It’s KmKat’s birthday today, one of those big ones. Go help her celebrate by making her laugh and you might win a little something she’s giving away.
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For the last week, I’ve had the fun of spinning with a wheel borrowed from a friend. It’s a Majacraft Gem, small and portable so I can pick it up with one hand to move it.
I enjoy spindle spinning but it’s slow. With a wheel I’d be willing to spin enough wool to make a sweater. While I enjoy spindle spinning, I’d never be willing to make that commitment. Not only is the spinning slower, but plying is more labor intensive. I produced 200 yards of fingering weight 2-ply in just a couple days on the wheel; something that would take me much longer on a spindle.
I haven’t mastered the whys and wherefores of what I’m doing but I’m enjoying learning from my mistakes. And learning to use a spindle before a wheel was really helpful. The ability to “park and draft” without having to worry about what my feet were doing made learning less stressful.
So there’s been some discussion with my woodworker about building me a wheel. We were considering something like the Gem but decided the obstacle of reproducing their treadle cranks was more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe a little Traveller knockoff would be better.
(There should be a picture to go along with this but we’re about to get a thunderstorm so it’s dark and forbidding here and I’d rather post none than crappy.)
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In the cranky department, Newsgator notified me that they’re killing their consumer online reader service so I switched to Google Reader.
I.don’t.like.it.at.all.
Yeah, yeah, I’ll get used to it. There are probably features that I’ll end up thinking are great, but I don’t want them to automatically mark a post as read just because I scrolled through it to look at the pics. Plus they show all my subscriptions even if there isn’t a new post. I’m irked I tell ya.
And since it’s Monday and it’s raining, I’m gonna be cranky. Just for a bit. And not too seriously.
Add the Next button to your tool bar and you might be happier with the google reader, sweetie. It works for me. Although, you can mark posts unread by clicking a thingy at the bottom of each post on the reader page.
Yay for wheels!
If you don’t want to do Cookie’s thingie, here’s what I do: on your Google Reader home page, lower left quadrant (where your list of subscriptions resides) click on the drop-down arrow right above the slider bar. You can select there whether you want it to display all your subscriptions or just the ones with new posts.
Reader seems to be less buggy than Bloglines, which is good, but Google really needs to make the interface cleaner, imnsho. An almost blank page was Google’s ground-breaking innovation back when it was just a search engine, but both GMail and Reader have very cluttered and confusing layouts. I am embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure out how to reply to an email in GMail and also how to compose a new one. Sheesh.
Have you looked at Babe’s Fiber Garden? I bet you he could make you a starter wheel like that. Even Kromski’s aren’t as expensive as other ones. I think their lowest is 319 or 350 or something like that.
When he starts building the wheel, I hope you document the process with photos as well as you did the rocker!
I haven’t messed much with Google Reader. Bloglines was such a glorious step up from a folder full of bookmarks, that I haven’t moved on…
Don’t give up on g-reader! Once you figure it out I think you’ll like it – especially after all your feeds start showing up regularly (unlike bloglines…) ;o)