Monday, June 19, 2017

Travel... Traveling... Community

Travel...

Whats the term? Busmans holiday, I think?

Sort of like last Fall when I went to Seattle as a side trip when i went to take the Professional Mechanics and Shop Operations course at United Bicycle Institute in Portland, OR...




















...Except this time I went to Seattle to visit a friend, and took a side trip to Portland to take a class: I am now a DT Swiss certified wheelbuilder!

Lemme build your wheels - I have a shiny sticker!

Snarkyness aside - I am a certified bicycle mechanic and wheelbuilder. Nothing replaces experience - so I do welcome opportunities to repair bikes and build wheels. I am particularly interested in promoting the use of dynamo hubs and bike travel, and will proselytize given the opportunity.

Traveling...

Coming up next week - solstice weekend - is the Swift Campout, international call to go bike camping!


A couple friends are going to ride to a private campsite, and we're being joined by a friend driving up from Chicago. I'm super excited.

...And community activities 

I'm also promoting my new Facebook group Let's Go Camping! Lansing!

And for a few months now I've been hosting Ladies Day FTW! at the Lansing Bike Co-op. It's an open day focused on various lady identifying folks to work on their bikes or learn to work on their bikes.

That's enough for now

!

Friday, May 12, 2017

That Vest - Take Two


Last fall, when I traveled to Portland for the professional bike mechanics course at United Bicycle Institute - I decided to start collecting patches. Instead of using the inexpensive quilted vest I picked up - I decided I needed a proper vessel to display them. Enter vest number one.

I had not yet dragged my remaining industrial sewing machine out of storage - so I put this one together using a heavily modified pattern, and my little workhorse of a vintage Pfaff:



Made from cotton duck fabric, It turned out pretty well - and received a couple alterations before (and during) getting me through the winter. There were a couple materials issues, machine difficulties - and surprisingly something that turned out better because I used an inappropriate sewing machine - heh.

For insulation, I used a crinkly semi-metallic potholder type batting, and a second layer of basic poly-batting. It often felt like I was wearing a potholder - fun! I machine quilted the duck, batting, and a wool-knit fabric for the lining. This turned out well even thought the knit fabric was the friendliest lining. All of the edges were bound in bias cut strips of sweatshirt fleece. I used a two-step process, so it went kind of slow - the pro was a nice soft edge. The zipper went in fairly well - with no wobbly edges! When I made alterations, I did use my heavy duty walking-foot machine to re-bind and re-install the zipper - some of the edges got a little stretched out and wobbly because the material gets pulled through the machine. In hindsight, a combination of better material control and appropriate interfacing would solved this (I was doing this on the fast and cheap side).



Take two!

I've really taken to wearing the vest. I'm writing this from the train on my way out to the PNW again - visiting a good friend and taking another certification course at UBI. This seemed like a good occasion to rebuild the vest with a pattern from scratch, and some design elements altered and added.


On a trip to Chicago, I picked up a sample of some Thinsulate batting  - it's lighter weight and actually intended for a garment. Woo! I used the same duck fabric, but for a lining, I wanted a woven material. While a wool would have been nice I opted for a fun plaid flannel I've had in my stash for years.


The pattern got an adjustment for the "v-neck" and snaps instead of a zipper - easily modifiable for another variation I'm thinking about. The pockets received a size adjustment allowing an experiment with the application and trims. The big new feature is a pair of rear zippered pockets that I'm pretty psyched about, and may replace the lower front pockets. 


Construction-wise, I used my binding attachment to trim all the edges in synthetic twill-tape. This makes for easy edge finishing and assembly, but I'll need to practice the application especially on curves. Like many of my projects, I'm treating this as a working prototype. I'm considering a few future revisions that might correct potential eccentricities, and make it better as a potential product - but that's another post.

Here's  my bike waiting for the train in Chicago



Friday, April 14, 2017

Shameless Marketing

Maybe I'll find new incentive to post more often!

I'm selling a Brother knitting machine on eBay right now:


I bought it a while back - and I was as excited as a kid could get - only I like hand knitting too much.

My future repetitive stress injury and carpel tunnel is your gain!

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Time For My Annual Update

Seriously - I hang my head in shame.

But hey - enough of that.

I'm still obsessed with bikes and yarn -  I've changed up the blog just a little bit.

I'm still in Michigan - it's pretty obvious - and I'm probably more okay with the idea - I'm going to be here for a while.

Last year I started volunteering at the Lansing Bicycle Co-op (someone remind me to post a link). You'll find me there every Saturday - but the first Saturday of every month is reserved for our Ladies Day: FTW.

Another bike related thing is I took a vacation to the PNW to visit a friend in Seattle. While I was out there, I went down to Portland for two weeks to attend the Proffessional Bicycle Mechanics class at the United Bicycle Institute. It was my first time in that part of the country and I'm in love. I might be settling in Michigan, but I'm trying to make trips out there a regular thing.

I'm headed back to Seattle again, and visiting Portland to take the wheelbuilding course for the DT Swiss certification.

While I'm visiting my friend in Seattle, we're heading up to Orcas Island for hanging out with farm animals and a solo ride around the island.

Words, words, words... well, this post feels a bit disjointed (even by my standards). Hope I'll get back in the habit of updating this blog. I'm working on new stuff - there's definitely going to be things to share.