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Sewing to Repair

I learned to hand sew and how to use a sewing machine in school. I think it was 7th grade in a Home Ec class. The term “Home Ec” is short for Home Economics. Here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Home economics, also called domestic science or family and consumer sciences (often shortened to FCS or FACS), is a subject concerning human development, personal and family finances, consumer issues, housing and interior design, nutrition and food preparation, as well as textiles and apparel. Although historically mostly taught in secondary school or high school, dedicated home economics courses are much less common today.

The new term appears to be “Family and Consumer Sciences”, I say “new” because 500 years ago when I was in school it was just called Home Ec. We had a sewing class in middle school and I think I remember a cooking class in high school. Since my kids are adults I honestly don’t know what is happening in schools today, but I’m writing today to talk about sewing.

As I mentioned recently I repaired my old boots, and it felt really good to fix them rather than get a new pair. I was able to save money and opt-out of another consumer transaction. So when my gloves got a small tear in one of the fingertips I said “I should sew that up!” and I did… eventually. I’m not sure why it took me so long to do it, since it was a repair that took less than 10 minutes.

But as much as I call myself a maker and someone dedicated to DIY I really do feel I need to be better about this stuff. About repairing things in a timely manner.

I took a poll asking people the following question: Are you able to repair a small rip in a piece of clothing by hand sewing it?

Nice results! I probably fit into the “Yes – But it would not look very good” category and I’m okay with that. To be honest though I’m glad most people do know how to sew. It’s s great skill to have, even if you use it just for repairs and not for actually making new things.

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Another Flat…

So according to my previous post I last had a flat tire in October 2024 (and August 2024). For the one in August I took it into the LBS to get fixed, but in October I changed it myself because damn I should DIY that stuff, right?

I probably got a puncture on the January Scrappy Hour Ride as my tire was pretty low at the end of the ride. Anyway, Matt was kind enough to give me a set of tires (nice tires!) so I pulled off my own worn out tire and put on a new tube and tire.

I actually had no idea the direction of rotation could matter, and I didn’t, notice the little rotation arrow until after I wrapped up the repair! Luckily I got it right.

Oh, I did end up throwing together a simple PVC bike stand. It’s not great (yet) but it’s better than nothing. It definitely helps when changing the rear tire.

(Note: I also got a flat tire with my car last month but I’m not counting that one.)

So hey, we are back in business and as soon as it warms up a bit, or I feel like suiting up again, I’ll hit the road and try it out.

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Bike Nite (on the Fediverse!)

There’s a bike community on Mastodon (and/or parts of the Fediverse that connect with Mastodon) and you can be a part of it.

It happens every Friday 4pm Pacific time. I often forget about it when it happens but read the posts later, and sometimes even reply. It’s a synchronous and asynchronous conversation, and it works fine that way.

Here’s an example of the post you’ll see each Friday:

Our community discussion #BikeNite starts in about an hour, at 4pm Pacific. I post cycle-y questions w/ Q1, Q2, Q3; if you answer w/ A1, A2, A3, etc, it’s easier to match.

Tag #BikeNite if you want your answer to be more discoverable; follow it to see questions & replies in your feed. Boost & reply to replies to keep the discussion going.

(You can follow BikeNiteQ tag so questions are easier to find, but you don’t need to include this in your answers)

And yeah, #BikeTooter is totally a hashtag I follow and use myself.

There are a ton of bike people on Mastodon and all the ones I’ve interacted with so far have been awesome and helpful. Hey there’s even a bot that posts pictures of all the beautiful people who ride bikes in Madison called @cyclists_of_msn (We need one for Milwaukee!)

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Hardware Store Bike Rack

I forgot I never posted the follow up to my Hardware Store Bike Ride post!

I ended up writing a letter to the store letting them know that I was unable to find a place to lock up my bike while shopping there. I mentioned that with the new bike lane on the street their store was located on it might help encourage more people to bike to the store but they’d probably want some bike parking where they could lock up their bikes.

When you write this sort of letter you hope something positive happens, but often nothing happens… but, this time something happened.

A few days after mailing the letter I got a phone call. It was from the store owner! He said he wanted to address the issue right away so he figured he’d give me a call. (I included my address, phone number, and probably an email address as well. I figure make it easy to start the conversation!)

He said that they would consider adding a bike rack but first they still had to pay the city for the cost of the bike lane, which he said all businesses along the route were billed for. He gave me a number, I don’t remember what it was, but I think it was over $10,000 USD.

The call came off as a bit of complaining about the cost to their store in adding the bike lane, but he didn’t seem upset with me, just the City of Wauwatosa. I honestly have no idea how the cost of adding bike lanes work in various areas and certainly don’t know how it works in Wauwatosa. (I’m actually a resident of Milwaukee, not Wauwatosa. A common misconception!)

I mentioned this in a biking group and the best response I got was from someone who said:

If I bike to a store and they don’t have a place to lock up my bike I just bring it in the store with me for my shopping trip. I walk my bike up and down the aisles and do my shopping. If an employee asks me to put my bike outside I just ask them to show me where the secure bike parking is… and I let them know that until they have that I’ll be bringing my bike in with me.

And honestly that’s a brilliant strategy I’ll consider in the future.

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Giant USB Button

Look, I’m just going to come out and say it… this Giant USB Button is probably too big! It’s 228.6mm x 228.6mm x 120mm (which is 9″x9″ x 4.725″). The thing is, when someone asks me to build something for them, and it seems interesting, I can’t really say no. And I did say “no” this time, but mainly due to the tight deadline. I said I would need about twice as much time as requested and luckily the client came back with “We can do that!” So I got to work…

I didn’t want to screw around with a laser cut enclosure this time, and they basically wanted the Big Button I normally make, but… embiggened. I made this the very close to maximum size I could using my Bambu Lab P1S printer.

So 9″ square (or 228.6mm square) was the size, and the client liked it. I had almost done a button this large about 6 years ago. I gave the client a very high estimate, explaining the custom fabrication that would be needed for a clear acrylic dome, and they were almost on board with it, but luckily passed. It’s years later, printers have improved, and this client was okay with what I suggested.

There’s a large NeoPixel Ring from Adafruit on the inside because of course it has to light up.

Here is my normal human hand for scale. This Giant USB Button just seems ridiculously large. It’s too large! It’s like what, is André the Giant pressing it? (No, because he’s dead.)

Here is the Giant USB Button with a US quarter for scale. The US quarter is that tiny little round thing in the lower left corner.

There is a normal sized USB cable that plugs into the Giant USB Button and allows it to send commands to a computer. I don’t know what the client is using it for because I always forget to ask that question. I’m usually so focused on the project and getting everything to look good and function properly I never ask what it’s for!

Overall I am really pleased with how this thing came out. I had to but a box large enough to ship it since the boxes I usually use are way too small to fit a Giant USB Button. Oh, I also designed it to be parametric. which is handy because I got all the fitting right with a version that was probably half the size. I also made an even smaller version to experiment with different methods of closing the circuit. Again, I had fun with this one.

Finally, here’s an exploded view of the parts, except I forgot one piece! The original design used a piece of clear laser cut acrylic but I ended up swapping it out for a 3D printed gridded disk to save on weight. Anyway, this is most of the 3D printed parts of the Giant USB Button. (I didn’t include the electronics so you can use your imagination for that part.)