Spinning: May 2004 Archives

On Monday, I mentioned that something special showed up at my house. I know I have mentioned on several occasions that spinning holds no interest for me. Julie tried her best to teach me how to work with a drop spindle, but I didn't turn out to be such a good student. I'm pretty easily frustrated when it comes to things that require hand-eye co-ordination, so I figured that I would just leave spinning to others with more patience. After all, this stuff is supposed to be relaxing.

But then I saw Claudia giving Carolyn spinning lessons with a drop spindle at Maryland Sheep and Wool. And I watched Leigh make the most lovely blue yarn from this indigo dyed batt that she bought. And I remembered that my mother had a slightly neglected spinning wheel sitting at her house.
When she came for her mother's day visit, I asked her if she might not be willing to share her wheel with me.

And so, after a liberal bath in some Murphy's Oil Soap, here's the new visitor in my living room. Those of you who know spinning, will know exactly what kind of wheel it is, but I'm going to save its true identity for a bit.

Happy Shiny Spinning Wheel

Now, my mother has many many crafty hobbies, but I can tell you that from the time this wheel arrived in our house (sometime while I was in Junior High or High School) up until current times, that spinning has never been one of those hobbies. Not, I think, because my mom is averse to spinning. In fact, she loves all things fibery. It just wasn't one of those things she expected to come into her life.

Something else that might be surprising is that I never bothered to ask her how it was she came by a spinning wheel but never got into spinning. I mean, if mom goes out and buys a craft tool, she'll use it. Maybe not forever, but definitely until she decides whether its her thing or not. So I just had to ask, "what's up with the wheel, Mom?"

Apparently, the story goes something like this....

A long time ago, my mother handled a lot of administrative work for a wonderful British professor who worked in her department. I remember both him and his family pretty well. They were lovely people with a sense of humor and a few neat animals.

Well, at one point they took a trip to New Zealand and they asked mom to do a little pet-sitting for them. They jokingly asked my mother what she would like from New Zealand. And she told them that she wanted them to bring her back a sheep. Now, all of us who knit can appreciate how cool it would be to get a sheepy friend from the South Pacific. But apparently there were a few problems with the immigration process and they had to figure something else out for mom. So, in lieu of a sheep, this lovely wheel came to live with us.

In the long run, this was probably a good thing, as I am not sure that our neighbors would have appreciated the whole livestock in our back yard thing. And sheep are just a little bit more work to look after (but probably a lot less work than the two messy children that lived in the house).

As I was growing up, it never occured to me to want to know much about the wheel. But as we were browsing through MS&W I suddenly realized that Mom's lonely wheel had a pretty nice parentage.

Ashford Traditional

So now I have the wheel, but it's days on display have not been completely kind to it. If you look closely at the picture above, you will notice that the treadle and the wheel are not actually connected. That's because of this:

Unhappy Leather Tether

This little leather piece that connects the treadle to the wheel moving board (I'm sure it has a technical term) dried out and broke away. So before I can go any farther than just cleaning mom's wheel, I have to find a replacement piece.

And then I have to find a good book. Anyone want to make any recommendations? If you could have only one book on spinning while you were stranded on a remote desert island in the South Pacific, and you needed to spin coconut husk fiber into clothing, what book would you bring? Or would you just wait until Rhinebeck when you could get Claudia to show you the ropes in by a beautiful lake in New York? Hmmm...