This Just In

I've been waiting for this package for weeks.  I put in the order before Christmas, but I paid in two installments and it takes a month for things to come from New Zealand (unless you pay ridiculous amounts of extra postage.  I would rather wait.)

Did I say New Zealand?  Yes, I did.  I mentioned this on Facebook last night and solicited ideas... the suggestions included sheep, hobbits, tea, a "handsome New Zealand guy", and Kiri Te Kanewa.  (Any of those would have been fine with me, although I'm not sure what Conrad would make of a sheep.  Or a hobbit.)  Less happy suggestions included a tazmanian devil, a kiwi, and my personal favourite:  "Umm, if it's a ring... GET RID OF IT!"

Out-of-focus = artsy, right?

Instead, it was this.

Yes.  I am now the very excited owner of a spinning wheel!  An Ashford Traditional, to be precise.  People who guessed wool and sheep, you were on the right track.  (And actually partly right, since included in the deal was a bag of wool.)

This is a slightly older model.  She's clearly been used, but she's in really excellent condition.  I believe her to be the 1975 model; looking at the timeline on Ashford's page, mine has the single-bump wheel spokes, and the tension ball is on the outside back corner of the maiden bar, rather than on the inside front corner as it is on newer models.  (This caused me quite a lot of confusion as I assembled the wheel, since the directions I have show the tension ball in its newer location.  I had a moment when I was convinced my wheel was defective!   I'm still not sure I have the brake band set up correctly, but it seems to work, so until someone tells me better, there it shall stay.)

She treadles and spins like a dream.  And she's going to star in Riders to the Sea later in the semester.  She needs a proper photo shoot on a day when there's actually some light (it's raining and gloomy today) but I couldn't wait to show her off :D

Conrad has claimed her for his own and I have a feeling he will be sorely in the way.  He keeps trying to sleep on the treadle.  The real trick will be keeping him from killing my wool batts, since he seems to feel that they are an infestation of small furry animals from which he must protect me.

I feel that I ought to learn Gretchen am Spinnrade now, and watch Sleeping Beauty, and read Spindle's End.  I also have an overwhelming urge to go buy an entire fleece.

I will try to restrain myself.

If at any point in the near future you can't find me, do not be alarmed.  I'll just be upstairs, spinning.