as long as i get revived on saturday mornings, it’s now the best time for me to get things done! if only the spinning group were on saturday morning i’d have a much better chance at actually getting there, rather than sunday evening!
last saturday morning i spent hours finding boiled linseed oil to pretty up the magical mystery wheel, and then even more hours trying to get the damned cap off the tin, which i never did. this morning i woke up determined, took a can opener to it, and poured it into a disposable plastic screw-top holder thingy. then i got to work on the wheel, thus:
i made the video to show the folks over at the antique spinning wheels group on ravelry. (hi, if you’re here from there !:) they’re the ones who pointed out to me that i have a gem here! i really do hope i can manage to take it to get seen by somebody at the local group tomorrow night---then can show me how to use it! it’s very portable; it’s me that isn’t :(
i realized yesterday that i somehow have acquired, willy-nilly and at random, an antique wheel, a spindle, and two looms (a rigid heddle and a four-harness leclerq table loom) all for very good to unbelievable deals. i bought a bunch of fiber to practice on. (i really want to do flax, but i think you have to learn on wool.) it seems i’m setting myself up to be a really truly fiber artist, doesn’t it, and yet, when asked, i still call myself a painter. i wonder what that’s about? at any rate, since i don’t ever actually do any of it, i think i must be nesting, for retirement.
in other news: linen change, laundry, blah blah.
eta: i finally located her first picture, in john and maryann’s antique shop, posted in october of 2005.
the fiber that was tied onto the distaff was truly nasty. people tell me i shouldn’t have thrown it away as it was flax, but i don’t remember it to be flax and anyway, if it was, it had gotten very nasty over the years. god knows where it had been, as it were. i think i threw it out, although it wouldn’t surprise me to find it still lurking somewhere around in a bag somewhere. but i really doubt it. nasty stuff.
4 comments:
Gaaah! She is *gorgeous*! Are those little carved flowers on the table?! So precious! I have nothing to say about the age or the brand, but I'll send Ginger this way to see if she can add anything to your knowledge. Have you named her yet?! :)
the flowers are kind of stamped on, like with a cookie cutter kind of wood stamping thing. i've had her for about 6 years, and there she's sat. then i happened to mention her on the spindles group and they redirected me to the antique spinning wheels group (who knew there was? you should check them out if only for the knowledge--they're great, and the wheels! they drive all over the country rescuing antique wheels endangered by chandeliers and planters and such, who knew?) and they went nuts and kept me up til 1am taking and posting pictures of her one sunday night: "i need to see this...is there a that?" etc.:) at one point we thought she might be as much as 200+ years old (it's that wooden orifice, apparently) but i think it's now settled back to around 100 years, maybe, and czech. turns out people i knew from my lys here years ago now spin in a group at a deli on sunday evenings--so i was actually referred to a woman i already knew!--and i've been trying to get her down there to learn...and etc.etc.
i really, really want to do this, but i have so many things on my plate it seems i can't do anything but knit and worry about being eliminated before retirement. and i'm getting bored with knitting and need a jump start. (beyond the magical mystery wheel, her name has not yet been revealed to me.)
She looks great!
Thanks for the video, it made me smile to see how you are taking such good care of your wheel...glad she found a good home ;-)
There you go, into the magic world of spinning. I hope to read more of your wheel adventures during the months to come.
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