My new super slanty spinning wheel

I just bought a super slanty over the weekend.

A few weeks ago, at a thrift store, the fact that I spin came up in conversation with a lady working there.  She asked for our email address as she had a wheel she didn’t use.  She finally contacted us and we made arrangements to go see the wheel this past Saturday.  I think she wanted to see the wheel go a place where it would be used because she let us have it for $50.

She had it as decor and she got it from her mother in law who also had it as decor. The flyer/bobbin had been lost and a friend made her a new set. Turns out it’s mostly non functional as the bobbin whorl and the whorl are very nearly the same size. There’s no take up. But that is fixable by my husband. The rest of the wheel is in good shape if in need of a spa day (which will happen when it warms up outside.)

No maker’s marks at all. It’s got the ram’s head wingnuts and a bit of a curve to the public side but not the fancy cutouts. The wheel is also on the smaller side at 18 inches. My theory is that it’s an imitation of the Norwegian or Black Earth super slantys, made by one of those makers who only made wheels for a year or two as a sideline to their normal business. There were a lot of those in Wisconsin in the late 1800’s, particularly in south east and east central Wisconsin, where I live.

TdF and other stuff

I’m sorry for neglecting you for the last month.  I’ve been unbelievably busy.

When I last posted I told you about my Icelandic fleece haul.  I’m happy to say that I’ve got just 2 days of scouring left – half of an adult fleece and several lamb fleeces.

Here are sample yarns and locks from some of the fleeces.

I had more pics but seem to have misplaced them.  You can always go here to my fiber stash page on Ravelry to see more.  Left – locks.  Middle – Tog and Thel separated (and some carded Thel bits from the white fleece that has a break).  Right – sample yarns, Tog on left and Thel on right.

Tog is the coarser outer coat and Thel the soft inner coat.

As for Tdf, I spun all of the white Shetland, prepped and spun some Corriedale to finish a WIP sweater.

The Shetland has been plied but I don’t have a pic of that yet.  The Corriedale is still in progress.

I had an amazing find as well.  Credit must go to my husband, who spotted it first and then bought it for me as a 25th anniversary present (as if 80+ lbs of Icelandic fleece wasn’t enough of a present, not that I’m complaining.)

A Kromski Mazurka spinning wheel for $75 at a thrift store.  It also came with a lazy kate and an extra bobbin.  While I will always love my antique wheel, I adore this new wheel.  It’s in perfect condition.  It doesn’t appear to have even been used.  It spins like a dream and plies like an even better dream.  The antique has always been extremely fussy about plying and it’s always a battle to ply on it.  The Mazurka barely fusses at all.

I’ve also started processing some of the Icelandic fleece.  First up is Sugar’s Spring fleece.

On the left is Tog, pulled from the locks.  The right is Tog nests, carded Thel waste from combing and the Thel nests.  I’ve done a bit more than what is pictured.

The initial Icelandic goal is to spin a thickish skein of each adult fleece and then knit 2 hats for the sheep owners.  After that, the Tog will be spun for weaving warp and the Thel for knitting, hopefully I’ll get a lot of laceweight out of one of the whites to be dyed for shawl knitting.  I’m also pondering a all natural color colorwork sweater.

I don’t intend to make any Lopi-style yarn.  I don’t like it.  Although there are a few fleeces that will have Tog and Thel processed together, particularly the lamb fleeces, only because the Tog is very soft on those fleeces.  Most of the Tog is too coarse for against my skin.  One of them, Luke, has Tog that’s too coarse for anywhere on my body, even over other clothing.

The husband is planning to make a drum carder for me.  I can’t wait for it to be ready.  It’ll make all of this Icelandic prep go much faster.  It’s very time consuming to separate and comb both Tog and Thel.  And I am still saving the combing waste of the Thel because it is so very soft.  I’ll card that, hopefully on the drum carder.  I’m not very good with hand cards.

TdF 2017 final

I spun a few extra days and then plied for about a week to finish up all my TdF yarn.  It’s pretty impressive now that I see it all together and done.

 

1. 144 yards of super bulky brown CVM
2. 535 yards sportweight Polwarth
3. 127 yards of sportweight Hampshire. Spindle spun but only half of it during TdF. I never got to the darker purple that’s in the pic.
4. 527 yards of sportweight Merino. The carded waste in the pic got tossed. It was horrible when spun.
5. 240 yards of sportweight Cormo. There’s a lot more of this fiber to spin. I just didn’t get any more than this prepped before TdF.
6. 48 yards of super bulky Corriedale combing waste.
7. 215 yards sportweight Corriedale, plus another 310 yards spun pre-TdF and plied during my massive plying session after TdF. I have more of this fiber already spun for a total of 1504 yards. And that’s not even half of this fleece.
8. 642 yards of sportweight Shetland/Corriedale lamb.

 

 

 

 

The last 3 of Corriedale skeins were also solar dyed. They started out that paler purple and I tossed them in a big pickle jar with more purple dye and left it out in the sun for a day. Easiest dyeing I’ve ever done. When the jar was finally in the shade I brought it in, rinsed and finished the skeins. The dye did break and/or dye unevenly but I like it. These skeins are different than the rest so I may use them in different projects or maybe use the uneven skeins to spice up an edging on something made using the more uniform skeins. I have much to ponder about using this yarn.

I’m thinking of dyeing 3 skeins or the Shetland/Corriedale lamb teal and 1 skein brown (leaving the last skein to be dyed later for whichever color I may need more of) and knitting a Hap style shawl. I haven’t found a pattern I like so I’ll probably design it myself.

My wheel has been in use for all but two of 32 days straight and on those two days I spindle spun/plied. I hadn’t touched my knitting in two months until yesterday (because of prepping in the month before TdF).

It’s definitely time to knit.  And ponder what to do with all my new yarn.

Looking back over the list.  It seems that my default weight is sport, no matter how hard I try to get it thinner to make fingering weight.  I think it’s part me and part that my wheel just won’t let me go thinner.  I can’t adjust the uptake enough to go thinner.  Part of that is the warped wheel and part is that it’s double drive.  It’s a fine line between too much uptake to spin thinner and not enough tension on the band (which causes the wheel to throw the band off every 10 seconds and I’m not exaggerating.)

 

Plying on antique spinning wheels

I have only one working wheel, an antique double drive.  She’s got her quirks but she spins what I want to spin.  One of her quirks is that she absolutely despises spinning counter clockwise.  She will throw the drive band every 5 seconds and that’s not an exaggeration. This makes plying….difficult, if not impossible.

I can’t take credit for this solution.  I first saw it on the Ravelry group Antique Spinning Wheels.

I have a special longer plying drive band.  It’s longer, because I have to add twists at the bobbin and whorl to allow them to turn counter clockwise while the wheel spins clockwise.

The first picture is my normal spinning drive band.  The next two are different angles of the plying drive band.  Notice that it is twisted so that the parts that come up and over the top of the wheel are away from me as I sit at the wheel, while the parts that go under the wheel are closer to me. This is how it works for me and the alignment of the whorl/bobbin to the wheel (which is slightly off and the wheel is slightly warped too.)  I don’t think it really matters which way it’s twisted as long as the twist is there.

I use cotton yarn as a drive band, nothing special.  This just happens to be some I dyed and didn’t like the colors.

I do advise moving the MOA as close to the wheel as possible while you put on the drive band.  It’s pretty fiddly to get to sit just right, at least for me.

The drive band that is not in use is just tied up and left to hang from the upright, out of the way but handy for when I want to switch.

Spinning Wheel Spa Day

 

Today was spa day for my wheels.  I took them out in the backyard and took them apart as much as possible.  Then I applied a generous amount of boiled linseed oil.  The boiled part is very important.  Let them sit at least an hour and wipe off the excess oil and put them back together.

The dark wheel is my working wheel. It’s an antique from the 1850’s (I think), bought at an estate sale. This is the second time I oiled it (I first did it in the Spring) and I actually applied two coats.  It was so dry when I got it that it was grey.  I lemon oiled it then (Summer of 2015) and used it over the Winter before I learned about boiled linseed oil.  Today’s first coat was nearly soaked in after an hour so I did another one.  I’ll probably need to oil this one twice a year for the foreseeable future.

The other two are the broken flyer wheel (Also an antique from the 1850’s , bought on Craigslist) and the baby wheel (Vintage, perhaps 1960-70’s, and another estate sale.)  They both have decent finishes and I’ll probably never oil them again, just dusting with a damp cloth when needed.  My husband swears he can fix the broken flyer and it also needs a few other minor fixes.  The baby wheel is for display only.  It could work if I added hooks to the flyer but I’d have to treadle like mad to get any twist.

I like to do this out in the backyard so I don’t have to be careful with the oil.  I can just slop it on and wipe it over everything and who cares if it drips on the grass.  And I can also throw the rags right in the firepit when I’m done.  I’ve read warnings that the rags are prone to spontaneous combustion so I figure that’s the safest place for them.

Also be aware that the wheels will smell like the oil for awhile and will also be oily to the touch.  Generally it takes a week for both the smell and the oily feeling to go away.  I won’t spin on the working wheel til then.

I have one other wheel, from Craigslist but I don’t count it.  It’s vintage, at best, and very likely someone’s shop class project.  But it’s got parts that my husband can use for one of the wheels he’s promised to build for me. One of these days I need to take it apart so it’s easier to store.  I’ve already got 2 wheel that live in the living room (broken and baby) and I’m going to need room soon for the Christmas tree.  The working wheel lives in my workroom upstairs.

In case anyone’s wondering, I’ve thought about naming my wheels with human names as so many spinners do but nothing’s come to me yet. So descriptive names it is.  Although Baby wheel might just keep that as it’s name.  It’s so adorable.