Tales From the Riverbank

Wordle

watervole — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 09:21:25 GMT

Does anyone else play Wordle? https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

I'm getting quite fond of it, as a morning brain teaser.

It's guessing a five letter world with the rules of Mastermind (if you ever played that as a kid, which I did)

You make a guess, right letters in the right place are marked in one colour, right letters in the wrong place are marked in another colour.

You get a maximum of six guesses.

I got it in three this morning.

There's a new one every day. No flashy graphics, no adverts, just a nice little puzzle.

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Sit stand desk

watervole — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 14:24:12 GMT

I've been trying many things to try and help the sciatica. One of the things I've tried is a sit-stand desk, very similar to the one in the photo - it's a Yo Yo desk. (but mine has the risers crossing in the centre rather than at the side)

Has it helped - yes, I think it's been an overall improvement. The sciatica still hurts, but I've noticed an increase in the time I can spend sitting down - which makes a bit difference when board gaming. It's as though I have a ration of how many hours I can sit for, and standing at my desk helps me use those 'sitting hours' for other things.

The think I most noticed when starting to use the desk was that I got a lot of pain in my calf and other leg muscles.

I'd noted this as a potential problem from people writing about their experiences with standing desks and it's why I went for a sit-stand desk rather than a pure standing desk.

Being able to lower the desk again when I needed to ease out my legs made a big difference. Now I've been using it for a month, I find I'm choosing to use it standing for most of the time. I'm often more comfortable that way - but I can still sit down if I want to.

It was the fact that the desk could be easily adjusted from sitting to standing that sold it to me. It needs a bit of a yank, but there's assistance from a gas lift and it really isn't too difficult.

I got this one cheap as it was a return, and I've no complaints.

One side effect is that I've noticed my leg muscles are getting stronger. I can feel the difference when I'm doing morris.

Would I buy it again? Definite yes.

I notice they've still got some returns - https://mailchi.mp/8283b51ff5a6/clearance-sale-off-sit-standcom-limited-period-offer-284022?e=%5bUNIQID - and their sales guy was very helpful when I bought mine.

I'd definitely break yourself in gently if you do get one. Try standing for 10 mins every hour to start with - you spend less time on your feet than you think!

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Engineering

watervole — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 22:10:22 GMT

A friend of mine is an excellent DIY engineer who can creatively fix all kinds of things. He's okay with me sharing this story with you (He reads this blog, Hi, Adrian!)

"You might be interested to hear the saga of our neighbourhood Christmas emergency: it all began on the Friday before Christmas week, when the local butcher's vacuum bag-sealing machine packed up. With all his Christmas stock waiting to be vacuum packed, that was a major catastrophe. We eventually tracked the fault down to a problem in the pneumatic cylinder that pinched the bag seal shut. The diaphragm was torn, so I ordered a new one and then received an e-mail to say it would be out of stock until the New Year;

To get the machine going again, I dismantled the cylinder and after a lot of trial and error found that a patch cut from a condom was flexible enough to stretch as the diaphragm rolled. We got the machine working again and by Monday morning his shop display was full of vacuum-sealed packs.

I had bought the packet of condoms from the newspaper shop (the chemist was shut on Saturday) and on my way back past the butcher's shop, I attracted the attention of his sister, who was serving, and held the packet up to the shop window. She burst out with hysterical laughter and called out something to her brother, who also doubled-up with laughter.

At that point I realised that the mystified-looking customer at the counter was my next-door-neighbour.

(I have since seen her and offered an explanation, but she said there was no need, as the butcher's sister had told her what was happening at the time.)"

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Spooky fic

watervole — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 12:16:46 GMT

I've been following some fiction recs from SelenaK and one I particularly liked also led me to this one - https://archiveofourown.org/works/35797606

A short, spooky crossover between 'Grand Designs' and the Cthulhu mythos.

'Grand Designs' is a TV programme about an architect visiting people who are doing interesting builds on new/restored buildings. I'm familiar with it, but the story should still work even if you aren't.

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Interesting ideas for space opera RP...

watervole — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 12:09:19 GMT

I'm helping GM a role-playing space opera game. The six players have various factions, all the way from rats who steal everything that's not nailed down (and have a fascinating culture to go with it), to an AI whose task it is to look after a race of humanoids who have all entered virtual reality pods long ago and may/may not still be alive.

A major part of the game is exploration and colonisation.

What I'm after is ideas/suggestions for things they can find when they explore.

These can be anything and everything. The idea is that they should give several turns of activity and possibly produce something of value at the end (with a few possible duds)

We've created a number of these related to the background plot of the past history of the star cluster, but it's a large cluster and there's room for plenty more.

I want things that they can explore/analyse/learn things from/be puzzled by/etc.

What can your collective space opera brains come up with?

PS. There might still be space for another player, if anyone is interested. It typically involves a fair bit of in-character chatter over Discord in between the turn deadline every other week. The role-playing from some people is brilliant (and sometimes hilarious). We're only one turn into the game, so easy to fit someone in in an unexplored area.

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Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker (Fallen Empire series)

watervole — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 21:24:43 GMT

(Sorry for posting so little of recent. I've had a lot of trouble with sciatica. )

Star Nomad is a reasonably good story.

The war between the Imperials and the Alliance is over, with many dead on both sides.

Alisa, who was a pilot for the Alliance (who won) is trying to get back some to her daughter.

The only way home is to use her mother's old freighter, Star Nomad, which is in poor condition sitting in an old scrapyard, and turns out to be occupied by an Imperial cyborg...

She needs to find enough passengers to cover the costs of getting home, but several of the passengers (including the cyborg) have their own agendas....

Has a flavour slightly reminiscent of Firefly - assorted crew, struggling to keep flying in the aftermath of war - but where it suffers is in the characterisation.

Some of the characters are reasonably well drawn, but some remain very cardboard. For instance, Beck, who is hired as security (and has his own combat armour) turns out to like grilling meat and to want to develop his own line of sauces. But given that promising start, he never talks about anything except the sauces (and even than in vague detail). No mention of side dishes, different grilling techniques, how he actually makes the sauces, etc.

They have no lives outside the plot.

I find myself comparing with "The Long Road to a Small Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers.

Chambers's characters have far more personality and life to them.

This isn't a bad book. I got the first three as a set and am already reading the second, but I think they'll probably be 'read once' books, whereas Chambers is definitely in the 're-read' category.

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Seeking Disco...

watervole — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 18:39:46 GMT

I'm looking at Pluto TV, but no matter what I put into it's search, I can't find Discovery.

Help!

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Language

watervole — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 12:29:46 GMT

I'm back in learning German mode. Helps my stress levels - which are way too high after COP26...

And cheerfully making mistakes...But it's good, because I keep learning.

For some reason, I find poetry is a good way of learning the language.

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Defunding you life from fossil fuels

watervole — Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:47:56 GMT

I'm going to cover Banks, Investments, Insurance Companies and Pensions. All are important, and some are very easy to change.

Much of the information in this post comes from Ethical Consumer Magazine https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ They've done some excellent articles on ethical investments, and if you're a subscriber you get full access to the stuff on their website which has all the information from previous issues in a very useful format.

They're a useful resource for a lot of information and I highly recommend getting a subscription.

So, where do you start?

You have several areas:

1. Change your bank.

2. Change your insurance company (Insurance companies have very large fossil fuel investments)

3. See if you can change your pension to a greener option. (best to do this BEFORE you retire, as you may not be able to do so afterwards)

4. Move your savings and investments.

BANKS

The very worst offenders are Barclays, followed by HSBC (First Direct is part of HSBC and M&S Money is 50% HSBC - so avoid those too) Citigroup, Lloyds Banking Group (Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland), NatWest Group (NatWest, RBS, Coutts) and Santander (Santander, Carter Allen) are all financing of fossil fuels - but they're not quite as bad as Barclays and HSBC..

The best bank for ethics by a fair margin is Triodos (not just climate change -other ethical issues too). (you have to pay a small monthly fee for a current account, but you are far less likely to get charged large fees for things like accidental overdrafts, etc)

Other good ones include:

Cumberland BS current accounts, Monzo app-based bank, Nationwide current accounts, Starling Bank current accounts

We moved our bank account from First Direct (large fossil fuel investments) to Nationwide - no fossil fuel investments. And we wrote to First Direct to tell them why they had lost our business.

INSURANCE

There's nothing like being in the business of assessing risks to convert you to seeing the dangers of climate change.

There are no clear winners in the insurance industry, they all have a way to go (they have big reserve funds which include a lot of money in fossil fuels). However, action is starting to happen, and there are insurers who refuse to insure coal power stations, etc.

I would study the Ethical Consumer guide to insurers to make your own choice.

We moved to AXA who are one of the better ones (they're part of the group unfriendly to coal, but still have progress to make elsewhere) - and saved money on our policy as well.

INVESTMENTS and PENSIONS

If you're lucky enough to have savings and investments - and this includes your pension - this is an area where you can achieve several gains all at the same time:

1. You reduce the risk of your investment losing a lot of its value - especially important if it's your pension. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/nov/04/fossil-fuel-assets-worthless-2036-net-zero-transition

2. There's nothing like taking away your money from an institution to send a very pointed message - but when leaving, it's important that you write to them to explain why you're leaving.

3. Some of the fossil free funds have really good rates of return.

4. You get the pleasure of taking a positive step that costs virtually nothing, takes very little effort, and helps keep fossil fuels in the ground.

There's a really good guide in Ethical Consumer, which shows you rates of return as well as ethical ratings.

The clear winners on fossil fuel free (and overall good ethics) are:

FP WHEB Sustainability Fund [C] WHEB Asset Management LLP and Triodos Pioneer Impact Fund [C] Triodos Bank UK Limited

We moved our savings to Triodos - https://www.triodos.co.uk/impact-investments. No fossil fuels and no firms that support fossil fuels either. Also very happy with the rate of return!

WHEB have recently made it much easier for small investors, so we may try their fund as well.

PENSIONS

The amount of control you have over your pension investments will vary. If it's a plan with your employers, then try talking to them about the risks inherent in long-term fossil fuel investments. Both to the planet and to the security of your income in retirement - if there's still a habitable planet left when you reach that age...

If you're organising your own pension, then firms to look at include: for workplace pensions is Nest (not-for-profit and carbon divestment policies) and for personal pensions Royal London (high scoring mutual).

Firms to avoid - Fidelity, Old Mutual Wealth, Virgin Money, Scottish Widows

But I would strongly recommend reading the Ethical Consumer guide in full. It goes into a lot more detail than I can cover here.

It costs less than a fiver a month to subscribe, and it's more than repaid my two year's membership by finding me a fund that was more ethical (in the areas I'm interested in) than the one recommended by my local Financial Advisor, and with a significantly better rate of return as well.

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Electric transport

watervole — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 15:46:44 GMT

Today COP 26 themed post is about electric transport. the12daysofcop.wordpress.com/drive-electric/

It's a big gain carbon-wise, but this one - unlike many other climate saving actions which can cost virtually nothing - is an expensive step.

Electric cars are wonderful - we've just bought a second-hand Renault Zoe - and for the first time in my life, I actually enjoy driving. It's incredibly smooth, quiet and responsive. (It has a 200 mile range in Eco mode)

It's not a step we'd expected to take for several years. With nearly everything, the best item carbon-wise is the one you already own. Cost of manufacture is never trivial. But, when the garage investigated why our car was behaving in a manner that made it dangerous to drive, they finally (after several weeks trying to trace a transient fault) told us that the cost to repair it was a lot more than the value of the car.

So, we bit the bullet and went electric.

Not everyone is going to be able to afford to do this in the short term. It will be a while before electric cars trickle down to the bottom of the second-hand market, but it will be increasingly viable as time passes.

Charging networks should also improve - I know people who are concerned that they won't have a charging point where they normally park at home - I suspect the likely solution will be available charging points where people work and shop. A lot of car parks and supermarkets are already introducing chargers.

BUT - and it's a big but - the best environmental options will still be walking, cycling and public transport. (yes, guilty here - it turned out that getting our granddaughter to school was the killer - there's no bus service from here. She can get the school bus from where her parents live, but not from here, and it's only walkable when the weather in fine and we have an hour for the walk there and back again.)

Electric cars are lower carbon, but not zero carbon. It's important to remember that.

With any new energy saving technology comes what is known as the 'rebound effect'. If it gets cheaper, people do more of it, and thus wipe out much of the carbon-savings.

If you start driving further because your electric car is cheap and green to run, then it isn't as green as you intended.

Electric bikes are so efficient that they're actually more carbon-friendly than walking the same distance. (The carbon cost of the food you burn is higher.)

I went out this morning on mine and came back with two charity shop curtains (in the panniers) that will hang in our office. They have linings, so will keep in more heat than our existing curtains.

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Food Waste

watervole — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 17:40:35 GMT

Food waste is a surprisingly big hitter on Climate Change. Whenever we grow unused food, we're wasting all the carbon cost of growing it, and also losing the advantages that could be gained if the land was restored to nature.

In the UK 7 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households every year, that’s around a third of all the food we buy. If we stopped wasting food it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as taking 1.8 million cars off UK roads.

But food waste is also hard one to reduce. There are many different causes of food waste, and each of them requires a different approach. It requires many small changes in habits and it's easy to forget, or not want to take the extra time to write out a shopping list - but there's more than one motivator. Imagine if you could reduce your food bill by a third....

See the12daysofcop.wordpress.com/cut-food-waste/ for additional tips to those given here.

There are things that we can do. None of them are easy as it tends to take time and effort to change habits, especially when they're things we do regularly.

Use leftovers rather than throwing them away.

- this one is always hard for me to wrap my brain around. Apparently, there are people who don't eat leftovers for supper/breakfast/lunch the next day. All I can say is that there weren't any in the family I grew up in, and there aren't any in my family either. My mother would have been horrified, and so would I.

Make a shopping list so you don't buy things you don't need - my husband does the two-weekly main shop, and he always goes round the kitchen beforehand checking what we're short of, and makes a list. Has done so for many years. It makes financial sense, and saves trying to cram too much into cupboards. (and yet, the odd thing, is that we're never short when people are out panic-buying. People don't panic buy tins of haricot beans, and they don't go off either... Same goes for nuts and other veggie staples.)

Get in the habit of freezing milk, bread or leftovers that you won’t use straight away.
Milk is surprisingly the most significant contributor to avoidable carbon emissions, followed by bread.

We don't do this one. (Well apart from surplus allotment produce). That's because we don't buy more than we need in the first place, so we don't end up with stuff running close to its use-by date. And we eat the leftovers....
(If your find your milk regularly goes off, check your fridge temperature - According to the UK food standards agency, the ideal fridge temperature for food is 8°C and below. Taking into account the temperature drop from the opening and closing of the fridge door, the fridge should be set at a temperature between 1-5°C.)

I'd also suggest having a small fridge (unless you have a lot of people in the house). The bigger the fridge, the more likely you are to have stuff tucked away at the back that gets forgotten and goes past its date.

Challenge - Can you eat everything you buy for a week? Two weeks? How long can you go without throwing away any food?

Challenge 2 - Can you buy the food that would normally be wasted before it ever gets to you? How about those wonky spuds, undersized pears, etc.? (We get our fruit and veg from Riverford, and they include these as part of their normal supply. The tiny Conference pears this week are very tasty.)

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COP 26

watervole — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 12:14:29 GMT

We all know the climate is in a perilous state, and how close to the edge of complete ecosystem collapse we are treading.

Governments need to act in a big way, but we can also make changes on an individual level that will help.

So, I'll be posting a series of posts during COP 26 to remind us all of what we can do.

Let's start with a relatively easy challenge for reducing your carbon footprint - clothing.

Clothing and textiles make up about 2% of  the footprint of the average UK citizen, but it can be 5 to 10 times higher for people who like fast fashion and buy lots of clothes.

I've been doing this challenge for several years now. Baring underwear and shoes, I don't buy any new clothing at all.

The interesting aspect is that I often get compliments on items of clothing that I bought decades ago.

Also, it's rather nice to get a compliment on a 'new' skirt, smile and say that it only cost a fiver in a charity shop!
More on the climate impact of clothing and what you can do is here (my sister Gillian has done a lot of work on this)
the12daysofcop.wordpress.com/wear-clothes-to-last/

Comment

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Band for Bugshaw

watervole — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 21:21:58 GMT

I enjoyed weaving these. All second-hand yarn, but I really love working with the greenish self-patterning yarn. I don't know what it's made of, but it feels a bit like cotton, and the colours really come to life with the right lighting. (which I never seem to have when taking photos!)

I made three in the end - because the patterns were pretty and I really liked the way the yarns worked together.

Bugshaw, when picking which one you want, the chain one us 21cm excluding fringe; the cross/diamond pattern is also 21cm excluding fringe, and the little bookworm (which I know is too short for you, is 13cm excluding fringe.

Fringe can be trimmed to suit, thought I wouldn't cut all of it off. It can also be twisted or plaited, etc.

All of them have different patterns on the back, which can be seen here - www.ravelry.com/projects/JudithProctor/rug-for-bug

The ones Bugshaw doesn't choose are available to anyone willing to make a donation to either www.clientearth.org/ or www.worldlandtrust.org/

As usual, I'm open to requests for belts, bagstraps, decorative bands for clothing, dog leads, bookmarks, etc. (Tablet weaving is very strong)

All I ask in return is that you support my favourite environmental charities and help make the world a tiny bit safer for when my beloved granddaughter is an adult.

By the time she's old enough to vote, we will either have managed to rein back carbon emissions, or we will have screwed it up so badly that nothing her generation can do will be enough to stop catastrophic changes to the climate.

Actually, I'll also take environmental pledges. eg. If you fly regularly, I'll happily take giving up aviation for a trip you would normally take. If you're a regular meat eater, I'd take a pledge to have a meat free day every week, etc.

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Synchronised Swimming Sketch

watervole — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 17:49:30 GMT

I cannot put my finger on why this is so funny, but trust me, it is!

Performed by a group of school teachers for a charity variety show. The skit is fabulous.

I laughed. A lot.

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Monk's belt weaving

watervole — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 13:20:20 GMT

I've been experimenting with a technique called 'monks belt' weaving.

It's an adaptation for an inkle loom (which is what I have) from another type of loom (a 'four shaft' loom, if you really want to know). I didn't invent the adaptation, I got it from an inkle weaving book)

The catch, as it turns out, is that you can do it, but you can't do it easily.

It's not a natural fit on an inkle loom and involves more effort than it really deserves.

The results look bold and dramatic with strong contrast, but...

Here's what I made for user Pensnest. I used a grey background yarn and a bright, garish two colour acrylic double knitting yarn that my daughter in law passed on to me.

I'll try and explain the route of the problem. Most patterns woven on an inkle loom take advantage of the background pattern caused by the heddle on every other thread. It's dead easy to have all the odd warp threads picked out, or all the even ones. If you have odd and even yarns of different colours, then you would get a natural checkerboard pattern as the odds and evens go up and down on alternating rows.

Normally, you only need to pick a few threads out of that sequence to get a wide variety of patterns.

With monk's belt patterns, you have to manipulate half the threads on every pick (every pass of the shuttle).

It's a lot of work.

Plus, the long floats (you can see them in the photo) mean that the end result (if you're using relatively thick yarn) comes out much thicker than a normal inkle loom weave would. So, unless you're using much thinner thread, you have something that takes a lot of work to do, that's also too thick for some uses, and also more likely to snag on things.

But the results can still look good.

I wove an extra bit with the left over yarn, just to try another monk's belt pattern, but I'm not sure what to do with it.

If anyone can use it, it's yours in exchange for the usual donation to one of my favourite charities. (It's really too thick to make a good bookmark)

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Insurance costs

watervole — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 13:39:19 GMT

I'm in shock after reading this year's insurance renewal quote.

We moved our insurance cover to AXA last year, as they have the least money in fossil fuels and related industries (most insurance companies have MASSIVE fossil fuel investments).

It was also a financial gain as their quote turned out to be cheaper (though I'd have been prepared to pay a little extra if necessary).

Now I've got the renewal quote...

I'm used to phoning my insurance company every year, to haggle down the 10% rise they automatically slap on in the hope that you won't notice.

But this year's quote from Axa was £2 cheaper than last year.

As I said, I'm in shock.

But very happy to recommend Axa!

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Saving Xmas

watervole — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 13:15:28 GMT

Apparently there is a need to 'save Christmas'

Who knew?

The kind of Christmas my family enjoy is in no danger at all.

Get together with our loved ones for the day, share tasty (mostly vegan) food. Swap fairly inexpensive presents. Play board games.

Not all all worried by lack of turkeys caused by a shortage of people desperate enough to work to low paid, dangerous and unpleasant meat factories.

Not at all worried by lack of lorry drivers to bring all those expensive overseas presents either.

If you have a close-knit family, none of these are necessary.

All I want for Christmas is for the Covid rate to drop to a point where my son and his finance feel safe to stop shielding, so that they can be with us.

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Historical stuff

watervole — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 10:28:40 GMT

So what did I get my daughter in the end?

I can't even remember who/what sparked off the idea, but her reaction when I asked if she'd like one for her birthday was "Definitely! As long as I don't buy it first"

Good quality reproduction, made to size, Naval Lieutenant's uniform. (Lin's brother is paying for half of it)

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Finding historical objects

watervole — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 21:09:50 GMT

When asked what she'd like for her birthday, my daughter said "things from 1780-1810".

She's very interested in this period - largely from the naval history angle.

She likes real objects to use in role playing games - I've seen her use a few items of WW11 stuff to great effect. Just passing them round the players really helps to embed you in the setting.

However, there isn't much stuff around from 1780-1810 and most of what I can find is expensive coins.

Can anyone give me interesting suggestions?

Original is best, but replicas would probably do if accurate.

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Back dancing

watervole — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 10:45:35 GMT

First post-Covid morris practice. Been a year and a half since the last time we were together.

New hall, several of the team still avoiding meeting people indoors, so a lot different.

But we had a blast!

It's good to remember why I do morris - and here's the answer - Dancing makes you feel alive. Playing music with other people makes you feel alive.

Dancing as a team to music played by your friends? Beyond price.

Charging down the hall with my friend Paul, both of us doing giant step hops - I felt myself again.

(Most of the team still have major fitness issues to recover from, but Paul and I were in pretty good shape)

This is the first time I've held out for a proper ten minute warm up - and it certainly paid off for me at least. And a proper cool-down. No aches or pains today, and I was moving really freely yesterday in spite of a lingering problem with my Achilles tendon/calf muscle.

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I really need an icon for weaving...

watervole — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:37:54 GMT

Kotturinn took me up on my recent offer to weave a belt, and we're both really pleased with how it came out.

As you can see, with this kind of weaving, there's a different pattern on the two sides of the band.

The star and diamond pattern was the one I chose it for, but I quite like the back side as well.

Here's a close up

For these interested in the technical stuff, it's a 'Baltic' style pattern woven on an inkle look.

It's a warp-faced weave -ie. The weft is all one colour and the patterns are made by manipulating the weft threads. (Unlike any weaving you did as kids, which was probably weft-faced.

I used two yarns of different thickness. Every thick weft thread will have a thin one on each side of it. (Sometimes, you can use two thin threads side by side to achieve the effect of a single thicker one.)

The thinner of the two yarns effectively push the thicker yarn up between them and make the thicker yarn stand a little proud.

I used a strong, thin, wool, machine knitting yarn that I got from the local scrap store for the background. I'm very fond of this particular purple yarn, it goes well with a lot of things and I have a whole cone of it. Unlike acrylic yarns, it doesn't stretch under tension, so I have more control over the weaving.

The pattern threads were from self-patterning sock yarn passed on by a friend - the colours were used in a way that makes the pattern almost symmetrical, but with a slight random element. that I rather liked. I really love the way the softer colours work together.

So, anyone else fancy a belt, hairband, bookmark, edge for a skirt, trim for a blouse, etc? I'll make them all out of second-hand yarn and all I ask is a donation (amount of your choice) to one of my favourite charities.

You get to choose the approximate colours, length, and width.

You can choose a pattern if you like -but you can also say 'surprise me', which is what Kotturinn did.

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Adventures in dressmaking

watervole — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 19:23:33 GMT

Inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee and by a general desire to avoid buying new clothes wherever possible, I'm making a summer top out of an old skirt that had a small hole in it. I bought a copy of Collins-Complete-Book-Needlecraft in a charity shop. It's a well written book and has the advantage of a loose sheet with lots of patterns on it. Very difficult to get free patterns, there appears to be no dressmaking equivalent to Ravelry.

The patterns in the book have no seam allowance - not quite sure why - you have to add it manually when cutting the pattern out.
The process of making a top goes roughly like this:

1. Not that the pattern had a single front piece and two back pieces. See no reason for there to be two back pieces, so cut it on a fold of a fabric and end up with one front and one back.

2. Pin it and try it on.

3. Realise that the reason for having two back pieces is that you can't fit the top over your head unless you have a back opening with a fastener of some kind.

4. Not enough fabric to cut out two new back pieces, and cutting it in half would leave no seam allowance, so try one of the many options suggested in the book and decide to do a pinhole neckline at the front.

5. Pinhole neck needs bias binding. Go out and buy bias binding - have no idea if wide or narrow binding is needed. Am stupid enough to believe staff member in Hobbycraft who assures me that the wide binding I am holding in my hand will be fine.

6. Attempt bias binding - find that the thick binding can't cope with the tight curve of a pinhole neck. It sticks up at right angles from the fabric...

7. Cut the bias binding in half down the centre of the strip and read lots of stuff on the web about how to attach bias binding round curves.

8. Better result this time, The bias binding still sticks up a bit, but not nearly so far.

9, Find button in stash and make a loop with bias binding to fasten it across the pinhole. Of course, the button has to be slightly to one side of the centre, which is annoying when you look at it...

10. Decide that I'd like to add some short sleeves. There's just enough fabric left from the skirt to do it. I'd like sleeves with a sort of loose, floppy effect, so I cut them on the bias (some of the Sewing Bee sticks).

11. Sew first sleeve in inside-out.

12. It also seems a bit tight.

13. Hm. Tweak sleeve shape a bit to make as much space for the shoulder as possible.

14. Sew in both sleeves. It all looks good, but I really don't like the way the neckline looks with that button, and the sleeves are still a bit tight.

15. Ah, we forgot the missing seam allowance when cutting out the sleeves....

16. Decide to scrap the pinhole neck. Cut out a big, deep neckline. Remove all the old bias binding and apply new. Getting much better at bias binding now! It's definitely lying flatter, and pressing it properly helps even more.

17. THere are some slight wrinkles on the shoulders now - probably a result of the new neckline removing some of the tension in the fabric.

18. Some careful measurement reveals that I remembered the 'extra' seam allowance on the back panels, but not on the front. Hm. That's another reason why the sleeves feel tight - the fabric across the shoulders is a bit tight.

19. Decisions, decisions. I can either remove the sleeves altogether, or take them out and reduce the seam size as much as possible. It's sewn with a 2cm seam, so I could probably gain 1cm all round without totally destroying it....

It's a good thing that I regarded this entire exercise as a learning experiment!

I've learnt a lot about both fabric and technique. The skirt was old and well worn and the fabric was soft and slippery and very hard to pin and cut accurately.

I've gained a reasonable understanding of darts - I managed to alter the pattern correctly for my bust, and I also managed a slight change to the side shaping. I wanted it loose fitting, but with some slight shaping.
I now have an idea of how to modify patterns to alter the shape of sleeves.

I now know three different ways to apply bias binding and have a reasonable idea of which one to use where and why.

I will always check patterns to see if they include seam allowances!

I will try my next project with a slightly stiffer fabric (I've a second-hand duvet colour in a nice, bold pattern...)

Here's what the top looks like at present - it looks a bit crumpled as I hadn't ironed it and it had got tossed in a pile by the sewing machine overnight....

So, shall I remove the sleeves, or try resetting them in with a reduced sleeve allowance?

I mean, I could just abandon it. It's never likely to fit that well, but it's all education!

How's the picture size?

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has comments.

Puppet Show!

watervole — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 18:03:08 GMT

I have a large collection of Pelham (and a few assorted) marionettes from my youth.

Now Oswin is seven, they're coming out more often and getting used again.

Here is our dog training session, followed by our version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Sit back, get out your popcorn, and enjoy! (We offer no apologies whatsoever for limited scenery and levitating bears.)

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Keeping cool

watervole — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 14:07:07 GMT

By trial and error, I've discovered that it's better to close the curtains and open the window behind them, rather than close both.

If you close the window on the sunny side, the heat piles up between window and curtain and it ends up hotter than the outside. Opening the window allows that extra heat to escape.

If you have a ground floor, sleep there with the back door open. That helps lose heat overnight and lets you sleep in the coolest place in the house. This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has comments.

Heat...

watervole — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 19:00:02 GMT

Have finally given in to the heat and ordered a retractable awning for both our south-facing downstairs windows.

My next door neighbour has one, and her kitchen is LOT cooler.

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has comments.