My new Golding spindle

Look what arrived today! I absolutely love this little Golding spindle. It spins like a mini tornado. My "Motherland" themed spindle collection has increased from 1 to 2 :)

California Dreaming - My dream plying wheel

Not sure why or how but I know when something is for you, it's for you!
This beautiful California bulky handcrafted spinning wheel fell into my hands for free. Well, not exactly free - I'm trading one of my sewing machines for it. The seller isn't a spinner but thought the wheel was a beautiful piece of furniture. I on the other hand, plan to do all my plying and spinning of bulky art yarns on this wheel.




It's absolutely stunning! Comes with three hand carved bobbins, a folder of information and yarn samples and a beautiful basket filled with roving.







I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! Actually, I'm not lucky, I'm blessed :)


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My Majacraft's Mate

Welcome to the family little Pioneer. This latest Majacraft wheel, the Pioneer, is a terrific budget wheel that is truly a Majacraft in every way. You put it together in minutes, it spins beautifully and accepts nearly every Majacraft accessory. Mine came from a lovely woman in Australia. It has some wonderful modifications too! A built in handle with a storage slot when not in use. A heavier custom Suzie Pro flywheel, modified axle, and a slot for securing the upright/ flyer when not in use. The heavier flywheel and larger treadles make this Pioneer spin even better than my Suzie Pro Alpaca wheel. I am in love all over again. No more traveling with my Rose, she's staying put. I can now grab my little modded Pioneer and go. I'm so psyched!


Sorry for the crappy camera phone pic...


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Feeling Spinful

Lately I've been feeling rather spinful and have been spending a lot of time at my wheel. I guess its because I have another wheel on the way and I don't want to be in a spinning rut when it arrives. My new-to-me wheel is a Majacraft Pioneer that has been retro fitted to accept both a Suzie Pro wheel and my beautiful Rose wheel.

Until my new wheel's arrival I'll continue to pummel you with fiber eye candy :)

Behold...

Bev's new wheel...

I recently sold my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel and all its accessories to a woman named Bev whom I met on Ravelry. I was so moved by her message to me about her interest in the wheel. Even though the wheel was upgraded to a double treadle, I had decided to include the single treadle set up. As it turns out, Bev needed the single treadle for medical reasons. She's a new spinner and the wheel is just a great match for her. I'm soooooo happy that its found a new owner who will love and appreciate it as much as I did. I've decided to limit myself to my Majacraft Rose wheel and a more portable Majacraft Pioneer wheel which I'm in the process of purchasing from another lovely woman who resides down under... Having two wheels from Majacraft means I can interchange all of their wonderful accessories! More on my Majacraft madness later... :)

Congrats on your first yarn Bev!

Getting my weight on...

Sorry, haven't been posting like I used to. Its getting hard to keep up with all the sites, communities and forums that I post to on the regular. With Facebook and Twitter I don't really need to do much else - seems like every site worth its weight in cyber salt now works with both these social networks.

What have I been up to? Well, I'm still spinning and in fact, I've been trying to devise a way to get the "umph" back into my lace spinning. I call it the "mojo"... its the added inertia that my Alpaca spinning wheel had due to its heavier flywheel. My Rose wheel more than makes up for the loss of inertia in that it has higher ratios and spins smoother, plus its just a prettier wheel, IMHO and I love meditativeness (is that a word?) of watching the beautiful spoked wheel spin... On the downside, my feet miss the inertia - My Alpaca wheel was like driving a car that idles too high and always wants to take off on you. I don't want that "take off" feeling all the time, but sometimes I feel like a jet and sometimes I feel like a kite. Sometimes I feel like spinning on a riceburner and other times I feel like spinning on a Harley (motorcycle references). I'd love to have a choice of both. What can I say, I want it all.

Armed with all these jet/kite/motorcyle thoughts in my mind I set out to find a way to make my Rose wheel heavier. I still think the Buckyballs would work well, but I question how much weight they'd actually add. They're pricey too and I don't want to spend $55 for some magnetic beads only to find out I need to spend $100 just to come close to the weight I need. That's when it came to me... I had something at home that would be thin enough, heavy enough and that I could attach to my wheel easily. My weighted braid! Its commonly used to add weight to the bottom of curtains and draperies. I have a roll of it from my days of making dance flags (looong story). So I figured, what the hay? I might as well try it out. The result was exactly what I was hoping for - I got my mojo back! That little "umph" is back - I can feel the force of the wheel and the inertia that keeps it spinning a second or so longer than normal. It may seem like a small thing, but it makes a big difference to me when I'm spinning lace. Now to find a better way to attach it to the wheel. Glue, staples...?

SIP and spin!

With the weather warming up and a new wheel at my disposal I'd like to get outside more often with my wheel. My plan is to hit the parks this summer and "SIP" - Spin In Public. What better way to SIP than to sip while I'm doing it. Ah, but sipping requires a cup, and a cup requires a stable setting while spinning. Well, guess what I just got my hands on? - A spinning wheel cup holder from FBN Plastics! They make very cool and practical cup holders for a variety of spinning wheels. I put mine on my wheel today and I'm very impressed by its quality and light weight. It installed in about 40 seconds and I've already thought of a dozen uses for it. Besides holding drinks, I can place a bobbin in it, whorls, scissors - even a ball of yarn. I think I'm in love...

PVC Niddy Noddy for next to nothing

I've seen them around online, the DIY niddy noddys made out of PVC for under $10 and I thought, "um, yeeeeeah." That is, until my fellow Ravelry pal Lafemme got a cool looking PVC niddy noddy in her swap package. It was complete with caps and rubber "O" rings and just looked so professionally made that I became intrigued and set out on a quest to make a couple of my own. There are dozens of pages online with instructions on how to create your own PVC niddy noddy, but I found this site to be the most practical and complete - there's even a couple of instructional .PDFs that you can print out and take to the store with you!

I purchased a 10 foot piece of 1/2 inch PVC for $3.19, 10 - 1/2 inch couplings (I wanted to have extra on hand) @ $0.24 each = $2.40 and 4 - T connectors @ $0.28 each = $1.12. Oh, and since my sucky Home Depot wouldn't cut the PVC (other than in half so I could put it in the car), I purchased a cheap little wonky hacksaw for $6.94. All for a grand total of $14.13 (including $0.48 tax).

The result? Three niddy noddys for less than $15 plus a wonky hacksaw in case I need to make some more :) I measured and made a 4yd, 2yd and 1yd piece. The center shafts can be interchanged so there's no need to actually make more than one niddy noddy. I made two complete units, but kept a couple pieces of extra tubing for interchanging.

Love Sickness

Our Sheep Shed Studio Fiber group on Ravelry had a swap recently and I was the recipient of some very cool stuff: Koolaid dyed merino roving, beads, sequins, thread, chocolate and chocolate chip cookies! lotions and a beautiful set of stitch markers!

After receiving our swap packages we were required to spin up the yarn using something from the package. I spun up my fuschia fiber using sequins and thread. I love how it came out.

And I shall call it, "Love Sick". I think the name totally fits :)

Cool site of the week - 3/23/09

Look at me, on time for a change! Yes, it does happen ocassionally :)

Today's cool site of the week is one that's near and dear to my heart. I've recently ordered a new Majacraft Rose spinning wheel and I'm sooooo anxious for its arrival. Majacrafts are excellent wheels - smooth, beautiful, long lasting and high quality. Their parts and accessories are pretty much interchangeble between most of their wheels and they are very flexible in terms of positioning. For example, you can choose to have the flyer set up for right or left handed spinning. You can angle the the orifice, raise or lower the head, use a delta orifice or a fine fiber orifice, change whorls and ratios and more. I fell in love with Majacraft wheels after I received my first Alpaca wheel back in January (I purchased used from a fellow Raveler). Unfortunately, that wheel arrived damaged and had to be replaced, this is how I came in contact with Tracy at Woolly Designs.

Ok, I know you're thinking - "what's so great about another spinning wheel dealer...?" Well, there's a lot that's great about Woolly Designs. Tracy and Jean are fabulous! Majacraft directed me to Tracy (their designated US repairer/dealer) for information on fixing my damaged wheel. Tracy however realized that the broken base would require a total replacement and that the new base would need to be shipped from New Zealand. He also advised me there was a chance the new base would not fit my wheel perfectly. He gave me all the pros and cons and left the decision up to me - no pressure. Once I realized the cost to replace would be about the same as the cost to repair, it was a no brainer, I was getting a new wheel!

Tracy created a very detailed document outlining the costs and risks involved in both replacement and repair options. I submitted the document to my carrier for my insurance claim and they accepted it and sent me a check for my new wheel. Since Woolly Designs prices their wheels based on the current rate of exchange of the New Zealand dollar, I saved over $250 on my new wheel! Yes, that's right... two hundred and fifty dollars. YES - you read correctly! Here's how it works...

Most dealers offer Majacraft wheels for the average suggested price of let's say, $850 for a Rose wheel. Woolly Designs looks at the rate of exchange based on the New Zealand dollar. At the time I purchased my wheel the exchange rate was about $2 NZ for every one US dollar. That made my $850 NZ wheel, about $425! Woolly charges about $100 shipping from NZ + plus a small profit for them and voila! I pay $596 for my Rose. That's a savings of $254! Yes, its true. Woolly Designs has basically chosen to make less of a profit on the sale of Majacraft wheels so they can pass the savings onto the buyer. You gotta love that! I used the extra cash to buy a High Speed Head and a Lace Kit. My new Rose wheel is on its way with accessories, for less than I paid for my Suzie Alpaca wheel. This is why Woolly Designs has earned today's cool site of the week award! http://www.woollydesigns.com/

If you're interested in a Majacraft wheel, please contact Woolly Designs. That is of course if you want excellent service, support and have a desire to save money :)

On the Ashford 3.21.09

Merino commercially dyed fibers - some stripes and heathers, blended on my Clemes hand carders.

Vanessa

Sent on the Now Network™ from my Sprint® BlackBerry

Cool site of the week - 3/2/09

Happy Monday everyone! We're one step closer to spring! Ahhh...

Today's cool site of the week is a site for spinners. Nope, its not a site with a wealth of spinning info or forums or product reviews. Uh uh, this isn't that kind of site. This site, is about one of the greatest tools for spinners ever! Noooo, not the drum carder. This site is for the Woolee Winder! I know, there are people scratching their heads right now trying to figure out what the heck I'm talking about... but wait a sec, lemme tell ya.

If you're a spinner, you know that spinning involves stopping periodically to move the yarn from one hook to the next so that it spins onto the bobbin evenly. If you have hooks on your flyer (a part of the spinning wheel that spins and holds the hooks) you know that you sometimes end up with little "hills and valleys" as the yarn builds up beneath the hooks. If you have a sliding hook you can do a better job of preventing "hills and valleys" since you aren't limited to where you place the yarn. Your hook slides to any position so you can prevent or fill in any low areas on the bobbin. Even with the sliding hook set up you still have to stop spinning periodically to slide the hook. I don't know about you, but I get into a zone when I spin. I become so engrossed in spinning that its almost like mediatation. I can look up and have a full bobbin and not remember the time it took to fill it. I like that - the uninterrupted mediation of spinning. This is why I am so in love with the Woolee Winder! The Woolee Winder takes care of moving the yarn up and down the bobbin so that it winds on evenly. Its a patented invention that is available only through Nathan at http://www.thewooleewinder.com/.

Woolee winders are a flyer and bobbin set up that contains gears that mesh together and control the hook movement. When you spin on your wheel, the rotation turns the gears which then drive the hook up and down the flyer track. The result? A consistent, even bobbin of yarn without the start / stop involved in changing hooks. It may not seem very glam, but to see one in action or better yet, use one for yourself, is fiber-life changing! My Woolee Winder has made me a better spinner - I'm certain of it.

Cool site of the week - 2/23/09

Oops. Late again, dang! Sorry folks. Here's my pick for Cool Site Of The Week... its the new website launch of one of my favorite magazines, Spin Off. Its http://www.spinoffmagazine.com/

Their newly launched site is just chock-o-goodies! Sign up and enjoy the benefit of articles, free patterns and downloads, a great online community of spinners and lots more. I'm glad Spin Off finally launched their own site, outside of their horrible co-existence on their parent company's site (Interwewave Press). You don't have to subscribe to the magazine to belong to the site.

Is it wrong to love your hand carders?

I recently posted about getting a new wheel with a few added goodies thrown in, namely a pair of Clemes & Clemes cotton hand carders. My other carders are antiques and in poor condition. I've simply assumed they were working properly because I had nothing else to compare them to in terms of how a hand carder should feel, work and what the finished product should look like. Ha! boy was I ever wrong... The rolags I've been making with these new Clemes & Clemes carders are like nothing I've ever achieved on my antiques. I'm thinking these antique cards are about to take a permanent retirement.

Here are a few pics of my blended merino rolags, fresh off my new Clemes carders:

Pimp my Traddy

I got a new wheel! Yes, yet another wonderful wheel! This one is a vintage Ashford Traditional, just like the one pictured here. It was a sweet deal on Craigslist and came with some very nice Clemes & Clemes hand carders, a navajo spindle (30" tall - so you can spin it off your thigh!), 4 bobbins, an upright kate, a vintage and highly collectible spiral bound copy of "The Essentials of Yarn Design for Handspinners" by Mabel Ross and 4 giant bundles of pre-drafted roving - all for a very good price. Too bad I had to trash the fiber. Not only did it stink of cigarette smoke, but there were remnants of critter contamination - that's right, moths! No way was I going to put my own fiber stash in jeopardy. I tossed all the fiber toute suite... (very fast) Even the fiber spun onto the bobbins had been compromised by those little buggers. The wheel was built between 1975 and 1981 and the fiber looked like it had been sitting on those bobbins ever since.

So, now I'm sure you want to know how I plan to "Pimp my Traddy" (the nickname affectionately given to Ashford Traditional wheels). Well, I've been lucking out left and right in finding low cost accessories. I never realized Ashford wheels could be upgraded and configured so easily.

Here's my "Pimp" plan already in effect:

• New Jumbo flyer with 4 jumbo bobbins
• Three speed flyer (for regular bobbins - gives the old wheel an added speed ratio
• New stretchy drive band (I hate cotton bands - you can feel the knot hitting the flyer)
• New leather connector for the single treadle footman
• And the pièce de résistance, a double treadle upgrade kit!

I've already placed this new wheel in my bedroom, right in front of my bay window so I can sit and spin till my heart's content. God is good.

Cool site of the week - 2/16/09

Oops! I forgot to post a cool site of the week yesterday. Shame on me... I hope you haven't been waiting by the computer all night :)

Here it is, a little late but better than never:
The Joy of Handspinning.
Without a doubt, this site is the most informative and comprehensive site for handspinning online. Not only will you find information on everything from spinning wheels, spindles and fiber prep, but there are video tutorials! Even info on how to care for your Angora rabbits. Come on now folks, where else are you going to get all that information in one place??? The navigation is quick and easy so you'll find exactly what you're looking for. You can even do some shopping on if you're in the market for books, wheels, spindles, etc.

The Joy of Handspinning site is (IMHO) the single most important handspinning site there is, and therefore gets the cool site of the week award, hands down!

Birthday Combs and Curls

A very pleasant surprise was waiting for me when I got home today... A birthday gift from my friend Necia.



Wool combs and some fiber curls! Exactly what I've wanted for some time. Now I can really get busy with some serious fiber production. Thanks 'Necia!

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Hawaiian Tropicana

The name of my latest yarn. 3.8 oz / 560 yds single, hand dyed, hand spun merino roving from The Sheep Shed Fiber Studio. Turquoise, Gold, Rose colorway with blends of green and blue.

A fibery surprise

Its Sunday evening - the cold snowy day before being back to work tomorrow. Well, the weekend did end with a pleasant surprise - a fiber delivery from my favorite Canadian fiber resource The Black Lamb.

Chanecia and I placed an order together so we could split the shipping costs. I was thinking about my order yesterday while getting my Llama fleece ready to drop off at her house. Off topic, but I just didn't like the look of that Llama fleece. It was pretty soiled and being fairly new to fleece prep I jumped at her offer to handle the "processing" for me...

Anyway, Chanecia opted for specific colors of fiber to spin up for a sweater she's been planning. I'm never that organized or forward thinking when it comes to spinning and knitting.

Light Grey, Sea Foam, Red / Burgundy and Pumpkin were her fiber choices .

As for me, well all I wanted was color. Random colors, the brighter the better - and that's exactly what I got!

Neon pink and green, blended colors of yellow/pink, blue/green, shades of blue and more. I've VERY happy with the colors I received after trusting Laurie, the owner, to choose them for me. I'm actually thinking about placing an order each month - I wouldn't mind a grab bag of fibers on a regular basis.

I also order fiber from The Sheep Shed Studio where Carol and Carl process and dye up fibers by the truckload. There you have it, my two favorite fiber sources in both U.S. and Canada. Please do try to save a little fiber for me if you decide to order.

Showing off

Nothing much to say... just check out my work on my new wheel :) Yes, I am a show off!