yours in calendrical heresy

writing, floor looms, spinning wheels, music, other shenanigans

[deuceofgears]

Inagaki R-25 kimono loom: placemats warp

Beamed on!

I'm increasingly a fan of GIANT CHOPSTICKS bamboo sticks lashed together for lease sticks. (They came with the Inagaki R-25 loom.)

This could go horribly wrong, but I did a conversion from (a) rising shed tie-up to sinking shed (b) Lakeview Placemats tie-up (Gist Yarn, pattern by Kristina Nichols) to the tie-up already in place.

Next step will be threading the heddles, but that's soothing if slightly time-consuming. (It is certainly not, at four harnesses, notably more complex than reading the MIDI roll off a DAW... I just convert to a diatonic scale so I can hear the pattern in my head and we're off to the races!)

[deuceofgears]

I hand-dyed more skeins!

These turned out nicely, I think! Four of them are silk/retted bamboo, skein #4 from the left (the 2nd red skein, going left to right) is my handspun (muga silk/ramie). I have plans for my kimono loom. :)

[deuceofgears]

there is no handweaving, only catten hammock: an irregular series

Yep, catten is at it again. She's SO ANGRY when this loom isn't warped. /o\

I cannot get over how her BELLY FLOOF sticks through the bottom of the warp! Nice to know this warp (cotton 8/4, "rug warp") holds up to a 13-lb. catten lol.

It's as well this is destined to be a yoga blanket for my sister (Yoga Towel & Blanket pattern from Yarn Barn of Kansas, I order supplies from them frequently and adore them), who adores catten and is okitty with catten floof incorporation. :3

[deuceofgears]

ninefoxery

MUHAHAHAHAHA redactions and all

Sadly, my health remains trash so I'm lying back down now lolsob

[deuceofgears]

back to writing lol

Thriller WIP; taking a break from contracted work to work on a novel on spec.

Mina's husband, a war hero, was gunned down in front of her during a screaming argument. Two years, seven months, and twenty-three days later, she's ready to trade mourning black and research mathematics for a quiet job at the pet shelter. But the government offers her a position with a black ops unit....led by a man claiming to be her husband. Mina races to decipher why he doesn't remember their marriage--and the real target of his missions--before he adds her to his kill count.

My novels evolve a ton during the writing, but a fake blurb is a great way to focus my drafting while I'm still sussing out the novel.

(Also I'm taking a break from my Scoring to Picture summative as I need to be meticulous with the cue sheet!)

[deuceofgears]

character inventory

This may be one of my fave character inventory templates, from a Wacom character design workshop. Guess which one's Cheris and which one's Jedao! :D

("strategic" = no clear preference, or more accurately, any preference is overwhelmingly overridden by "how do I want to behave/present myself according to the strategic goal du jour")

[deuceofgears]

spinning silk + ramie

I had not actually thought I'd finally achieve ~45 wraps per inch of fine thread handspun by blending ramie (모시 or mosi in Korean) and muga silk (chosen for a similar/compatible staple length). Thankfully this doesn't have to be plied if I set the twist as both the bast fiber and silk are going to be plenty strong and I still despise plying. /o\

Next to a computer mouse for scale lol.

Here it is on the wheel; the other colors are from previous spinning experiments, underneath. Fountain pen for scale.

My health has been up and down so I decided to take the day off from schoolwork. /o\

[deuceofgears]

weaving: placemats underway!

The pattern is Kristina Nichols' Lakeview Placemats (Gist Yarn). I do plan to do these in a colorway other than NACHOS; these are for a friend who's also from Texas and shares my sense of humor. :p

The loom is a Saori WX-60 with the four-harness six-treadle conversion kit; it's a delightful loom, folds up nicely, only 30 lbs (!!!). I take it outside on my patio on a good day.

[deuceofgears]

lööm

Warped the Saori WX-60 floor loom!

Now that that bottleneck is cleared, back to work on partial cleanup of the first lip sync test for Candle Arc (exchange between Jedao and Menowen) while pondering how committed I am to Ninefox: Crashhawks in prose format or do I resume the visual novel version (fellow music composition student was very encouraging about the tiny fledgling proof of concept I shared with him) etc. I mean in real life it just sort of hangs around my notebooks anyway lolsob.

[deuceofgears]

Epomaker Glyph: keycap makeover

Yes, I'm trolling :) :) Keycaps from Keygeak (from two separate sets, "Poker Club" and "Mechanical Butterfly").

[deuceofgears]

today's goal

Get an 8.5"x11" or A4 notebook, fountain-pen-friendly-ish, so I can keep scribbling at Next Novel on spec lolsob. Ninefox Gambit was drafted longhand, although the original draft was a flood casualty. I think I still have a partial notebook of the first draft of Revenant Gun that survived the flood, although it's almost all scenes that got cut completely because I couldn't get them to work while we were recovering from a flood that knocked out most of Central Louisiana.

Today's actual accomplishment was finishing threading the heddles on the kimono loom. I need a break before sleying the reed; I also have some orchestral mockup practice f9o9r school. :3

[deuceofgears]

Dyeing experiment

Currently I'm in love with Treenway Silks' "Resilience" yarn (bombyx silk / retted bamboo blend). I tried dyeing it yesterday in a spirit of experimentation; efficient I was not, but the results are pretty! Since this is intended for my own use (handweaving) and fortunately dyeing is time-consuming but much of that time is unattended soaking...

I covet more of skeins of this lolsob; my love of gradients will be the death of me yet.

[deuceofgears]

lööm!

I'm now a great believer in C-clamps - there's one holding a lamp in place so I can thread the heddles more easily in this room's terrible lighting, and two in the blurry background holding the raddle in place on the back beam to keep my warp organized on this floor loom.

I originally made this box (Davey board, bookcloth, decorative papers) to hold paintbrushes, but it works just as well for my threading and sleying hooks! (The paintbrushes are fine and are now living in mugs.)

I haven't had much chance for writing writing the last few days as we're gearing up for Code and Codex marketing (US release in October 2026), plus orchestration/composition schoolwork. There was a webinar interview/Q&A with Alexander Temple (principal composer at Riot Games, of League of Legends / Arcane: League of Legends fame!) at my program today; I wasn't going to miss that! (I've missed some other terrific guest speakers because of scheduling conflicts; I will catch the recordings by and by.) Terrific to be able to hear about sampled orchestration mockup nerdery, especially regarding workflow and layering techniques. :D

[deuceofgears]

Micro Journal rev.5.1

I own multiple Micro Journals by Un Kyu Lee and adore them; I went through a bunch of writerdeck/similar options during the year I was bedridden (illness). Un Kyu Lee provides build instructions, STL files, and firmware for those who are comfortable with DIY builds using ESP32 or Raspberry Pi and 3D printing. I personally can't handle e.g. soldering so I buy the premade builds that he periodically makes available as a one-man shop. (He's currently in South Korea, so for shipping reasons one might prefer to build locally.)

I'm noodling at various novel projects on spec (since I'm in hock for a composition/orchestration MFA, which is keeping me delightfully busy!) so the Micro Journal Rev.5.1 is a welcome companion! I knew I would like this as the earlier Rev.5 is also one of my faves.

Here it is with a keyboard (connected over USB-A); you provide your own.

I decided to go troll mode with the Epomaker Glyph keyboard by replacing the keycaps. The "Poker" keycaps (Keygeak) are so pretty! There are some I haven't replaced yet. I got this set on clearance, probably for QC reasons as the black keys are borderline to aggressively unreadable; I'll probably hodgepodge replace those with readable keycaps from different sets. I touch-type at 100+ wpm, but I use the function keys heavily for Cubase keyboard shortcuts, and those I'm not used to since I... learned typing on a manual typewriter and those aren't in muscle memory yet. I also run through a couple keyboards a year due to heavy use, and since I run through a variety with different layouts...

[deuceofgears]

Romancing the Vote was terrific!

I'm wildly surprised bids went this high?! Thank you to everyone who supported Romancing the Vote. (Yes, I made bids on stuff. Different stuff. I even won a couple!) They're processing a lot of donations so I guess I wait to find out if the winning bidder has particular Items of Interest they want annotated. :3

Meanwhile, I have bibliographic citation to wrassle for orchestration so back to work!

[deuceofgears]

we who are buried under orchestration homework

took a break with handspinning.

Clearly, catten is a handspinner! :D

This was practice in spinning fine as I tried different wheel settings, so the yarn itself is very inconsistent, but I had fun.

[deuceofgears]

I can be polyweaverous I swear

As a novice, anyway; but I got the warp beamed onto the Inagaki R-25 kimono loom (for sampling placemats), which frees up the correct raddle so I can redo the warp for the Saori WX-60, which will then free up stuff so I can wind a warp for the Saori Piccolo... /o\

Terribad iPhone video (I was holding the phone in one hand and winding with the other hand) showing a bit of the beaming-on process on the Inagaki R-25.

Threading the heddles is a problem for another day, especially since I need to clean up my draft commentaries for Scoring to Picture and Contemporary Videogame Scoring summatives for the MFA. /o\ I did get in some Ninefoxery backstory scribbled today though. :3