A Place Where You Can Rant About Your Current Special Interest!

[Yeshuasdaughter]

I just finished construction on a Navajo-style tapestry loom.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Weaving.

For about two decades, I have been weaving on homemade looms made from large, sturdy portrait frames.

Just recently, a friend of mine bought me some upgraded weaving tools. This is my inkle loom. It can make hems and bands from the width of a shoelace, up to about 5 or so inches wide.

Attached are weaving cards, which do the same thing, when attached to a backstrap, and anchored on a wall. But when you warp the cards onto the inkle, the work becomes so much more efficient.

I also just recently got a weaving sword, which helps open the different sheds, and it also beats down the rows, so they are uniformly tight.

And with the addition of a wooden weaving needle, the work goes so smoothly these days. I'm really enjoying weaving.

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I wanted to add that my Inkle Loom was constructed circa WW2, and it was purchased from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It really was built to last.

Weaving cards were invented before the time of Christ, and have been found in archaeological digs all over the world, and were used nearly everywhere, from Mesopotamia, to The Americas. The Inkle Loom was invented about 200 years ago, but Inkle Weaving is essentially what the cards do. Inkle is an old Anglo-Saxon word that means Hem, Ribbon, or Edge.

Using weaving cards or an inkle loom can be used to create hems, borders, had bands, belts, sashes, guitar straps, purse straps, or any other narrow, decorative, stiff border or strap.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Here is a picture of a beautiful woman, in period-dress weaving a decorative band, or inkle, using weaving cards and a backstrap.

 

[Outdated]

I love the innovation used in that earlier picture, bundled satay skewers for separators.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Now this is something I'd really love to learn. Mayan Backstrap Weaving. It's how many indigenous ladies in Mexico and Central America create their beautiful blouses. I'd love to be able to create garments on a loom.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Now this is something I'd really love to learn. Mayan Backstrap Weaving. It's how many indigenous ladies in Mexico and Central America create their beautiful blouses. I'd love to be able to create garments on a loom.

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Nice. I have different pieces from the Zapotec in Oaxaca. They do wonderful work and I love their use of natural materials for their dyes.

 

[Hylian]

I really want to play Dead by Daylight, but I've been too tired to for days. I really want to get all of the challenges for the holiday event done. I also want to get Dwight to Prestige level 6. I should probably be working on another character that has perks that I want to be able to use with Dwight though, like David or Kate.

 

[Progster]

Why do all the things I like the look of, or which I think would be great to have or ideal for me, have to be so expensive?!!

 

[Jumpinbare]

Thank you, Yeshuasdaughter for this thread. Yes, I have a Rant! Sorry it is so long!

I have had the same special interest all my life. Almost seems like from birth. I have had other interest come and go, but my core interest has never diminished, it has only grown.

My special interest is electronic circuits. As early as I can remember, about the age of five or earlier I was mesmerized by anything electronic. Not the device itself but the “guts” inside. I would drag old radios and TV’s from the dump and dissect them to see and study all those shiny and weird things inside. I didn’t have a clue how it all worked, but I was totally consumed with fascination. I was desperate to understand how all those wires and things could make music or whatever the device did.

My Story:

When I was about 9 years old, my uncle gifted me with the books from a vintage (1940’s) electronics technology correspondence course, along with a 1947 copy of the American Radio Relay League handbook. I was completely overwhelmed with elation.

I had a very hard time in school. I was diagnosed as retarded. Now that I know I am autistic; I realize that it was a social issue. I can learn, but I can’t be taught. Teaching is a social thing. I spent most of my time in school deep in my own little world sitting at my desk doodling schematics… which was not report card friendly. I designed and built many circuits for the thrill of understanding the physics and seeing it work. Among many others, I built UHF oscillators complete with a highly polished copper tubing transmission-line tank circuit, audio amplifiers, a guitar amplifier and even a ham radio. Everything built from salvaged parts out of old TV’s and radios.

As I got older, I started studying every electronics theory book in every library I could find, including the local university. Since my early single digit age, I knew that I wanted to be an electronics design engineer when I grew up, but those hopes, and desires were dashed due to my scholastic performance. I too believed I was retarded because I could not be taught even simple algebra and I knew that math was a requirement to being an electronics engineer. That realization was devastating, but I still could not shake the obsession. So, I continued studying, salvaging parts and experimenting even with no future hopes or goals.

As I learned more, instead of salvaging parts from the radios and TV’s from the dump, I started fixing them. Once I found a brand-new TV in a dumpster behind a department store. I pulled it out, took it home and fixed it. I took it back to the store and told them I found it in the dumpster and fixed it. With a very dismissive look, the manager plugged it in, and It worked perfectly. That is how I landed my first job while still in early high school.

After more than one setback and threats to put me in “special ed”, I barely managed to graduate high school. College was totally out; no money for tuition, but, regardless, I knew I was far to retarded to ever succeed in college. No chance of a degree. So, I would apply for jobs at local electronics repair shops. Most required at least an associates degree, but I got hired at some by asking for them to give me a test. I would ask if they had something that had them stumped or was having trouble fixing and would I get the job if I fixed it? Few shops would agree to giving me such a test – or any test for that matter, but I got the job at each one that did.

I have only had a few jobs throughout my career. Most of them were long term and at each one, the job morphed from repair tech to engineer. While working as a repair tech at a communications company, I designed and built circuits (on my time) to add to existing systems to add features. It was hard to get the circuits approved because the equipment it was to be installed in cost in the millions. But, with each one the next was easier to get approved. One was to expand a mobile phone terminal to allow long distance calling. This was a major hit for the companies customers, especially oil industry customers.

The key to my success, was that I learned early on that I cannot interface with customers. The social aspect of that is just too much. I have to work in isolation. Anytime I sought a new job I made sure that was an option. My last job was with a contract electronics design firm. That was my best job because my boss ensured that I worked in isolation in my dedicated lab. My boss added a sign to my door that said DO NOT DISTURB. I still don’t know if he realized I was autistic or if he just noticed that I could not work with interruptions or distractions. That job was by far the best, because since it was a contract design firm, I got to design circuits for some really cool projects. I was practically in heaven. The company grew at a super-fast pace. After about six years, we were outgrowing the building and more managers were hired. I was then working under several managers. Few understood my social anxieties. The killer, however, was when it was decided to move all the engineers into one lab. I knew I would never be able to handle that, so I quit. But I was retirement age so that was ok. Now, I have my own little retirement business in my own little lab. My designs are now what I consider unique works of art. Not something pretty to look at art, but art of the electronic circuits – my lifelong childhood dream.

Now for my rant! It wasn’t until after I retired and looked back on my life that I realized that my dashed childhood dream of becoming an electronics design engineer still came true – even without a college degree and barely passing public school. Upon retirement I felt free to work on novel designs that thrill me. I have access to amazing parts, no more scavenging and my own lab to design and build it in. What I never imagined, however, is that retirement turns out to not be about free time as I expected it to be! It turns out that retirement is a job in itself, consumed with domestic chores around the house; fixing the house, cars, appliances, computers, doing the dishes, feeding the cats, etc. … I realize this doesn’t seem so unusual and I can’t blame anyone for any of it, but it is frustrating distractions from the work I am so obsessed to do. Things I expected to design and build in two or three months have now gone past a year. I just can’t get the time I expected to have. I guess that at this point I just want to finish at least one of my dream designs before I die. I’m only 69 at this point so I’m not too worried about achieving it. It is just so maddening that I’m not as free to work on it as I wished or expected. It is especially maddening when a new circuit idea pops into my head and I can’t wait to get the design on paper (CAD) and start building it, but there is always something in the way. I am making progress; I’m just struggling with patience. It is an obsession like an addiction that is maddeningly frustrating.

We have a lot in common, though I didn't have near the educational snags. In my last job of 32 years, I also was able to work mostly alone except when training new techs which I could do one-on-one. I retired last year, and learned I was autistic (Asperger) after retirement. In a conversation with my former supervisor, I mentioned that I had found out he used to have an autistic employee - me. He rather diplomatically replied that that wasn't a surprise to him.

 

[Shevek]

My interest is understanding the brain chemistry and history that leads to people "feeling right" and believing those feelings despite clear evidence to the contrary.

 

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

I

Just like the title says, post as much as you like all about your current or past special interests!

Go ahead, spill all of it!

Can't wait to read all about it!

I am just book mad and enjoying books thoroughly. I try to find graphic books, non fiction books about thing I am interested in and interesting fiction and am enjoying them so much. All I would literally do is read if I could

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I
I am just book mad and enjoying books thoroughly. I try to find graphic books, non fiction books about thing I am interested in and interesting fiction and am enjoying them so much. All I would literally do is read if I could

Ever since I learned to read I have been a voracious reader. I went into Twain's collected works when I was 8. The fiction I am reading now is Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. Hilarious!

Right now I am preparing for a geology trip to Morocco and have ordered Fossiles du Moroc, a book in French and English about Paleozoic geology in the Anti-Atlas that goes through the formations and fauna, including my favorite, Trilobites.

 

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

Ever since I learned to read I have been a voracious reader. I went into Twain's collected works when I was 8. The fiction I am reading now is Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. Hilarious!

Right now I am preparing for a geology trip to Morocco and have ordered Fossiles du Moroc, a book in French and English about Paleozoic geology in the Anti-Atlas that goes through the formations and fauna, including my favorite, Trilobites.

Reading is the best, there is nothing like on earth like it.

 

[Jonn]

The Truth is my special interest.

 

[Jonn]

Reading is the best, there is nothing like on earth like it.

Reading is also a hit in the universe
Here is a guide for you to read:

 

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

Reading is also a hit in the universe
Here is a guide for you to read:

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That might be a bit masculine for me, I do not like sci-fi. I like girly stories and fantasy and unique reads and non fiction and special interest.
I am reading little women again.