A couple of years ago I was doing a lot of crochet and yarn was getting kind of expensive and I was saving to buy this place in the country (well, technically not this place, but a place in the country) and I didn't want to not crochet and so I thought what to do? what to do? for a bit. And then! Because I am a genius, I remembered that I owned a spinning wheel. Said spinning wheel had been sitting at my ex-husband's for about ten years prior, providing countless hours of entertainment for numerous kids, plus one somewhat entertaining (but messy) episode for us when some dude who we didn't really know but who was the boyfriend of my ex-husband's receptionist, came around for Christmas drinks one year. The boyfriend (who we could tell was a winner even before the spinning wheel incident) put his glass of (red red) wine down on the foot pedal of the spinning wheel. Then, a couple of minutes later, he decides to give the ole wheel a spin. Guess what happens when you spin the wheel? Go on, guess! Incidentally, white wine does not "clean red wine right up".
So, I decided to repossess the spinning wheel and teach myself how to spin. And so I did. Eventually. After weeks and weeks of swearing and throwing of tantrums and almost tears and resolutions to not touch the thing again because how do you do this thing? It is too hard! There is something wrong with the wheel! The fleece is not fleece-y enough! I can't be doing this right!
Anyway, because I am capricorn and I am stubborn I persisted. And now I even have a little spinning room (it's really the porch but look how nicely the spinning stuff fits therein).
And I have all the most up-to-date equipment. This is the process whereby I "set the twist" in the yarn. It needs to be hung and weighted while it dries. What you can't see in the picture is my state of the art two tins of spaghetti (no wait, one actually might be baked beans) weight system. Fancy!
And last, but by no means least, the most important piece of equipment (this is my grandmother's wheel and my favourite although I do have other wheels now, because...umm, just because):
There's that damn cat again. God!
