Did a little engineering

I ripped out the hairpin lace I started because I wasn't satisfied with it. The fork kept coming apart at the oddest opportunities, so I ripped it out and rolled the yarn into a ball. I got to thinking about how I could stop the spacers from moving around whenever they wanted and I hit on an idea-very simple, as are most good ideas. Electrical tape, or tape of any kind, I just had electrical handy. I put the top spacer on, then wrapped a small piece of tape around the tops of both rods, then pushed that spacer up and then taped right at the bottom of it so that it would stay at the top-no need to remove that one anyway. Then I put my loop back on the left rod and put the spacer on and taped a tiny piece at the bottom to keep that spacer from just slipping off while I was working. It works.

I'm guessing that this fork is quite old, considering the price on the piece of cardboard it was attached to said $1.75, or something like that and they're like $4-$7 for the inexpensive ones now. Anyway, the spacers didn't fit on the rods tightly enough to keep from moving, so the tape gave me just enough extra to keep everything where I want it while I'm making my strips. All I need to do is remove the tape at the bottom when I'm ready to remove the strip, or make room, then all I'll need is another piece of tape when I put the spacer back on. I also used a piece of the tape to mark the center bottom spacer so I could judge how big to make my first loop, which gave me a better-looking strip. I shouldn't have to remove the strip until I'm done with it now, because I think I can get what I need on it, or close to it. We'll see, it all squishes down quite nicely and now I can move along quite quickly since I don't have to worry about my spacer falling off at odd moments.