The Weekend Hobby Thread

Good afternoon folks. It is difficult to believe it is the weekend before Thanksgiving. That means for us folks in the upper Mid-West, Great Lake States of Michigan, Minnesota & Wisconsin it is or has been Gun Deer Season. Be safe out there and enjoy your hobby.

Please leave the politics and the current events down at the bus station.

Fishing season is always open, somewhere.........

This guy demonstrates you don't need the fanciest gear and tackle to have fun fishing.

I have a weakness for odd/unusual/historical fibers, and a bad habit of collecting at least a sample of anything I find. Vicuna is a wild relative of llamas living in the Andes and thought to be an ancestor of the domesticated alpaca. I found a small company that legally imports small amounts--which is all I can afford, 5 grams was very pricey! They had others, like yak down roving and pashmina. Did get enough of the yak to spin up for mittens, I think! They also had something I had never heard of before, Lotus Silk.

Turns out Lotus silk is bast fibers from the flower stems of Nelumbo nucifera, a lotus. The stems are harvested and the fibers are drawn out by hand with the lengths being twisted into continuous thread. Wiki says that a woman in Myanmar first made this in the early 1900's, with the manufacture spreading now to nearby countries. There are a few videos that show the process.

Of course I had to try it....

As far as I could find it's actually used in weaving where it's said to make a linen like fabric. Since the thread is still entirely hand made and hand woven the fabric is expensive. I bought enough thread to crochet a doily. The thread was a little stiff and rather 'sticky' but I did manage to crochet a doily. I haven't done any fine crochet in years but it's at least a credible result and I got to work with a new fiber! - Lirio100

Not only do you know how to craft things. You are a fountain of information. You really are into your hobby. Thanks so much for sharing with us today.

Interesting use of acrylic paints. I'll stick to woods, water & mountains.......

Another Moron contribution. IIRC this is the first of it's kind for a Hobby Thread contribution.....Pretty interesting. Thanks to Cybersmythe.

Hi! Cybersmythe here. A few weeks ago, I mentioned a hobby project that I was hoping to complete by the Texas MoMe. I kind of got something done, but it was terrible, and I've been working since then on something much better. It's a 2023 TxMoMe Commemorative Thumb Drive. I 3D printed the case to fit around some 64G thumb drive guts I bought on the Internet. I gave one of the terrible ones to BenHad, I'm embarrassed to say.

This has definitely been a learning experience about how to work with multiple colors and fine detail with an FDM printer. I'm considering doing something similar for the 2024 TxMoMe. What do you all think?

What was once a hobby. Has become a full time biz. Good on him.

How A Tennessee Man Amassed The World’s Largest Junkyard Of Jeep Cherokee XJs

If you’re a fan of a particular car or truck, you might have a few laying around your yard. Maybe one’s a driver, one’s for winter, and the rest are for parts. Dexter Browder’s yard is a bit like that, but he doesn’t just have a handful of Jeep Cherokees. He’s got about 700 now.

Browder, or Dex as he goes by online, hails from Selmer, Tennessee, and has been in the Jeep business for a good 20 years now. The way he tells it, it started out as a hobby that saw him tinkering away on his Jeeps on the side. Once upon a time, in fact, he had a regular day job that had him working nine to five. Like so many Americans, he was laid off in 2008 as the financial crisis raged. What could have been a curse turned into a blessing. At the time, Dex had a small collection of seven or so Jeeps, and he began to further explore this world once he was laid off. He began selling spare parts off the vehicles that he’d been tinkering with, and things began to bloom from there. He began buying more parts, collecting more vehicles, and gradually expanded his operation along the way.

You too can be a sculptor.......

Thank you to today's contributors.

Hobby tips, stories, photos, ideas, 20/0 fan brushes & Jenkins Green Acrylic paint to petmorons at gmail dot com. Until the next time. Keep on Hobbying!

posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 05:27 PM

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