Marty McGuire

Archive for August 2025

Fri Aug 29
🔖 Bookmarked https://zephnet.biz/posts/phillyhwc1recap/
Thu Aug 28

It’s been real nice chatting with ya, kiddo! That’s the best part about camping… Makin’ new friends!

Wed Aug 27

It felt so real. Wargh! I just lived the trauma all over again!

Tue Aug 26
🔁 Reposted https://blog.stephaniestimac.com/posts/2025/08/social-media-detox/

See, I have a bit of a problem with letting other people define me. I’ve really gotta work on that…

Mon Aug 25

I’ve really got to stop taking my work with me on vacation…

Sun Aug 24

Show me a creature who does not enjoy a breath of fresh air, and I will show you a stinky fish, yes?

Fri Aug 22

Now is Pavé’s personal time. Please! No autographs. …Forgive Pavé. He is tired.

Thu Aug 21

For some reason, there’s a new “suddenly trip and fall down” mechanic in Animal Crossing New Leaf tonight.

Wed Aug 20

I’m probably more comfortable with turnips than I am with people!

Tue Aug 19

Look, the sleigh is great, but it doesn’t exactly run on unleaded. This is my daily driver!

Mon Aug 18

Does my hair look all right, maaan? I like to look good when I fly my freak flag, you know?

Sun Aug 17

There’s still plenty more to come, so please enjoy them until your body just can’t stand the fun!

Sat Aug 16

Most people have to earn their sea legs, but mine are already attached! It’s land legs that elude me.

Fri Aug 15

The profit margin on our clothing is so low, no matter how hard I work, it feels like I get nowhere!

Thu Aug 14

I’ll let you in on a little secret, OK? THE SUIT IS TAKING OVER MY MIND.

Wed Aug 13

Hey, I can’t be a terrifying symbol of doom, darkness, and despair 365 days a year, you know?

Tue Aug 12

It is done. Done like the past. Tomorrow is here!

Sat Aug 2

Happy HTML Day (I'm machine knitting Edition)

Happy HTML Day!

I'm taking a two-day machine knitting workshop intensive, so I did not have the energy to join the folks at the Valentino Jr. Park meetup.

Instead I am writing this post (in HTML) while watching along to Jenn Schiffer's "HTML Day From Home (hdfh)" stream.

The workshop is Machine Knitting 101, from Brooklyn's Textile Arts Center's line of Machine Knitting classes and workshops. Today, our instructor Eileen walked us through some of the basics.

  • The parts of the machine (Brother KH-840s. Punch card reading cuties from the 1970s!)
  • Choosing yarn
  • Threading the machine with tension
  • Casting on with "e-loops", comb and weights
  • Knitting rows, managing weights
  • Moving stitches horizontally and vertically, making holes and ladders
  • Blending colors and swapping colors
  • Increasing and decreasing the number of stitches not-at-the-edge
  • Casting off (the hardest thing we covered, probably)

We bought a knitting machine, a Brother KH-930e, back in, checks notes, =chokes= like 2011 or 2012?? Enticed by Becky Stern's post on on hacking the KH-930e. As it turns out, the electronics hacking was NOT the difficult part of working with one of these machines! After some rounds of buying replacement parts and maintenance, we got a couple of little projects out of it, but found it challenging enough to work with that we stopped messing with it. But, we still have it, and I'm excited to try again!

Here's a photo of the workshop syllabus, as well as some of my debris from today's workshop.

A gray countertop covered in messy machine knit samples of purple and green yarn

From top to bottom, left-to-right:

  • A long run of purple and green blocks, with a mix of clean color changes (where you cut one yarn and start antoher) and blending (where you knit with two yarns at once!). This run also includes a "flap" where I used vertical stitch movement to "close up" a small block of green.
  • A long run of purple yarn with holes and "wrinkles". These are tests of moving stitches horizontally (holes) and vertically (wrinkles).
  • An unraveling run with one block each of purple and green. A failed attempt at casting off.
  • A small unraveling block of purple. A failed attempt at casting off.
  • An unraveling run with two blocks of purple divided by a small block of green. A failed attempt at casting off.
  • A non-unraveling block of purple. My one success at casting off!
  • An unraveling block of purple. A failed attempt at casting off.
  • A run with a large green block and a large tapering purple block. Practice at increasing and decreasing stitches. I decreased down to one stitch lol.
  • A small unraveling block of green. A failed attempt at casting off.

Thank you for reading. I hope to post more knitting projects. I hope to read your HTML Day creations!

'til next time!