I'm just in from the garage. I haven't had dinner yet tonight. I decided on my way home, when it became clear traffic was too miserable for me to get the cat to the vet on time I was going to build the swifts everyone had been nagging me about. So, while I need to go buy some 1x2 or 2x3 or 1x4 or something to rip down to make the pegs I'm nearly done. Also I guess I need to chop some more half inch dowel rods in half. I just didn't have anymore.

I made four of them tonight between 6pm and 8pm. That's half an hour a piece. Pretty good considering the first thing I had to do was dismantle a trebuchet. Yep. Twisty met her end. The throwing arm is still intact as there wasn't enough 1x2 in it to bother cutting apart to make swift pegs. It's amazing how much bigger my garage seems with only one trebuchet. Maybe I'll see about getting George, Kate's trebuchet, back to her. My garage would be positively enormous then.

I had a great time puttering in the garage. I had the drill press running, and the table saw, and the sliding compound miter saw too. First I ripped a warped 1x6 in half. Then I cut it into a bunch of 15" lengths on the miter saw. I had 10 of them, which would have been five swifts. But I figured for some loss due to the big knots and the fact at least one knot was cracked. I clamped them all together on edge and got them as flat and square as possible with a hammer. Then I set my table saw blade up to half their thickness and proceded to cut all 10 notches at once.

Back to the miter saw where I cut the slopes on the shoulders that are like 90% aesthetic, but do help with winding smaller skeins some. That was sneakily done by setting the angle of the blade at 10% off square and clamping a bit of 2x4 to the saw's table to act as a jig. All the slopes came off in quick order and made a bunch of little door stops for roomparties of the future!

Then I had to make the hubs. 2x4 first cut into squares then octagons. I like drilling the holes for the arms on the diagonal sides.. I've had fewer split that way. It takes a little extra time but I think it's worth it.

Then over to the drill press, where I drilled half inch holes in the edges of the hubs And a 3/16" hole for the axel. Also the holes in the bases for the axles. Pencil sharpener to taper the ends of the 3/16" dowels, sand them down a tiny bit on the hub end for freer spinning. Tap the bits together and I was done.

Huh.. I wonder if I should make an instructable out of this for www.instructables.com

Today is banner day. I finished Toad's mittens. I finished the Llama I was knitting. I cast on a new secret project.

Also I shot trap... Got a 20. Then we tried skeet! I got 11. It was pretty cool. I'd like to try it again in the daylight. The black bottoms of the clays were hard to see against the black sky.

I haven't been blogging much. I also haven't been knitting much. Then recently I just got all excited and have been knitting like a fiend. In the past week I've produced a a llama and a mitten and a half. Odds are the mitten will be all done tonight, certainly tomorrow. Then a secret christmas knitting project. Maybe I'll post a picture of the yarn as a teaser.