Karrie, Gen and I have the collective personal restraint of ... well ... something with no personal restraint. The good news, though, is that we are now proud owners of spinning wheels!!! We spent most of yesterday afternoon at Carolina Homespun in San Francisco, where the infinitely patient Morgaine let us try out lots of wheels, rifle though lots of fiber and ask lots and lots of questions. What an amazing place!
So I am now the proud if somewhat impoverished owner of a majacraft suzie. Thus far, it is wonderful. I probably spun 8 oz of yarn last night/this a.m.. It's so much easier to use than the Ashford Traditional. There are definitely some things I'm confused about -- the majacraft design is a little different from the other wheels I've used (all 2 of them) so I'm still trying to figure out exactly how tensioning works on this thing.
But the yard I've made thus far is actually turning out really well. I got 2 lbs of free fiber with the wheel, so I got 2lbs of this rust-colored "continental" wool. It's really pretty and it's very easy to spin, but it's coarser/stiffer than I would have imagined. It would make good mittens. I'm making a hat right now b/c I want to have something to bring to class tomorrow. But I'll probably wind up lining the hat eventually. (Maybe I'll make felted things with the rest of it...)
While we were at Carolina Homespun I also picked up 1lb of undyed merino superwash, plus 3 colors of dye -- all rust/orange/pumpkin colored, which should turn out really nice. And I picked up 8 oz. of already dyed merino, really pretty -- blue/slate grey/green. Last night/today I spun 3 bobbins of the rust wool, 1 bobbin of the undyed merino, 1 bobbin of the purple stuff from Claudia (merino/tencel?) and 1/2 bobbin of the blue/green merino. I may try to make something in stripes using the purple and the blue -- they look nice together.
The real problem I'm having, though, is that I can't ever get the bobbins to fill up. I always get to a point when I can't figure out how to adjust the tension to get the yarn to keep going onto the bobbin. So I've just been winding up the yarn I've made at that point. Maybe I'll try to go to class early tomorrow and ask Claudia. I should also get a majacraft book if they make such a thing. (And as soon as I get paid again...!)
I'm charging my digital camera batteries so I'll have pics soon...
Posted by cmandala at January 17, 2005 11:22 AM