Soldering On

 

My Mushroom Lamp

The title for this post is not a typo. Last month my husband and I took a class that was designed to teach people how to solder. We aren’t beginners but I wanted a fun activity we could do together, and the class project to make a mushroom lamp really caught my eye.


Unsplash
My soldering experience goes back, way back, to my earliest computing job where I assembled specialized computers from very basic components. I’ve soldered tiny little resistors and thin wires, and also have soldering experience from stained glass work. The mushroom light project was a good soldering refresher.

 

The instructor had 3D printed mushroom stems and caps for us to choose from. Our soldered circuits went inside the mushroom caps. We then strung the wiring through the mushroom's stem.

 


After soldering and securing the circuit board in the mushroom's cap, we had to unwrap and glue in a couple dozen mushroom gills that the instructor had made with a laser cutter. That took quite a while as the blue protective film didn't come off easily. An additional benefit of the class was learning about a super glue accelerant. That will come in handy on our future projects!

 

 


The soldering portion of the class didn’t take long. However, the WLED software we used to program the lights on our completed mushroom lights fascinated me. It seemed there were endless possibilities and I’ll continue to change the lights occasionally.


Ta da! My finished lamp lit up



1000 Pieces

 

Ravensburger jigsaw with interesting artwork 

Back in late November our area experienced a significant wind storm that knocked down many trees in a wide area. Our power was out for three days. Then a day into the outages, cellular towers also lost power. Without electricity, heat, and internet service, we pulled out some of our old jigsaw puzzles to work on by lantern.

It was a great way to spend the evenings bundled in extra layers and making hot cocoa on a camping stove set up on the back porch. We found it so relaxing that we’ve continued working on puzzles. Rather than buying new jigsaw puzzles, I looked for local places to trade but found none in our area. We checked Goodwill and hit the jackpot with hundreds of puzzles at very affordable prices.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jigsawpuzzles/comments/1chnnnn/pieces_names/
We found that 500 piece puzzles were too easy with both my husband and I working on them and have settled on 1000 pieces as the standard we purchase. Many of the puzzles had strange shapes like lightning bolts. I wondered whether the different pieces had names other than something like “two outies, two innies” as I called them.

It turns out there aren’t any universally agreed upon names, but there is
An Amy Stewart puzzle

some commonly used terminology like tabs/knobs/outies and blanks/sockets/innies. While researching names for pieces I learned that the world’s leading puzzle maker is Ravensburger, and we happened to find one at Goodwill.

 

The artwork in the Ravensburger puzzle was intricate and entertaining (see top of page). However, my favorite puzzles were the colorful ones. I also learned that January is national puzzle month. For us, the entertainment will likely last until the weather is nice enough for regular outdoor activities.

Amy Stewart artwork

 





The Heart of Personal Shopping

 

 

I loved my volunteer shifts in the food bank’s cafe every Tuesday and Friday. But when the food bank’s website featured a brief video on the cafe, there was a rush of volunteers and I was crowded out of my regular shifts. 😞

Bags and boxes filled by the personal shopping volunteers
So, I switched back to an earlier role I had as a personal shopper for the home-bound. This job starts with a list of foods that each individual fills out with dietary restrictions and food preferences. The volunteer shopper then takes a grocery bag or two and fills it with the specified food choices. It’s not easy because of the limited supply of food we have to choose from. We do the best we can to fill a bag at least half full.

Sentiment in some of the cards
I enjoy doing my best for each client.
This past Wednesday I brought in handmade Valentine’s cards to slip into the grocery bags for women. , ,Since these clients are home-bound, I wanted to let them know I care about the food I'm selecting for them.  The cards included sentiments like the one at the top of the page and at left.

Once we’ve done our best to shop for an individual’s food, the bags go onto four-tier racks while they await pickup by volunteer drivers who deliver the groceries to clients. Not only do volunteers drive cars and trucks, but we also have bicycle delivery teams. The bicyclists are provided with carts they pull behind them, and given how hilly Seattle is, this can’t be an effortless task!

 

On Wednesdays, the food bank is only open for the personal shopping volunteers and we have no interaction with clients. However, like the work we do in the cafe, I'm still able to provide individualized and personal service to those facing food insecurity. 



 

Uncovering the Past

 

I did it!

While this post isn't entirely about an archaeological project, it does involve uncovering a project I’d abandoned a year ago. I adore felted ornaments with hand-sewn decorations and I purchased a Bucilla kit containing twelve of them last year. I immediately encountered two problems.

 

First, I find it very difficult to sit still for any length of time. Second, the instructions, while intended to be simple and basic, couldn’t have been more difficult for me to understand than trying to decrypt Viking runes. Fortunately, YouTube had instructional videos that helped me decipher the "simple" steps and sewing stitches needed.

 

So how did I finally resume this project? Archaeological videos, especially Digging for Britain. Most people probably listen to music or movies while crafting, but I love the ancient past and it is what kept me seated long enough to finish all these ornaments in just a few weeks.

 

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1963-1208-126

Hand sewing has a long tradition, a wonderful connection to the past. Imagine the labor that went into creating thread in antiquity—shear the sheep, card the wool, then use a hand whorl to get the final product. Many of these spindle whorls (photo at right) have been found in ancient burials.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Brooch

 While struggling to do the different stitches, I found it amazing to see the fine metalwork from these late 8th or early 9th century brooches. As difficult as spinning thread would have been, imagine doing something just as delicate with metal! Let’s not forget the metals had to be extracted from rocks, refined, cast, and finally hand-worked by an experienced craftsman.


 

Watching the archaeology videos made the work so enjoyable that I plan to do another embroidery kit later this year. First, there are other crafts to learn and make.

 


 


 

 

Dishing Up Christmas

 

Bowl Cozies



This year I dusted off sewing skills that had been dormant for decades by taking a couple sewing classes. One of the classes featured bowl cozies, which I've found so useful that I thought these would make great Christmas gifts.

‘Sew’, after a trip to a nearby fabric store for supplies, I set up the sewing machine and got to work. Selecting fabrics that reflected interests of the recipients (family members) allowed me to make the bowl cozies personalized.

After sewing was finished, I turned my projects into gift bags with the addition of a bowl, instant oatmeal, hot soups, and crackers. With some raffia to fill in spaces and some Christmas-themed gift bags, these made nice little gifts that were made with love and didn’t cost a fortune (except for mailing, sigh).
 

 

Following several YouTube videos, I discovered another super easy and cute pattern for pocket tissue holders. Using leftover fabric, I made a tissue packet holder to match each bowl cozy. After all, this is cold and flu season, so I added some vitamin C drink packets, tea, and cocoa mix.


 

Once Santa’s helpers at USPS had whisked away these gifts, I hunted around for more Christmas sewing projects and found these cute little mouse ornaments on Etsy from PinCutSewStudio. The ears looked daunting but the hardest part ended up being sewing around the curves. The pleated ears were a cinch.

I’m following a couple sewing crafters on YouTube for easy project ideas not only for Christmas but birthday gifts also. Browsing beautiful fabrics for projects is almost as much fun as finding stunning papers for card making.





Soldering On

  My Mushroom Lamp The title for this post is not a typo. Last month my husband and I took a class that was designed to teach people how to ...