screwing my courage to the sticking place and attempting to shorten the sleeves on two wool shirts. The first shirt is done. The workmanship won’t win any prizes and you don’t get a closeup of the stitching but the sleeves are now a good length. I have worn it for a day and it’s comfortable. I took a day off from sewing yesterday. I can only stand to do it in small doses. This morning I measured the other shirt and I’ve marked where to cut the sleeve and have taken off the cuff.

I’m adhering to finishing one sleeve before I cut off the other one. It would be just like me to try to put a cuff on the wrong sleeve if I had two to choose from. Once I have this shirt done I have a few pairs of pants to turn up. That should be easier than the shirt sleeves. One thing at a time and take it slowly.

Another thing besides sewing that I didn’t think I’d ever do is playing a game on my phone. I’ve never been much on games for the same reason I’m not much on sewing: I never had the patience and couldn’t see the point. Enter a silly little game called Words of Wonder. It’s initially free on phones if you can put up with the ads. After I had played it for a day and found myself enjoying it I shelled out the eight bucks to buy it and get rid of the ads. They still try to get you to watch ads by promising you a bunch of sapphires if you look at certain ads on YouTube. Since I haven’t bothered to find out what the sapphires are for it doesn’t bother me to ignore them. They also offer various collections of postcards for a limited time. Again, who cares? It’s something to do with playing the game competitively and, by now, you can guess my reaction to that.

The game is a bit like Scrabble or a crossword puzzle. The difference in this game is that they give you a series of letters and a blank crossword shape. You have to fill in all the words in the crossword from the letters supplied, no written hints, just the letters. The game does allow you to rearrange the order in which the letters appear in a circle below the crossword.

I’m finding the whole thing surprisingly engaging. I don’t remember when I got the game but I think it’s under a week. I’ve now solved 200 of the puzzles. It’s strange how sometimes I look at the jumble of letters and wonder how I could ever make a word out of those. Then I see one word which leads to another word and another. At some point I get stumped and rearrange the letters to see other words. Sometimes I have to resort to pencil and paper and plugging letters in at random until I recognize something. Of course, the makers of the game want you to pay for hints when you get stuck and I’m not doing that. Now if the sapphires gave you free hints I'd be more interested. Richard has helped me on occasion and sometimes, you are actually given the chance to get a hint letter for free. I've yet to figure out how that works.

I suppose it isn't a lot different from Wordle, and I don’t know why this game appeals and Wordle doesn’t. It’s an engaging way to spend a few moments during the day when I’m between tasks or in the evening when I don’t feel like doing much else. Puzzles and games tend to lose their appeal for me fairly quickly when I do find one I like so I’ll see how long this lasts. One disadvantage is that you can’t play it offline.

Just as I’ve finally gotten around to sewing, I’ve finally gotten around to riding my bike for the season. I’ve been undecided about whether or not I like the conversion to an e-bike. Haven’t quite sorted through the ins and outs of charging the battery, hooking it up, resetting the computer, and how to work with the gearing and the various levels of assist.

I’ve not been too pleased with the performance on hills. It seems the bike wants to help all it can on the flats where I don’t need it and it’s sluggish on the hills where I could use the help. Yesterday I decided to go out and ride around and around the neighbourhood for half an hour to see if I couldn’t figure it out. I found that the language the makers of e-bikes use is confusing. In everything I have looked at they say the harder you pedal the more the bike assists you. To me that means the more pressure you put on the pedals the more assistance you get. Nope! Turns out the faster you pedal the more assistance you get, and that is a totally different animal.

The riding strategy has to change. I’ve always known that it’s better to keep a higher cadence but sometimes I just get tired and bash my way through by pedalling more slowly and putting more weight on the pedals. The e-bike is not friendly when I do that. So, gear down and speed up the revolutions when you approach a hill and then keep the cadence high and increase the amount of assistance as you go up the hill. I suppose it’s not all that different from gearing down as you go up a hill but the final step, before getting off to walk, has always been the slow-revolution slog and that seems to be more difficult on the e-bike. With the motor and batteries the bike is heavier and, if you’re in slog mode the bike really doesn’t seem to help much regardless of the level of assistance. Of course, I could be totally out to lunch on this and as I ride I’ll probably find other ways to be more efficient. At least, yesterday, I had a totally enjoyable ride and came back thoroughly winded. It’s been a while since I’ve worked that hard. It’s humbling to think that I used to be able to ride like that for hours and hours at a time. The good news is that I can regain some of that fitness a little at a time. I don’t think I’ll ever go on long tours again but I’d like to work up taking and enjoying day rides in the mountains. The first step is to get out on the bike and now that I’m beginning to figure out how the e-conversion works, that will be easier. Stay tuned.

I hate sewing but...

Mum at 92

My mum was born 109 years ago last week so I’ve been thinking about her a lot. There are a couple of things I’ve been contemplating lately that she always used to do that I thought I’d never do. I’ve mentioned before  that I hate sewing. It still isn’t my favourite thing to do studying lutherie has taught me patience, and not just patience for the things I love to do. I’m finding that if I slow down, take things one step at a time, and don’t think about how long I would like something to take, I can usually get things done. It always takes longer than I think it should but if I can put that out of my mind the task becomes less frustrating.

A couple of years ago, before going to Australia and New Zealand, I bought two shirts made from merino wool. I wanted ones with collars and, at that time, they had no collared shirts for women, so I bought mens. They fit pretty well except that the sleeves are about five inches too long. Being a confirmed sewing-hater, I took the easy way out and moved the buttons on the cuffs so the sleeves wouldn’t flap down over my hands. That sort of works but there is still all this extra material in the sleeves that doesn’t need to be there. I keep thinking how much more I would enjoy the shirts if the sleeves were shorter. So off I go to YouTube where there are a handful of videos on how to shorten the sleeves on a man’s shirt. I watched them and then watched the clearest one a few more times.

It’s not rocket science. It is fussy, although it's easy enough to understand what needs to be done. I decided to shorten the sleeves on the two shirts. Mum would be very surprised. She was present for the hissy fits I had when I was forced to sew in junior high. I’m amazed at how much I learned from her, just by sitting and watching and listening to her explain things. I’m fairly confident that I can shorten the sleeves without making a total mess of the shirts. I rescued one of Richard’s shirts that was destined for Good Will in order to practice on. I’ve gotten as far as taking off the cuff and taking apart the placket on one sleeve. I figure I’ll do one sleeve beginning to end before I tackle the second one. That way I’ll be able to refer to the sleeve that is still intact if I need to check something out. I want to have the shirts done in the next week or two.

I can’t say I’m looking forward with delight to the project but I’m fairly motivated to achieve the result. I think that’s probably the difference. When I had to take sewing there were so many other things that I’d rather have been doing, and I just wanted to get it over with. Fast forward a lot of years, and I realize that if you’re not proficient at something it’s going to take you longer than someone who is experienced and proficient. That means being patient enough to make mistakes, undo them, and then start again. I’m not even going to estimate how long it will take me to get the shirts done. I’ll look again at the video, take my computer to the sewing machine for reference, put an audiobook on, and from there it will take as long as it takes. If I get really frustrated I’ll walk away and come back to it later. I’m pretty sure I can do this.

Update a couple of days later: I spent some time yesterday with Richard’s old shirt. The process for shortening the sleeves is to remove the cuff, then remove both sides of the placket, cut off the sleeve to the correct length, lengthen the slit for the placket, and then put the placket and the cuff back on.

While I was reviewing the videos I came across one I hadn’t seen. In this one the woman simply removed the cuff, cut the sleeve to length and then sewed the cuff back on. If the placket opening is a little smaller, oh well. As long as you can get your hand through it that’s fine.

Since I had already dismantled the placket on one sleeve I shortened that one and put it all back together. It’s not beautiful. My new sewing machine has a different sort of pressure foot on it so I can’t line up the seam the way I could on my old one and a lot of this reconstruction requires top stitching. My seams are not straight. On the second sleeve I decided to try the easier fix. On the practice shirt the cuff comes right in the middle of the button hole that is on the placket. I think on the wool shirts the sleeves are long enough that I’ll be able to trim them above that button hole. If not, I’m not too fussed about it. They will still function. That’s on my ‘To Do’ list for today. I’m not even going to think about how long it will take. I will finish when I finish. I think Mum would be not only surprised but a little bit pleased.

The hard way

The easy way

How do I blog offline?

This is a bit of a test. I would like to be able to write blog posts when I’m on holidays even if I don’t have an internet connection. Today I think I have figured out how to do it. I already have a bluetooth keyboard for my phone. I’m planning to use my phone as my back-up camera anyway so I’ll have it with me.

I’m writing this offline in Google docs and, in theory, it should sync when I next connect to the internet. At the moment I seem to be having difficulty with fiddly fingers. Because the shift key is comparatively small and the up arrow lives right beside it, I keep hitting the up arrow which causes me to get all sorts of words within words until I notice and go back to fix it.  I imagine I can get used to that with practice.

Version 2 bendy wire to replace elastic and clip

I need some way to make the phone stand up while I’m working. I tried several things, one of those bendy wires covered with plastic but the one I had at hand wasn’t big or heavy enough and the phone overbalanced. I thought about the hard case I have for my sunglasses but, it too, overbalanced. I could make something but weight is a concern on the trip we are planning to take this summer and my camera gear makes my carry-on quite heavy.

At the moment I have a flexible ruler wrapped around the phone, its two ends joined with an elastic band and a sewing clip. It is behaving quite well although the ends of the ruler do obscure the bottom line of typing a bit. I bought a batch of these rulers at some point so I don’t mind sacrificing one or two if I find that cutting a notch into one makes for a better stand. On the other hand, I can just get used to moving my head a bit when I want to read the bottom line of what I’m typing.What I like about this solution is that I don’t have to make anything,  it weighs very little, and I can use the elastic, ruler and the clip for other things. 

Version 1 elastic band and clip

I’m working on my lap on a lap table and my touch on the keyboard is not particularly light. The phone and its holder have slid down so they are now in contact with the top of the keyboard and they are no longer moving. I can live with that.

As I’m looking at this set-up I’m wondering if I can permanently attach the elastic to both ends of the ruler at the same time. Then I realize that if I do that I will lose the ability to flatten the whole thing out so it's probably not worth it.

Since I’m using my phone as a screen for typing, I can’t take a photo of the setup. I think I still have an old iPod around somewhere which could act as a photo model, or I could steal R’s phone for the purpose. 

I think I’ve blathered on long enough to give the system a reasonable test. I’ll go and get a stand-in for my phone and take a couple of photos. If you’re reading this, the test has been a success. I may do another couple of blogs in the near future using this system just to get used to it. 

A few hours later

Cherry phone stand

Well many of you could probably predict that I wouldn’t leave the phone stand alone. I wondered if I could make one quickly from some of the scrap wood I have. After some time with my trusty hand saw and a couple of chisels, I have another phone stand. It is sturdy and I can see the whole screen. It’s only useful for one thing but it does that one thing well. I will probably end up taking this chunk of cherry instead of the flexible ruler. It would be elegant if I could figure out how to make it into a box to also hold the charging cable. I’ll have to think about that. I’m not sure I want to put that much work into it.

No finish yet

This will, however, be a good piece for an experiment with finish. I have a new finish that I want to use on ukuleles. The stand is small so it won’t use much.  We also have a polishing system for the lathe that I haven’t yet tried and I plan to give that a go at the same time. It might end up being one classy looking piece of wood. I’ll keep you posted.

The hearing aid brigade

Yes, I’ve joined the hearing aid brigade. I have the kind of hearing loss that is expected for someone of my age. Imagine that! I figured if I was going to get hearing aids I might as well get all the whistles and bells available so when I came home from the appointment I informed Richard that he had just bought me a ‘Cadillac.’

So far, I’m quite thrilled with the technology. As many of you know, I'm an avid audio book consumer. I now have 600 titles in my library, most of which I’ve listened to. It actually feels odd to read a print book. I still read magazines and the newspaper the conventional way though. The hearing aids are bluetooth capable and we have set them up so that they pair automatically with my phone. I can now wander around the house talking to thin air. I’m a bit more hesitant to do that in public. People tend to avoid someone who is having a conversation with the ether at normal speaking levels. On second thought, I imagine that could come in handy in some situations. I’ll file that away for further reference

The best part about the hearing aids, other than hearing better, is that it is now so easy for me to listen to my audiobooks anywhere. I don’t have to remember to bring earphones. There is a way to pause the book by tapping my ear but I haven’t quite mastered that one yet so when I want to pause I still tend to pull out the phone and use the pause button on that. One step at a time.

This whole technology is a wee bit big-brotherish. When I went in for my first check the audiologist downloaded all the data from the hearing aids. He was able to tell me that I have spent quite a bit of time streaming. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. He also told me that I have averaged wearing the hearing aids 11 hours a day and that I had mostly been in quiet environments. I imagine I could get the same information from the app on my phone. Apparently I can vary the settings to focus the sound more precisely when I’m in a situation such as a noisy restaurant. I have yet to experiment with that.

head phones and hearing aid charger

When I started off he set the hearing aids at 90% of the prescription. He said if people have severe hearing loss and you boost the signal too much the change is overwhelming. I never thought of that. He was surprised that I didn’t comment on how different my speaking voice sounded to me. I didn’t comment because it didn’t sound all that different. What I did notice was that my s’s seemed much more pronounced and sounds like the microwave beep have overtones that I’ve been unaware of. I thought the ticking of the clock in my study would drive me nuts but I’ve grown used to it. The other thing that’s a bit disconcerting is that wind noise now sounds like I’m hearing it through a microphone that needs a dead cat. I think that’s what the furry mic covers are called. Since there are three microphones in each hearing aid, I guess that’s pretty accurate. I don’t think that, other than wearing a toque or ear muffs, I can do much about the wind noise though.

What I didn’t expect was how incredibly itchy my ears were at first. They have calmed down considerably. Wearing a mask, which I still do when out in public, is a bit more of a challenge but I’m getting the hang of that as well. I can also pair the hearing aids with my computer so I have the choice of listening through headphones, which I usually do, or listening through the hearing aids. I’m getting the hang of disconnecting from one device and reconnecting to another one. I have a battery pack that I can charge that will last me a few days if I’m camping and away from the grid. About the only downside I can see is that I now have one more device that requires a battery. When I travel I have a phone, and its charger, a camera, and its charger, a fitbit and its charger, and now hearing aids and their charger. Oh well, it’s a small price to pay for not having to work as hard to figure out what's being said around me and, of course, there are the audiobooks.

Doing nothing

It’s 4 pm and I’ve done nothing today. Well, that’s not literally true. So what do I mean by doing nothing? I guess it comes down to not making any progress on the bigger projects, either ones that I’ve already started or the ones that are waiting in the wings. I haven’t been in the shop to work on the ukulele or on some of the things I’ve promised friends I would do. I haven’t figured out a stand for Odie’s small cage so it will be easier to move him when he comes out of his large cage so we can clean it. Every day I feed him and think to myself, I must make a rolling stand because dragging this thing across the floor and keeping my hands beyond lunging distance is driving me crazy. I guess it will drive me crazy again today.

I started the day by doing my 30 minutes of what I call ‘upright and locked’ after I took the osteoporosis meds. I could have walked on the treadmill or gone for a walk outside. I sat in my pj’s and watched a crazy guy from Yorkshire walk on a knife edge in a rain storm and then set up his tent at the top of a mountain in the Lake District. In the intro to the video he said that the helicopter and the mountain rescue folks he saw and captured on his camera were actually evacuating someone who died, presumably from slipping off the ridge this guy was climbing. The video was 50 minutes, not 30. That’s 50 minutes of watching a guy and his dog walk in the rain, set up a tent in a gale, make a meal on a camp stove, and lie in the flapping tent while he tries to talk over the noise of the wind. After I watched that one I watched another of his videos. I have no idea why I spend so much time watching stuff like this when I could be out walking in the sunshine or riding my bike. I really enjoy both of those activities once I actually pry myself out of my chair.

Then it was time for a cup of tea. Last night as I was rummaging through the cups on my tea shelf, I came across a mason jar without a lid. It looked like it would hold quite a bit. I like my tea in big mugs that are also microwave and dishwasher safe. I made a cup of tea and drank it out of the mason jar. (No comment from you Wallberg!) I put milk in it so it wasn’t too hot on my hand but then I remembered that I once had a fleece sleeve for a tea tumbler and went in search of that. I didn’t find it and it probably would have been too small anyway, but I have quite a collection of yarn leftover from various crochet projects so I decided to make a sleeve for the mason jar to keep the tea a bit hotter and the hand cooler. When I want to wash the jar, just slip off the sleeve, and, if I spill tea on it I can throw it in the wash.

I started it once, thinking I would make it the length I needed to go around the jar. By the time I had one row beyond the foundation chain done I could see that it was not big enough so I pulled it out and decided to make it the width I wanted for my hand instead. That worked much better and I finished it in probably half an hour. Of course, I had to make a cup of tea to try it out and lunch was on the agenda.

Wasn’t I going to have a shower sometime today? Before that I picked up my ukulele and, instead of playing my usual stuff, I started just messing around until I had a melody of sorts. Richard heard me and asked if I had made that up. When I said I had, he told me to record it and he would write it out for me. I did and he did. Cool! That’s the first time that I remember playing something that didn’t exist before.

All right. Shower. Although the upstairs shower has been working for quite a while now we tend to use the downstairs one out of habit. I wanted to test out the bath mat that I finished crocheting a couple of days ago so I used the upstairs shower. I ended up washing my hair in soap because the little tube of shampoo that I put in that shower was all but empty. The bath mat was most satisfactory and it’s hard to make it skid even though I haven’t yet tacked on bits of anti-slip material. Add that to the project list. Next time I use the upstairs shower I want to have shampoo so I found a bottle with very little in it and got some of the shampoo from downstairs put into the bottle and brought it upstairs. Note to self: do not buy a litre of shampoo at Costco ever again! I have short hair and Richard, well, let’s just say that neither of us needs much shampoo to take care of our flowing locks. I think that bottle has been hanging around since at least 2013.

And now, it’s time to feed Odie. There are many days when I berate myself for not accomplishing anything but today I decided to notice what I was doing by not accomplishing anything. Turns out it was a day of following my whims. That’s not a bad thing but it’s all too easy to have a whole run of those days and I do want to get the big projects done.

I have great plans before I go to bed to get up earlier in the morning and get a whole bunch of things accomplished. When I wake up it’s too easy to turn over and go back to sleep and then putter away over tea and watch the birds and the squirrels outside the front window.

This phase of life is so much different than I thought it would be when I was working. I remember thinking that retirement would be so cool because we could take extra time to go to the start of long cycling trips and take our time coming home. I never dreamed that I wouldn’t be doing long cycling trips or running half marathons. I probably still could do both if I wanted to put the work into getting into good enough shape. There’s the trick: I can’t seem to be bothered and that, in itself, is bothersome. I know there will be a time when I will be limited by my physical abilities and not my lack of motivation and I don’t want to look back and kick myself that I should have done things when I could have.

I’m not sure where the balance is in all of this. I enjoy myself when I make the effort to tackle the big projects and I haven’t found the right carrot to get me out of whimsy mode and into get-busy-and-do-it mode. Sometimes I have spurts of motivation and get a whole bunch of stuff done in a day or even a week. I would like to find a way to summon that up at will. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know but now it’s time to feed the bird, and that is not negotiable.

The silly tree

The silly tree

I’ve always had stuffed animals. When I was a kid I had a lot of them but I gave away all except my favourite ones. Now I seem to have acquired quite the collection again. Some of them I bought; some came from friends, and others I inherited. Each one has a story but that’s for another day. Today I decided to use them to turn an old lamp into a silly tree. When I look over at them I can imagine each of them saying something.  No, I haven't been drinking and, yes, I know my head is a very strange place to be.

Teddy: Look Ma I'm a firefighter!
Cat: I know I can get to those birds

Teddy: Look Ma, no hands!
Cat: I'm a cat. Of course I'm going to push him off.

Panda: Why is there a hedgehog on my head and a cat paw in my face?
Hedgehog: I don't think I like it here. It's too far off the ground

Ostrich: Why me?
Cat: What white bear? I didn't push him off.
Brown Bear: Just a little bit higher...

Stork: Do you come here often?
Duck: No. Do you know who owns those ugly orange feet? 

Yellow-headed parrot: Whatcha doin? Whatcha doin? Can I help?
Blue-headed parrot: How come I have to sit behind him?

Cardinal: Don't look now but I think there's a bear below us.
Googly-eyed bird: Maybe if I try really hard I can fly down to the desk.

Success!

practice saw

I’m way behind in my goal of two posts a month. I have had a few ideas but mostly they were heading towards rants so I decided to keep them to myself. Today I’m feeling quite smug. That is in direct contrast to some of the time I’ve spent on the ukulele build lately. There are so many things to watch for all at the same time and in three dimensions. Suffice it to say, that it has brought the concept accuracy to a whole new level and I’m not there yet. So today I decided to try something entirely new in a situation where making a mess of it on the first try wouldn’t matter.

I’ve shied away from sharpening my own handsaws because I thought it was going to be too easy to screw up a perfectly good saw. I was prompted to give it a go the other day when I seemed to be struggling through a cut with my favourite dovetail saw. I picked up a different dovetail saw and made the cut smoothly and quickly. Wait, aren't you supposed to be able to go several years before you have to sharpen a good handsaw? Then I thought back and realized that several years was probably closer to 16 years. I’ve been using the saw extensively since I got it and not only in good quality hardwood. I’ve used it in softwood which sometimes has resin in it and even (shhhh) in plywood. That is anathema to some of my woodworking friends.

So the light went on: I have a dull saw. A couple of years ago I picked up a handsaw for nothing. It was sitting out near the sidewalk with a ‘free’ sign on it so I took it. I had it earmarked to practice on thinking that it would probably take quite a beating in the process of my learning to sharpen. It had a couple of kinks in it and, although I’ve tried to straighten it out, it will never be a first class saw again, so I wasn’t worried about ruining it. I was just dreading the time I thought it would take me to get it right.

Three of my favourite YouTube woodworkers have assured me that sharpening a handsaw isn’t hard. I’ve heard that one before about cutting dovetails and that skill eluded me for years. The first thing I needed in order to try sharpening the saw was a way to hold it while I worked. The simplest way to do that is to put a stick on each side of the blade with a small margin between the top of the stick and the top of the teeth. Then you clamp saw and sticks in the vise. Okay, I got that part. In accordance with one suggestion I stuck a popsicle stick on the end of the file so I could more easily tell when I was tilting the file. I also went over the teeth with a sharpie so I could see when I had taken material away from the teeth.

I thought it would be prudent to see how the saw was cutting before I started to sharpen it. The answer was ‘not well. Not much to ruin then, I told myself. I clamped the saw between the two sticks in the vise, put a strong light on it and donned my magnifying visor. I oriented the file to the saw plate and made the first cut. There was the rather satisfying sound and feel of metal coming off. Being careful not to change the angle of the file I moved onto the next tooth, and the next. Pretty soon I was in a rhythm.

setting up to sharpen

When I finished I touched the tips of the teeth. One person described that feeling as the points on ‘cat’s teeth.’ The saw felt a lot more like a cat's teeth than when I started. I ran my hand very gently down the tips and some still felt like they could use a bit more attention. I decided to go over the saw once more.

This time the teeth were nice and sharp so I took the saw out of the vise and went back to the piece of 1” ash on which I had previously tried the saw. This time the saw went through the wood quickly and easily, and it didn’t pull to one side. Sometimes if you don’t get your angles right you can end up with one side of the saw cutting more aggressively than the other.

Okay, time for the dovetail saw. The advantage of my dovetail saw was that I knew it had been sharpened well when I bought it. I figured if I followed the angles already on the teeth I should be okay. More sharpie, a couple of thinner sticks to account for the brass back on the saw and into the vise it went. After giving each tooth two strokes with the file, I checked with my fingers to see if it felt sharper. It did. When I tried it in the piece of ash, it cut twice as quickly as it had before I sharpened it.

When I’m learning something new I never expect to get it on the first try. When it happens I have my own little party. Before, when my saws became dull, I took them into a place that sharpens blades for power saws and they sent the handsaws to a guy in Edmonton to have them sharpened. The saws came back nice and sharp in about two weeks.

sharp dovetail saw

I know not every saw-sharpening will go smoothly and the two that I sharpened today were both rip saws, meant to cut with the grain of the wood. Crosscut saws, meant to cut across the grain of the wood, are more difficult to sharpen because they have a different tooth geometry. I’ll tackle a crosscut saw eventually, but for now, I think maybe I can keep the rip saws in my collection sharp and that’s good enough.