As The Yarn Turns

A Wheel!

Until now, I've been doing all of my spinning on drop spindles, either purchased or homemade. I've been wanting a spinning wheel too. I just haven't been in a real hurry to get one. One because I have been trying to save money for one and also because I wanted to research them a little more. You know, so I can make an informed decision (yeah, right). So Rick and I were going out to lunch the other day and I happened to glance over at the "stuff store". It's one of those stores that isn't quite an antique store and isn't quite a gift store. Anyway, they always have Rocking Cows and Rocking Zebras and other stuff sitting on the sidewalk. I had never been in the store but Rick and I both always feel compelled to see how it's doing. On this particular day, there was spinning wheel on the sidewalk. Now you folks in the more northern areas of the US may see spinning wheels in antique stores fairly often. It's unusual in this small southern town. It's even more unusual to see one that's actually functional. This one was functional, in good shape, and as it turns out made by a woodworker in the area. So disregarding all logic and all of the research I had done until now, I bought it at a pretty good price too.

From what I know about spinning wheels, it's a double drive wheel and came with two bands. There's only one bobbin but hopefully I can get more made later. On the bottom, is the signature of the person who made it and the date.

It didn't take me long at all to get it adjusted and working. I decided to start with the homely roving that I had dyed and overdyed a while back. I knew it would come out overspun, underspun, and lumpy so why waste the good stuff. Here's the roving after I overdyed it again and the plied yarn. It's definitely beginner yarn but exciting to me

The other good news is that my social schedule has calmed down considerally so I should be able to catch up on my knitting and spinning and blogging now.

 

by Sydney  |