Spinning Wheel

You probably don't know that I have a spinning wheel. I've had it since around 1975 and spun some yarn with it, but not much. In "those days" the only source of roving was directly from someone's sheep, so it was a bit harder to find. A landlord of mine gave me a whole fleece, it was very course and dirty, but that was what I used, no wonder I gave it up. It was a lot of work to pick out the leaves and sticks and even after carding was not that nice.

With my new interest in knitting I've toyed with the idea of trying it again. Now you can go to a store (or the internet) and get gorgeous roving, fabulous colors and textures, all ready to start spinning. But I have too many interests and there is already fabulous yarn ripe for the picking so I've not done it.

That spinning wheel has moved a lot with me, around California, up to Alaska and back down to Washington. Every time we've moved Dave has suggested that I get rid of my spinning wheel (along with my knitting machine, but that's another post) but I've refused. I did toss the box of dirty fleece before we left Alaska. Up until we moved to our current location it usually was a piece of furniture decorating the house. Matt remembers seeing how fast he could get it going and somewhere along the way a part has been lost. But when we moved into the trailer it went into storage and when the new house was completed it ended up stored in the attic.

When my friend Debi mentioned that her daughter had bought a drop spindle and was trying spinning I immediately offered use of the wheel. She excitedly accepted and picked it up this weekend. It needed dusting and a new string to get it in working order, with a piece of dowel standing in for a missing knob which must be somewhere. I even found the original "Learn to Spin" directions and put the brittle pages into plastic sleeves for use.

So here is Jayme trying it out, she's even got a bag of lovely roving at her feet all ready to go. I know she's going to make sore gorgeous yarn (oh, and please feel free to toss that horrible stuff that's on the spindle now).