Hello March

After months of rain we're finally having a dry spell.  The feeling that Spring is coming is definitely settling over the isle.

So, what's been going on?

Well, I've been busy.  I did some embroideries last year and was on the hunt for fabric to put them on.  I'd tried quite a few when I was given an "old blanket" perhaps for the dog or the bed.  It was perfect!  I cut it in two, removed the original edging (that kind of silky stuff that was all the rage decades ago but feels almost slimy) and got to work.

First was a nice blanket stitch around the edge to bring the colour on the reverse to the front and then using the same yarn to sew down my patches.  Under each patch is a small bit of wadding just to keep the fabric raised enough to feel the embroidery.

Blanket 1 is done:


I am definitely going to add to this but first I need more white cotton to embroider onto.

I'm taking part in another "mystery sock" pattern, this is clue 1:


Clue 2 involves cables and is taking me time.  I've knit cables once and not on tiny needles in sock yarn.  The main time consumer is re-reading which one crosses which way.

Jo spent most of last week in Oban and Inveraray.  I was hoping for the new trike bits to arrive seeing as they said "expected early arrival on Monday" and we hoped they'd come over on the Tuesday ferry.  Nope, they came over on the Sunday ferry, the same one Jo came home on!

He did buy me sock yarn though:


So that will become a present for him :)

The trike!  Oh, the GB of a trike.  I (possibly stupidly) thought I could easily change out the crank and chain while Jo made dinner.  Well, I did manage that, but only because it takes two hours to make dough, let it rise, make sauce and finally make pizza.  The air might also have been a bit blue towards the end.

The beginning was fairly easy.  Prop bike on bricks, remove chain housing, remove crank and chain.  What I hadn't realised was that the new crank did NOT come with a new pedal.  So I got the spanner and tried to remove the old pedal.  Then we got the hammer.  Finally, after a little Googling to check we were going the right way, we got the 8 foot long pole.  Leverage at its finest!  After a few turns with the pole it was possible to use just the spanner.  Once out the pedal easily screwed into the new crank.  New crank easily went on.  Too easy.  You know how I mentioned the old teeth had worn?

This is a brand-spanking new chainring:


Note the  squared off tips to the "teeth" and how they are all uniform in size.

Now look at the old chainring:


Note the absence of uniformity and the pointedness of the "teeth".  Yep, "used to it's full potential" is one way of putting it.  So, due to wear, the old chain was a bad way of measuring the new one; I was two links short and had to do some fiddling.  I then put the chain on the back ring, draped it over the front and started turning the pedal to slip the chain on.  Not going.  The end result was a serious loosening of the back wheel so it would slide forward far enough to slip the chain on.  Then followed the realigning of the back wheel and tightening of nuts.

Jo had ordered a new chain guard, quite a good idea as the old one had been ground down in places by poorly seated chains.  Little did we realise it would be a necessity.

Yep, the old chain guard would not fit on the new chainring.  This is where the air started to turn blue.  I had tried the new guard but the new design means it is a right PITA to fit.  There's a bit that's meant to just slip into the end of the two main parts.  On the old design it did that easily; on the new design you have to juggle all three at once because if you try and secure any one part the other two won't play.  Still, I did it, I adjusted it so the chain didn't rub and had a lovely dinner.

The next day Jo told me it rode wonderfully.

So now we have these bits sitting about:


Not sure if they can just be put in the bin or if someone might like them for some modern art.  Possibly excepting the guard; they're pretty much useless.

Today.  Today has been wonderful if mentally knackering.  The weather has been spectacular:


The livestock have had chance to begin drying and even enjoy the sun.


The cable laying boat (I assume, I couldn't check AIS while I was out) was busy:




I was with ten others learning First Aid.  I hadn't done it for 13-14 years and was actually quite impressed at how much I remembered.  I will admit to being one of those "annoying" ones that asked questions and perhaps got a bit giggly in the afternoon!  But it was great and the instructors were excellent and very happy to answer questions.

When I got home I spotted the moon!


A little manipulation later and...



Hello moon!

There are also these cuties across the road:


Most unimpressed about being in bags but probably happy to be dry.

That's about it really.  I'm still helping at An Iodhlann and we've gone through quite the quantity of credits updating the records.  The person currently funding that is most likely unimpressed at the rate we got through them but seems glad at the outcome.

Finally, I shall leave you with some snipe and hares:











TTFN.

Wet, wet, wet.

Fortunately not nearly as wet as down South!

Yesterday was gorgeously sunny!




And yet, during the 2 hours of Wednesday crafters it turned to rain and fog:


We did have a lovely Tuesday arvo too.  I even sat outside for a bit.


(view to Mull)

Peter, he who had a giant cake last year, has been busy:


This man's talent is amazing.

Whereas I have been busy knitting.


"I can't feel my legs"


"Eh?! Speak up!"


Complete!

I initially was intending this for the Community Group baby kits but he's as big as a baby.  So, instead at the Easter sale he's going on a stall with "guess the koala's name" and the money will be split between the tapestry group and the community group.

I've also knit Jo another pair of socks:


He mentioned how I have quite a few pairs and that his shop bought ones are growing holes.  So now my sock knitting is for him.  Fortunately there's very little difference in our feet so it's not really any extra work.

What else?

I'm helping with records at An Iodhlann, finding pages that are missing and printing them off.

I've also applied to the OU to do an accounting certificate and the first module starts in April.  That is, assuming I get the fee grant from SAAS.  See, in Scotland you can apply once every academic year for financial help towards study.  The two modules will be around £1700; we don't have that spare.  So the SAAS is helping me achieve it.

Anyway, bedtime.

TTFN

Two years and 11 days

Yes really.  That's how long we've now been Tiree residents.  I was planning a post similar to the last annual update but the weather here has been Wet with a side of sodden.  I also broke my camera mid January and it was away for two weeks for repairs.

But I still have some photos to share!

The tapestry is progressing well.  January saw all twelve panels joined together:


Some rearranging was done to the odd item that didn't look quite right but overall it's amazing.  The border is now being mocked up and the plan is to use words of a song written to look like waves.  There are still bits that need to be embroidered or other bits that need sewing down but considering when I moved here all that was done was some shells, mugs and cakes it's doing well!

There are even thoughts on what to do next.  The main plan is not something so intensive.

The weather truly has been wet.  We're used to getting a puddle in the back garden but the driveway at the front being 2" deep is new:



There's also a puddle near the front olearea (I'm never going to fathom that spelling!):


We have had some dry days though.  One day it was so clear you could see Eigg and Rum and co:





There was also a lovely view from Scarinish to Mull's snowy peaks:


It's currently 2:45am.  When I woke up an hour ago the moon was so bright I just had to go out:




There are hailstones galore piled up out front and more falling, but during the brief dry spell the moon was lovely.

The trike isn't happy with me.  After two years of very good use it was decided to change the chain as well as the rear tyre and rear inner tube.  Jo got a puncture last week so I took advantage of having the trike home during daylight to just do the whole lot.  Poor trike ended up looking like this:


The tyre was only 9 months old:


But why was the pedal missing?  Turns out that a trike being "used to its full potential" as said by the bike place we bought it from slowly deforms.



You see, the chainring starts off with very uniform "spikes" that go into the chain to hold it while force is applied.  Over two years those spikes don't wear down, they flatten.  The side that is pushing against the chain is under enough force that over time the metal widens.  If you don't really notice this the thickened metal starts to wear into the chain and the plates holding each link together get weakened and eventually the weakest snaps.

That happened last year.  I cannibalised a chain to repair it with the plan of a full overhaul come Easter.  So there I was last week; hands black with grease and road dirt trying to get the new chain on.  It sat on the rear wheel sprocket absolutely fine but was refusing to lock into the front chainring.  After arguing with it for ten minutes I fathomed the problem.  The teeth had widened so much that a new chain simply wouldn't fit.

Just for comparison; this is what 2 years does to a chain:

Top is the 2yo rusty, stiff chain.  Bottom is the brand new, shiny, free moving chain.

So, after a Google to remind me how to remove the crank I left our poor trike in the sorry state above and contacted the bike shop.  Turns out the Bakfiets, who make this trike, make the chainring and pedal crank as one piece.  One piece that the bike shop don't keep in stock or have even had to source before.

So poor GB (Grumpy Bastard) as I have nicknamed the trike sat for a few days with no crank or chain.  But when the bike shop had no ETA on the replacement I put him back together.  That lasted a day before the chain snapped again.  More cannibalising; more blackened hands and for now GB is going.

We're just hoping the new part doesn't cost a fortune!  We did some looking of our own and the part needed isn't obviously available.  A replacement that would work comes somewhere in the realm of £150.

So, Bakfiets, while I love how easily maintained your cargo trikes are: consider either making that part easily sourced or making it so the chainring and crank are separate.  Thank you!

That's about it for now.  I'm going to go knit and watch something.

TTFN.

Happy 2014

It's 2014 already.  I would say what happened to 2013 but there's a few thousand photos that tell me that.

No photos taken this year yet, maybe tomorrow.

We had a good Christmas, just the two of us at home with so much food it was only finished 5 days later and that was after entertaining three others!

So what happened?


Well, we were both up at a reasonable time and after the brekkers of fresh bread and slow-cooked ham joint we opened a present each.

I opened an unexpected parcel from the Catalyst team at Infolab and was greeted by something really rather cool.


It's a tree!  But the best part is it contains an Arduino and once the software is written and running on my PC the lights will reflect how Tilley the Turbine is doing.  Green will be excellent power production and red will be poor/off.

We'd spent a couple of hours on Christmas Eve preparing the food so cooking was a leisurely affair and I got to chill while Jo went to church and the house slowly filled with the smell of cooking turkey.  We decided to eat lunch in the living room as the kitchen was far too cold!  This did mean that Madam stickhound spent a good 20 minutes sitting next to Jo swearing to give her his lunch.  Didn't work.

She did get a doggy cracker though!  Bizarrely the packet said "to be opened by adults only"  I did open it for her but only because she didn't understand what to do and as there was no food contained she wasn't fussed about getting into it :p  It included a hat which Madam wore:





For all of five minutes.



Jo's morning pressie was a very punny tshirt from his little sister:


Once we'd put food out of doggy range we got to opening the rest of our pressies.  Some silly, some useful and some random.

I won't bore folks with the list, but it was a good selection and much fun.  It did include some home made multisurface cleaner from our soap making friends.  Took me 2 hours over 2 days, but I completely cleaned 2 years worth of grime off the inside of the oven door!  You can now see the status of your cooking items without opening it.  Just have to clean it every so often so I DON'T have to spend 2 hours and lots of energy on it.

I thought I'd summarise 2013 in craft terms.  So I present all the things I knit/crocheted during 2013:





 






















(I actually made 12 of these, but posting all those is just silly)


(ditto the 26 of these)

Finally, these are the Christmas presents I was asked to knit:

My MIL wanted a tea cosy, she specified "Tiree colours" and after seeing my jumper she said she wanted sheep.  I went with sheep at sunset:


With pom-pom!  It was a nice simple knit and I got to try "steeking" where you reinforce some stitches and then CUT YOUR KNITTING!  It's quite the scary idea but once you're done the exhilaration is amazing.

Younger sister in law wanted a bobble hat in burgundy and white.



I didn't have any suitable white but I did have a nice natural cream that really sets off the burgundy.
No Tiree colours this time, but those "bunnies" could conceivably be hares.

So that's a tiny summary of 2013.  Want to see the rest?  Just read the previous posts on here.

Happy 2014 to all who read this blog and may the new year bring new joy.

TTFN