SPINNING

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/2ZRWrBU

So the spinning wheel I bought at an auction, carefully pulled out the flyer and bobbin assembly and wrapped in a padded bag, and then flung into my car and left there?

WORKS

it’s in beautiful working condition with not a single bit missing. (Ok there’s a spot where a wooden pin could go to lock the wheel into place but also it’s securely there all the time so the pin’s pretty damned optional.)

Which, my dear friend unicornduke https://tmblr.co/mVpJNDQaUH5cHEJCTfGjjzQ​ had surmised from the photos of the wheel in the auction lot, which was why she’d advised me to bid on that one (a further clue was that it had a spoke in the wheel and another part that connects the treadle to the wheel that were both mismatched in color, unstained, but otherwise entirely identical to the others down to the decorative lathe-work, so it had clearly been carefully restored for use, not just decoration). But it was lovely to have it confirmed.

She came over and looked it over with me, put some oil on it for me, helped me get it put together, and then sat and spun a couple of yards of roving she’d brought with her and left with me. (She gave me all the stuff she doesn’t like spinning, on the grounds that she’s not using it and then I can see if I like it, which I well might.)

[image description: a blonde person with short hair sits next to the kitchen table at a spinning wheel with a white facemask on, operating the spinning wheel with roving in one hand and adjusting the tension thingy with the other; her socked foot is visible on the treadle]

(sorry that’s sort of an awkward photo, I was distracted LOL)

So it’s an antique wheel, certainly, and the weird bit that sticks up- in the photo it looks like a horizontal bar across the wheel, it’s really in front of the wheel– is a holder for a distaff, which would be extremely helpful if I were spinning flax on it, which is my ultimate goal. So. It has a very tiny orifice, so tiny that the orifice hook unicornduke https://tmblr.co/mVpJNDQaUH5cHEJCTfGjjzQ​ had with her wouldn’t even come close to fitting in it and we had to improvise one from floral wire, like a needle threader– which means it can’t really spin very chunky yarn. Which is fine, because here’s the thing, I can’t fucking knit, so I don’t know what I’d do with chunky yarn, though I’m sure I have enough knitters in my family/inner circle that I’d have no problem disposing of it if I did.

But I have enough information to know which techniques I probably ought to bone up on first, given my ultimate goal, and I’m going to spin a truly heinous skein of practice yarn and then give it to my mom and act like I think it’s perfect and ask if she can knit me something elaborate with it, LOL. (No, I’ll probably make myself a really doofy tapestry loom out of cardboard and weave myself a hideous wall hanging. I feel like that would be a useful way to use a test skein that is at this moment only about three yards long and two of them UD spun and the one I spun is wildly variant in thickness and twist and general yarniness and it’s only going to get worse from there.)

Anyway– I have a spinning wheel, ha ha! I was expecting I’d have to spend as much again as I paid for it to get it repaired to usable condition, but no! I just need to learn what I’m doing. And google for an “orifice hook” which just sounds like it’s going to bring up bad things but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

And Saturday afternoon probably we’re going to attempt to process some flax!!! from the huge stash in the barn and also riding around in the back of UD’s truck.