oh goodness, i am a terrible blogger. but hey, you get a spinning wheel, you want to spin! so instead of telling you about it, i’ve spun up three skeins so far since i got it on wednesday. well, technically three… but one of them was recycled sweater yarn that i spun onto bobbins, then plied together – like i first talked about doing in this post, but a thousand times easier with the wheel!
oh first, before i show you my yarn, i’ll tell the story of my wheel acquisition. i had been researching a bit, and had decided that i wanted a double treadle wheel, and was kind of planning on either the ashford traveller of the ashford kiwi. i had been told that i should try them out before choosing one, so i went to woodland woolworks and did just that. i decided the traveler felt good, i liked its size and look, so that was the one for me. they were sold out of everything, so i was going to special order it, but had to wait a minute for the saleswoman, which was when i noticed they had a hidden back room with used wheels. they only had three, but the louet s10 called to me, even though it was a single treadle and not one i had been considering. it seemed to be in perfect condition, and it felt so smooth, and i recognized louet as being a brand i hadn’t been considering because the new wheels were out of my price range. so… i grabbed it right then and there, no special ordering, no waiting for the new one to arrive, no finishing the wood or putting it together. i couldn’t believe i was going home with a spinning wheel, ready to spin!
so that’s just what i did, of course! that night i started practicing with the insubordiknit pink wool i got in our holiday swap – ended up spinning the whole thing, and plying it together. it’s extremely bulky, but i think it looks cool!
so then last night i practiced trying to make more even singles, and played around with the idea of self-striping handspun. i dyed the orange and green parts – the wool was gifted by my parents, from spunky eclectic – and the other colors were all in my package-o-fun from insubordiknit. so it’s mostly the orange and green, then a bit of yellow, blue, purple, brown… i think i’m getting better at keeping it more even; my fat parts aren’t as fat or as frequent, and ditto for my super thin parts. i think i do have a problem with over-spinning though. of course, now that i’ve set the twist, it doesn’t curl up on itself anymore, but before you set the twist is it supposed to be that twisty?
i made a flickr set for my wheel spinning, with a few more shots of these yarns, and i plan to upload all my spun yarn photos here. i don’t want this to become a yarn-only blog, so i won’t be posting much more spinning related stuff here, but befriend me on flickr if you want to see my yarns! hopefully tomorrow i’ll have time to write my 2007 post that i’ve been meaning to do all week. i’m loving all the pretty crafty 2007 mosaics, definitely gonna copy that idea!
Lee Does Stuff 