DIY Bobbin Winder!

I've currently become the biggest cheap-ass in the world. Well, okay, I've always been a cheap-ass when it comes to some things, but now it's most things.


When I first started weaving after college, I didn't splurge on weaving supplies because I assumed it would just be something that I did "here and there". I bought my loom about 6 years ago and never bought myself a bobbin winder*. Yes, I will allow you to re-read that sentence and I will conveniently retype it for you too: I never bought a bobbin winder. 

You might be asking, "How did you wind your bobbins? The other half - the life line, if you will - of everything you weave?" Ah, yes. Excellent question, young padawan. Up until a month ago, I was using my portable drill, with a long shafted drill bit. (My dad gave me the idea. He's so smart.) The set up looked something like this:

But then my drill battery died and I'm too cheap to buy a new one and I also could take this chance to talk about how I really hate rechargeable work tools, but I'll save that for another day. SO. I was walking around at the Chicken Barn (a Maine treasure) last month and found this really awesome hand drill for $2. Heck yeah. And it works perfectly. Usually old tools don't work at all, am I right? And it's gorgeous, right?

This is where it gets a bit blasphemous, for some of you antique-types. I sawed off the top and bottom bit of the wooden side grip, making flats. 

Then I inserted the drill bit I had from before - $2 from the hardware store - and attached the set up to my work table with a C clamp I already owned - $6 from the hardware store - and VOILA! I had a $10 bobbin winder. 

Anyway, a real beautiful $140 Swedish bobbin winder might be somewhere in my future, but for now I'm doing just fine with my homemade one. 


*For those of you who don't know what a bobbin winder is, it's usually a geared (as shown in the first picture above) or belted wheel system that allows you to spool fiber to a shaft of plastic or paper. The wound bobbin is what you eventually weave with, the thing that creates the other half of the woven structure. Yes, it is a very important part of the process.

How - To Book Obsession (Part 1)

So I recently taught myself to knit. Or more like I reminded myself. My mother was amazing at teaching us how to do creative things, especially if we asked, because it meant more alone time for her. Four kids is something I'd want to escape from too if I had them, and she liked to steal away to read in her fireside chair whenever she could. Thus, I learned how to sew at age 6, crochet by 8 and knit by the time I was 10 or so. Looking back on it, she really knew how to do everything. A jack of all trades, that woman.

Except she never taught me how to bind off. I think she just forgot to teach me how to bind off, and I was too young to know any better and never asked. And it's quite possible she just figured I'd never finish anything since at that age I was picking up and discarding hobbies like a fat man at an all you can eat shell fish buffet; picking up a hobby enough to figure out and remember the basics, but not really wanting to enjoy the whole of it. So here I was knitting long thin scarves and belts, taking them off the needles before binding off and wondering "why the heck do they unravel??" Oh, little one. I think back to it and just laugh.

Anyway, I re-taught , or rather taught, myself with this book. The cover of the book really turned me off, but the inside truly is amazingly well thought out and simple, and well, visual. I'm a big fan of reading a book to find out how to do something. When I was in high school, I would go to the Ann Arbor public library and check out how to books - on how to play tennis (my boyfriend doesn't believe my amazing backhand came from a book), how to paint with water colors, how to create science experiments at home, how to make a terrarium, the list goes on - from which my addiction and fascination with how-to books was born.


My current (re-discovered) how-to book? Check it out here!

Math Love

Ever since I took Ms. Jonik's Honors Geometry sophomore year at the oh-so-beloved Saline Area High School, I have been mildly obsessed with geometry. Especially number series and triangles (more about that later). 

Anyway, in homage to my love of math, last night I finished a fabulous fuchsia and gray scarf with the Fibonacci sequence woven into it. 

I enjoy being a dork.

Shalom!

Hi all!
Welcome to MockTurtleDove - my blog all about fiber, textiles, art and who knows what else. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to ask questions, comment and explore!
xoxo
Tara