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bookmark_borderMonitor Riser

Posted on by Elliott Evans

first project of he new year! Sharon’s been asking for this for a while, and I finally got around to it. It’s a desk riser to boos her monitor a few inches so she can see the monitor over the laptop screen and have a place to stow her flatbed scanner when she’s not using it.

Sharon’s Monitor Riser

So yes, this is more left-over shelf material from the old house. I spent so much time staining and finishing these shelves that I could not bear to throw them away when we moved six years ago, and I have been cannibalizing them as pre-finished materials for little projects ever since,

this riser is 21 inches of pine 1×10 shelf supported by some 3.25″ lengths of 1×10 to make the riser about 4 inches tall. The “legs” are joined to the top using furniture dowels (left over from IKEA purchases) and a couple of brass right angle brackets to make sure it does not wobble. I added some stain and water-based polyurethane to the cut edges to give the riser a completed look. I even did most of the cutting by hand because it was faster than setting up the table saw for four cuts.

Sharon needed 17.5 inches between the legs to stow the scanner without kinking the cord, so the 18 inches I gave her is more than enough. So much classier and more useful than a couple of phone books!

bookmark_borderPlaylist 2021

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Each year, as I acquire new music, I add new tracks to a yearly playlist for occasional review and December retrospective use. This was 2021 (in order of acquisition):

ArtistYearAlbum TitleNotes
Linnell, John2021Roman SongsFun little disc of unintelligible babble
Mogwai2021As the Love ContinuesRock on, you Scottish punks
Zombi2021Liquid CrystalI hope they keep releasing an album every year
Wintergatan2013WintergatanFinally got this disc of earworms direct from Sweden
Sigur Ros2020Odin’s Raven MagicThis recording is a remarkable achievement
They Might Be Giants2021Secret Music: Volume 2You must be thinking of some other band
Orb, The1997Asylum (Singles and Remixes)Found this in a TheExchange and bought on a whim
Mono2021Pilgrimage of the SoulWould love to finally see these folks live
Ludwig Goransson2020TENETAmazing soundtrack to an amazing film
Gary Hoey2003Wake Up CallGary Hoey has kept putting out albums. Who knew?
Gary Hoey2006American MadeBesides all the Xmas stuff, I mean.
Stereolab1997Dots and Loops2019 remastered edition of this 1997 album
Stereolab1992Peng!Their first album, finally found one
Stereolab 2009Not MusicAt last, my collection is complete
They Might Be Giants2021BookBook edition and everything
Gary Hoey 2019Neon Highway BluesWhat it says on the tin: blues rock. Well done!
Playlist 2021

bookmark_borderKaminari Nobori

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Rounding out the projects that I will get around to finishing in 2021 was a kind of large one. I made five of these large nobori banners with the mon of Clan Yama Kaminari.

Kaminari Nobori #1

I would have made only four, but four is an unlucky number in most of Asia, so I made an “extra” one which is a little narrower and which I will probably keep for myself. The clan already has four nobori, so this will make 8 we can put on display in camp.

The banners are all rip-stop nylon, and about 12 feet tall. The ones for clan are 20 inches wide, and the extra one is about 17 inches wide. The nylon is all serged to avoid fraying edges. The red band is about 6 feet tall, and the black bands are 2 feet and 4 feet tall. The “tabs” around the edges are about 1.25″ wide and start out ten inches long. I cut all the tabs from extra rip-stop so that I didn’t have to buy ribbon or webbing.

The mon is done by cutting the white pieces out of fabric, attaching them to the red fabric like an applique (that is, satin-stitching around the edges), then cutting out the red fabric behind the white.

bookmark_borderDebatable Lands Belt Favors

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I’ve been kind of quiet here on the blog for a bit, because I’ve been busy with work stuff during the day, but I have definitely been busy in my free time as well, for instance, I made 6 embroidered belt favors for the “Comet” awards given out by our local SCA Barony.

Comets gold, silver, and iron

These just use some fabric I’ve had in my stash for years. I don’t think I will ever make the pants for which this fabric was purchased. It’s a nice heavy twill.

bookmark_borderWarping Pegs

Posted on by Elliott Evans

More than a decade ago, when I first started braiding, I made a couple of warping pegs so that I could measure out material for setting up a braid on my marudai without having to pay for pre-measured silk. Not too much later, I made a nicer set of pegs for Sharon, so that she wouldn’t have to borrow mine. Over the next ten years, I kept telling myself that I should make myself a nicer set of warping pegs because my first set was kind of “quick and dirty” in their construction. Finally, I was in the mood to actually do that.

The pegs, clamped to my coffee table

Same as Sharon’s pegs, I did a pair of pegs on one board, and a since peg on the other. This is really common, and you will see it a lot if you do a web search for “warpings pegs”. It enables you to do a few different things like keeping two parts of a warp separated, effectively doubling the length of your table by using the single peg in the center of a long warp, and making part of a warp slightly longer than the other.

https://ee0r.com/proj/images/pegs-warping-warped.jpg

That last one is handy for some of the braids where the uptake on some strands is higher than the other. If you make all the strands the same length, you wind up running out of material on some tama faster than on others, and you usually throw away a bunch of material. Anyway, I’m glad to have them now.

The boards are both cross-drilled, so I can clamp them to a table edge using these ginchy clamps from Rockler. These clamps are a really good buy since they accommodate a large number of table thicknesses in a compact, sturdy clamp.

The wooden pegs have metal hooks extending from the top, same as all the other ones I have made. These are imitative of Japanese bodai warping stands. While they are not necessary, and most warping pegs made for weaving do not have the hooks, I like them.

I also put some sticky felt on the bottoms of the boards, so maybe they won’t scratch up the dresser in my crafting room like the cheap ones did.

bookmark_borderFrame Loom

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I was on a Zoom conference recently with a bunch of braiders, and somebody was showing off a portable frame loom she’d made from dowels and plumbing fittings. It was compact enough to fit into the laptop compartment of her backpack, but she often had to display it to the TSA because of the copper elbow joins at the corners. I was pretty sure I could make something similar from just wood, so I did it just to prove my concept to myself.

All-wood frame loom

Mine is a little beefier than hers. She used 5/8 dowels, but I wound up using 3/4″ dowels and 1″ square rod. Mine is also a little larger than hers, at 12″x17″. This (for obscure reasons) is a very Japanese aspect ratio. There is no glue, so I could knock out the pins if any part needs to be replaced. Here’s a close-up on the joinery.

Pegged through-joins at the corners

I did use a drill-press and some fancy bits to make sure the holes for the joinery were straight and clean, but other than that it was all sawing to length and tapping together with a hammer. The materials were all purchased at a local chain hardware big-box store, so nothing too exotic.

bookmark_borderBeaded Fancy Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

The braid I used for Fancy Square Braid and Another Fancy Braid has these nice compressed inner threads, and it struck me that you could make those inner threads beaded, and the beads would be nicely couched in the braid. I had some “magatama” beads in my stash from the swag bag of the AKS conference in 2017, so I decided to try it.

Fancy Braid with Beads completed 2021.11.08

I really like how it came out. There are a couple of “errors” in it, but I mostly recovered from them quickly so the overall braid was not disrupted. The magenta inner core on each bead makes a nice counterpoint to the different colors of blue thread I used for the other strands. The beads are strung on “S-Lon” beading cord, were kind of a challenge to get them well seated in their stitches, but I was able to work out a method eventually. The “magatama” beads have a teardrop shape, and are only on every other side stitch, which made it somewhat easier.

bookmark_borderAnother Fancy Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I was going to participate in a zoom conference with a bunch of braiders, but I realized that I did not have a braid set up to work on during the call. so, I measured out the silk, wound the tama, and worked on the braid. Then, I had another Zoom, and that gave me enough time to finish the braid.

It’s basically the same braid as the previous one, but the core and outer colors are reversed.

bookmark_borderFancy Square Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

This braid is braid 16AD, the final braiding pattern, in Jacqui Carey’s book “Creative Kumihimo”. Essentially, it is a 12-strand braid that is overlapped with a 4-strand braid. I used it to create this braid which uses Baronial colors at the corners to protect a tight inner core of Kingdom colors.

The completed braid is about 30 inches long, with a ring-and-toggle closure so that it can be used as a medallion cord. Each strand of the 16 contains 6 ends of lace-weight silk yarn.