I haven’t been posting much, I know, but I HAVE been getting things done, which is very unlike me lately….

Despite my ‘sweater guilt’ – caused by my recent inability to finish a full sized project’s – I fell in love with Aidez, a free berocco pattern which I found on Ravelry. Since it requires bulky yarn, I thought I would spin it, of course! I decided on the silver shetland fleece which I bought last year from Devine West Ranch – lovely, soft and I was sure there was enough fleece in the pillow case to make the required approx. 800 metres I wanted (since I am tall and always add a few inches in sleeves and body).

We all know about the best laid plans, right? Yeah. Not nearly enough, I ended up with approximately 400 metres of lovely soft, spun in the grease, bulky shetland yarn. I washed the yarn within an inch of it’s life to get out the lanolin and last bits of straw and then felted it slightly to make a really nice yarn.

Then, of course, I (queen of five or more projects on the go at the same time, lol) decided it was irresistable and knitted the Gap-tastic Cowl with it, a little bit wider than called for, about 16 inches. It’s awesome AND I FINISHED IT IN ONLY A DAY LOL, did I mention I finished it? That’s my worst habit lately – not finishing things.

Today’s obsession is to spin up some suffolk fleece into a beautiful soft substitute since I still crave Aidez, lol.

It’s coming out nicely!

Isn’t she sweet?

(her wheel is on backwards in these pictures)

We purchased her from a local lady and she’s missing her treadle, flyer and bobbin. Altogether though, she is in great shape!

Check out her ‘redness’! I think she was originally a red wheel with a black stripe on the wheel itself, on the inner ‘ring’ of the wheel.

Her hub is solid with only a couple small cracks. Her wheel is slightly seperated but should come back together with a little coaxing, oiling and perhaps the dryness of winter will help if nothing else does. Certainly, my other wheels become quite loose during the winter season.

The leathers are perfect and the rear leather is amazing….a solid chunk of leather!

Hoping to spend some quality time with this lady in the upcoming week and build her a new treadle. I’ll need to find her a flyer or see if one of my other wheels has a flyer which would work as a loaner for now

Have a fantastic day!

Isn’t she lovely? I think so!

Please welcome my newest wheel – another little piece of Canadian fibre art history. She is marked “Aram Paradis” and was made in Quebec in the latter half of the 1800′s. To make her even more special, we purchased her from her original family. A lovely woman sold her to us, after refusing to sell her to someone the seller suspected was an antique dealer, because we would love her enough!

Bless her. She was right though, you know – I really will love her enough

The wheel belonged to the seller’s great grandmother, who used to spin on her often – I was even given a small amount of cotton sliver which was, according to the seller, her great grandmother’s and what she would commonly spin on the wheel. This same seller has another wheel (her grandmother’s) which is a Canadian Production Wheel, in perfect pristine condition. If she ever decides to sell it, she’s going to call us. I’ll let you know

It seems she has been modified to work with a spindle – somewhat like a great wheel. What remained of this modification when we got her was the whorl but no spindle piece. There was a second hole drilled (perfectly, might I add) in her mother of all for the front maiden, to facilitate the modification. She looked like this;

First off, she needed a coat of blo/turpentine – the poor baby was parched.

I moved the maiden back to the original hole and made her some new leathers (made from an old full grain leather belt, bonded together for the front maiden to create a sturdy bearing)…

For the back leather, I used a single layer of the same belt leather but since it’s a bit on the stiff/thick side, soaked it in water for a couple hours and then clamped it to create a tight bearing…

My baby had no flyer/bobbin whatsoever so I had to look around the house for something suitable. Thankfully the other wheels LOVE to share. My first attempt was an old lithuanian flyer that I have. Quite sadly (since this is my only flyer without it’s own wheel), it was too short and had some issues with spinning properly – sort of a dud. Second attempt was to try one of the cpw flyers (a Vezina, in fact). This was too long…

At this point it was very ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and, just like in the story, the third try fit just right I ended up fitting ‘Grandpa’s’ flyer to her – a very close to perfect fit. In order for it to be a PERFECT fit would mean finding a flyer with about the same length of arms/bobbin BUT with a longer tail end for the back bearing. Since I didn’t have such a flyer, I added a rabbit skin ‘sleeve’ inside the back bearing, to hold the shorter tail end. Grandpa says he’s happy to have helped

Did I mention her perfect hub?? Really awesome for her age…

She’s stamped but this isn’t the clearest picture…

And in her glory – all glowing and spinning!!

We had a few issues as we began spinning together. I don’t blame her really since she’s not used to working after all these years Her treadle kept trying to fall out of the leg nearest the spinner on the wheel end – there was an old injury to that leg and a groove there so I used a bit of belt leather and made a split washer which I placed on the other end of the treadle bar, at the leg closest to the mother of all. This keeps the treadle from moving over as far as it wants and falling out on the wheel side. Also looks very appropriate, which I like

The cross piece that the treadle sits on is so old and brittle with an old staple repair underneath. It did snap shortly into our spinning together BUT I didn’t want to replace it with a new piece of wood.

Cover your eyes now if you are particular about correct repairs! My solution was to fit the shattered old wood back together underneath and then bond the whole thing back together with some 5 minute epoxy. Yes, a woodworking sin. BUT! She looks original and that was what I wanted. If this doesn’t work in the long run I can always replace the cross bar. I wasn’t approaching the project in terms of resale value but from a working/original wheel perspective.

Finally…my little helper has been by I’ve convinced him that the winder is ‘his’ wheel…

He has, however, gotten older and now he has noticed that ‘his’ wheel doesn’t seem to do it right. LOL. He brought his bobbins over to my wheel to see what was going on last time…

He really is the cutest little guy Plays piano when he’s not spinning….babies are awesome

Have a fantastic day!

Another ‘weekend’ for me and I’ve decided to include fleece inventory in my cleaning – more of  a thorough spring-type-cleaning than I usually do   I *think* I’ve gotton most of my clean fleeces together now and WOW – I think I can spin for the next year without really needing to buy anymore, lol.  Here’s a pic…

Yep, lol.  A little bit carried away.  But (in my defense), quite a bit of this was free so how could I help it?   There is still some awaiting washing, in bins, both alpaca and wool – as well as the bin of clean soft-as-a-babys-skin alpaca, of a much higher quality than the alpaca here in the pillow cases.

The group includes;

Free meat sheep fleece – three bags full! – black, very springy, good for socks/mittens/scarfs and outerwear.

Free meat sheep fleece, I presume suffolk/suffolk cross – both lamb and young adult – great for socks, mittens, outerwear, felting – springy and very white.  I have managed to stuff this into one oversized pillowcase and one of those shopping bags.  I believe I have more of this if I get around to washing it.

Silver/black and red mohair – great for blending for socks/mittens/outerwear.  ‘Nature’s Nylon’

A full bag of mid grade alpaca (free!) which I’ve found is excellent for spinning for mittens and the lighter shades dye wonderfully for stranded colour work.  I blend this with wool to give it a little bit of memory.  I also have this in two lighter shades….

And yes, there’s more…

This is some Border Leicester that I purchased last year – lovely, long and silky – great for blending for socks or anything where you want to add some silky strength.

This is absolutely lovely silver shetland fleece (about 1.5 to 2 fleeces left) which I absolutely think is a staple fibre.  I’ve belended this with so many things! Spins up lovely on it’s own too

This is probably my current favorite fiber.  Purchased from Raspberry Hollow, it is a mixed breed lambswool which I cannot remember, with excellent crimp and beautiful softness.  Love it.

And finally – some really wonderful icelandic lamb fiber purchased last year from a local ebay seller.  soft and silky!

More to come – I’ve got to see what I’ve got in bins and then there’s going to be the yarn to go through, lol.  Oh yes, and the cotton.  And the silk. Probably a little bit of superwash merino to rediscover as well…

Happy fiber addictions people!  We could do worse things

And now I get to spin   For two whole glorious days

This is some of the very lovely cotton which I bought from an excellent seller I found on Ravelry, from Kentucky.  I bought two pounds to give it a try – it was raw…I love learning new things from the ground up!

It came like the bit on the left – on the right is some of the cotton pulled off of the seed.

I held the seed and pulled off the fluff…

In the end I had a cloud of very clean fluff with just a bit of vm left.

\

Just because I’m me (lol, of course!), I had to try spinning it both ways.  I carded some and rolled it off the card from side to side…

I think both methods work well and don’t have a real preference yet   I ended up all distracted and started spinning and knitting for a lovely thin knit alpaca cardigan – 2 ply just-a-little-more-than-lace-weight.

I have more yarn to ply…I’m finding the weaving bobbin rack and winder sooooo useful!  Best thing ever.

It’s an absolute star for storing the singles and plying from too!

Oh! And I must show you the baby boy!  He’s growing like a weed and getting cuter every day!

The spinning wheel is calling…Have a fantastic couple of days folks – I know I will

Check it out

I’ve been working on a little personal challenge – my socks are wearing out (they’re handknit so they are all a few years old) and I needed some more.  The socks I like, however, are little.  Ankle socks.  With lace….lots of lace!  Of course, as it usually is when one has something definite in mind – I couldn’t really find a pattern I liked for it’s style and pattern. 

So – I decided to design some.  These are the first and I’ve made the pattern available as a pdf;  The Little Summer Lace Socks

They fit really nicely since the lace gives them stretch.  The edge sits just below the ankle.

I designed the lace by modifying an existing pattern, “String of Beads” from the book “Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls” by Martha Waterman.

Enjoy, I know I am

I’ve been working on cleaning the alpaca fleece(s) that I have from last fall, while trying to conserve water and energy at the same time.  It’s wonderful to process my own fiber but the point begins to get a little lost if I use too many resources to do it with!  My general method, last year, was to take out any burrs and then use a few (usually three) washes with very hot water and as many rinses in hot water as were required to get the fleece very very white.  I would then have to comb the locks for debris and vegetable matter, anyway, because there is a lot of that that will not come out in a wash.

I’ve now realized that was overkill.  Through experimenting, I’ve found that if I comb out the tips of the locks (really handfuls of locks) VERY well *before* washing, I can save a lot of time, water and electricity!  Really, the biggest issue with alpaca is the dust and vm.  If you can eliminate a great deal of that before washing you will be able to use the wash water for longer and wash each ‘bundle’ of alpaca fewer times.  Less vm also means less rinsing and less rinse water used.  Lower temps mean eliminating the necessity of boiling water, to begin with.  I DO boil water to bring the wash temperature back up if it is losing heat quickly outside.

This is the ‘comb’ I use to comb out the upper section of each lock.  I like to hold the locks by the cut end and keep that together, ideally.  It helps later to be able to see the seperate locks.  It’s actually a dog rake – you can find it in any pet store.

The set up – I have two bins, one for washing, one for rinsing.  Both are large storage bins which are very common.  I have two wire waste baskets from the dollar store which work wonderfully as fleece baskets for washing, rinsing and ‘fishing’ out the clean fleece from the water.  Then there is the soap – original blue dawn dish detergent, the kind WITHOUT enzymes.  You don’t want enzymes as, if any at all is left in the wool, they will eat the fiber over time.  Nothing sadder than going back to a clean fleece and finding it weak and deteriorated.  I’ve not experienced this myself but have heard it can happen.  I keep a couple wooden spoons to manipulate the fleece in the water and also a towel to roll and squeeze the water out of the washed and rinsed fleece bundles.  My sweater drying racks work excellently as fleece drying racks.

So, I start with a handful of unwashed fleece – just pulling off some at the edge of the blanket, enough to fill my hand and work with comfortably.

An example of what most of the fleece looks like (what you see on top is the nicest part!)

The dog rake works best if I loosen the tips first and then comb out the lock from the centre to the tip – a lot like dealing with badly tangled hair, you don’t want to pull hard enough to break or damage fiber, or hard enough to badly mangle the lock - just work slowly and be gentle.

The really messy lock I showed above, once combed…Wearing old clothes is a great idea because you WILL be covered in dust and dirt and vegetable matter. A surprising amount comes out with just this combing.

Once I’ve combed out enough to work with without rushing through the process to keep up with myself, I fill the wash bin with hot tap water and then add a generous bit of Dawn dishsoap.

I have heard that alpaca felts but have not had any problems with that at all.  I totally swish it around, push it back under the water as needed.  I’m always much more careful with wool.  Because I haven’t had trouble with felting, I now put the fleece in by itself instead of using the wire baskets to hold it (a la mesh to keep locks in order).

I’ve found that a 25 minute soak is a very good amount of time, with a few swishes.  I am able to use the one tub of water for three or four batches of fleece.  The rinse bin is smaller (but doesn’t need to be, that’s what I had) and I rinse for a few minutes, maybe ten, in hot water.

As you can see, the alpaca is very clean and has only had the combing, one wash and this (first and only) rinse.

I pull it all out of the rinse water and roll it in a towel.  The towel hangs on the line in between uses and that way can be reused all day long (if I want to clean fleece all day long).

I end up with this lovely cloud of fiber – really a collection of locks which are still easy to locate and work with.  One strange thing (I’m always amazed) is how nicely the flattened out, wet fiber fluffs right back up again with drying.

By the end of the day, I had a large bin of clean alpaca…

And still this much left in the to-be-washed bin…

It’s seemingly endless

Our veggies are planted and yesterday we added a strawberry garden too…

I’ll have to get a picture of it since it’s tucked away in the corner there, by the grape vines

The fruit trees are starting to blossom! We have pear and apple, I believe New houses are always fun when no-one leaves you a garden map. I feel like an explorer, finding new things every day in the garden.

I’ve decided to take a chance that the frosts are done for the year and get everything in now – I may be sorry but I’m doubting that. LOL – my way is to plant it and give it to nature – I help nature out by using my fleece soak water as liquid fertilizer and by weeding a little If it works out it’s fabulous – if not we’ll plant a few more things in a couple weeks I have some pepper plants and some cherry tomatoes that I’ve started in the house which are yet to be placed in the garden. Other than that we’ve got parsnips, carrots, lettuce (leaf and romaine), brocolli, corn, turnip, tomaotes, parsley, pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers, radishes, peas. I’m thinking of adding a blueberry garden in the centre circle which currently houses some rose bushes. Roses are nice but blueberries are better I can always move the roses to a spot along the fence! I’ve also found some rosemarey (my favorite herb) and something that I’m SURE is an herb and smells like lemon – I assume herb because it’s in the garden itself and the prior owners of this house were dedicated gardeners!

After a week of rain, I’m so happy that the sun is out I managed to wash most of the mystery fleece that I was working on in the last post…it came out nice and clean!

There were parts of the fleece I gave up on and left too long in the soak water – they will now be going to live in the back of the yard, near the pine trees, as mulch. Since the fleeces were free and unskirted I feel just fine about that – the hardest part will be lugging it back there I still have about half of the total three bags to process and will take a bit more time to skirt these!

I’ve been spinning some icelandic that I washed last year. I thought it was felted but was pleasantly surprised to find it cards up just beautifully and wasn’t really felted at all!

Today I really should get back to knitting the socks BUT I have a feeling I just may end up spinning on the deck…

Have a fabulous day!

It’s been so long….

Spring is here and I’ve been busy Seems spring always makes one want to DO more – and some of us have a different take on spring cleaning! I’ve had several fleeces sitting for a while — some since last summer! I don’t know if I posted about it last fall but I have some absolutely beautiful long staple alpaca…dusty dusty stuff with some burr issues as well. It’s got a staple of about 8 inches as it was a long time between shearings and it is SUPER soft – lovely lovely lovely. Irreplaceable really. Fortunately, lol, I started out with about 14 pounds and there is no end in sight yet.

Unwashed…

Combed out for debris, but not yet washed…

Final product – rovings are clean and pulled from my combs…

There is also the ‘meat’ sheep wool which I was given last year – in black and white – waiting to get a good soak and a wash. The wool comes out nice but the dirt is incredible – sometimes free looks like an excellent price. There is a large bin full of that waiting for me on the porch.

Oh yes, and a basset hound too…

My baby grandson has had his first birthday – still the cutest baby in the world with the BEST smile

His other grandma has sheep and lambs and has very generously given me three bags of wool (I jokingly asked for ‘three bags full’ lol) – the first is lamb (three fleeces I think), the second is yearling (two to three fleeces) and the third bag is adult (haven’t counted them but I believe it holds two fleeces).

The lamb, unwashed…

The yearling, unwashed (or possibly the adult)…MUCH dirtier than the lamb. I plan to soak this in a cold soak for a few days before washing it…

These fleeces MUST be a mixed breed but are sooooo soft I’m pleasantly surprised! I’ve washed some of the lamb, so far, and it’s coming out lovely. Very short fibers but lovely AND it helped motivate me to learn how to spin short fibers. Happy to say that after two days of utter failure…. I CAN DO IT!

The lamb…clean…

Here’s some blended short fibers that I’ve successfully spun…YAY!…it’s camel, yak, silk and lambswool blended on carders and then spun for a two ply thick and thin yarn….(it truly is soft as butter)

I’ve sold one of my spinning wheels – the Bordua that I bought last fall – to a really nice Ravelry member who will truly appreciate her. I’ve also begun selling some handspun wool yarn and some spinning fiber (the above mentioned alpaca) through my local kijiji. I definitely spin more than I knit and the wool is piling up!

Some recently spun yarns…

(Left to right…lambswool, spun from the lock very finely for a four ply fingering weight yarn; alpaca, spun from combed fiber, two ply; grammalamb spun two ply; the soft as butter blended camel 2ply; a skein of laceweight, handdyed silk two ply approx 800 metres.)

Oh – Almost forgot! There IS news on the knitting front….

I’ve spun 900 metres of silk/lambswool/alpaca (in approximate thirds, blended on carders and then spun fine for a three ply lace weight) to make a really beautiful pair of lace knitted stockings. So pretty, so impractical. Of course I had to have them I’ve only just begun the knitting but it’s coming along well…

As if that isn’t enough, I’ve also been working on some orifice hooks…

I am also working on the spinning wheel at the beginning of this post – she needed a few things and a bit of a facelift. I should have pictures to share very soon I believe she is a german parlor wheel but who knows for sure…

And just because…I’ve decided it’s time to make a quilt. A really special quilt I’ve had a picture for for ages…known to me and those that know me as “THE ONE”. It begins something like this….

I am so happy! I’ve been working on finishing the restoration of the Acadian Wheel – I made her new leather flyer bearings, new axle bearings (also from leather, soaked in water and shaped into a ‘u’ shape and allowed to dry in place with the wheel in place as well), tied on a (temporary) string footman and figured out how her alignment works!

So, how she looked when she had her first (undrilled) bearing made, and all fitted…

I discussed making that bearing here, using shoe leather and an old belt…I ended up dying it with leather dye, after creating a hole for the orifice, using first a drill and then carving it a little bigger…

I used a bit of belt leather, dyed it with leather dye, for the back bearing – you can kind of see it (undyed) in this picture…

Since she was flyer and bobbin-less when she came to live with us, my Vezina Slider has graciously offered to share her flyer and bobbin. She very wisely realised that I can only spin on one wheel at a time. I’m going to keep my eyes open for a suitable replacement.

She has no tensioning system so I had to figure out a way around that. I’ve made the back maiden (which holds the flyer with a leather bearing) the mobile maiden so that the flyer can be removed by removing a peg and twisting the maiden. The leather bearing itself I made with longer ‘tails’ than usual to allow the bearing to slip forward, in order to allow me to tie on the drive band and then, by pulling it back towards the maiden, to adjust tension on that band. I then used a square nail (one of the many ‘bits’ from the wheel that are left over) to wedge between the two ‘tails’, from the back of the maiden, in order to hold the leather in place where I put it. I think, in theory, this will allow me to somewhat tension the wheel.

It turns out, with this flat rim wheel, that the angles are all important. The wheel was made with large pegs that fit into the wheel uprights, beneath the table. These, it turns out!, adjust the angle of the wheel, allowing you to line it up with the flyer properly. I have managed to make her work as a double drive wheel – which I believe she always was, judging by the double groove worn in the wheel rim.

One of the pegs was missing so I used the existing one as a pattern…and a bit of old lath, lol – we’re doing some renovating. I had to wittle the lath down because it was a little too thick at first…

You can see, in this picture, how the uprights are not in a straight line – they help the wheel align with the flyer…

The angle looks like this…

I am so pleased to say that the weaving loom restoration project is coming along beautifully I’ve managed to clean her all up – the reed and the heddles were very rusty (all 643 of them!) and the harnesses were lightly rust stained as well. The harnesses aren’t perfect – they could seriously use a nice coat of paint this summer – but the loom itself is now in working order…

Here are some pictures as the work progressed…

After cleaning, the next step was to wind a warp. Now – I don’t have a warping board, or a warping reel. A bit of a problem except I was intrigued by the idea of using just a couple clamped dowels and I’m a little too impatient to wait for the correct tools or wood to build them! I decided to use a workmate bench, with three dowels clamped to it tightly, as the ‘cross’ end of the warp and a large clamp as the other end of the warp…

Not only convenient for holding the bobbins and winding the warp from but also handy to hold the clamp And moveable!

The next step was to braid the warp from the beginning to the ‘cross’. Voila… (sorry, impossible to take pictures while I’m doing this)…

I’m using mystery cones – one of a beige shiny type yarn, one white – both textured. I like the way they look together.

The first step, in dressing the loom (according to the book “Home Weaving” which is my weaving bible) is ‘spreading’. Spreading is where the warp is fed through the reed, from the front beam toward the back, in order to spread out the threads to the width they will be in the weaving. In my case I decided to use 30 threads per inch on a 15 dent (space) reed (per inch). This meant that two threads will end up in each dent in the final arrangement and to spread the threads I spread each little ‘portee’ in each fourth dent. So that was 8 threads (per wind or ‘portee’) in a dent, three dents empty – repeat until done. I left the portees tied individually and I am probably paranoid but as I wound the warp I tied the portees individually as I went, rather than trying to tie them at the end.

Since I was working alone I used a pvc pipe to hold the portees behind the harnesses during the spreading step….

After spreading, the warp is wound onto the back beam. Lease sticks should be at the back when this is done but I forgot and left them in the front, lol. Happy to report, the warp wound on just fine anyways. When I was done this step, I tied the ends to the front beam in groups to keep them straight while I was doing the next steps – threading heddles and the reed. Oh yes – I placed paper between the layers as I wound the warp in order to prevent tangling and moved the lease sticks to the back of the loom. My lease sticks are really pvc piping but they are working great

I very carefully worked, one section at a time, to thread the ends through the correct heddles and then the reed. I tied these threads off in groups of four (two dents worth) to keep them from falling back through the reed (again, working alone) and when they were all through the reed I tied one group with another (now 8 threads, four dents worth) around the metal bar that is tied to the other metal bar at the front winding beam. LOL – I cannot remember the name of those bars!!

I had to retie the harness to the lams and make sure that everything was working smoothly and then…I got to try weaving!!!!!

As the weave begins, it looks messy – I cut the first thread after a few passes to restart the piece I’m working on. It will be (with any luck) a table runner for our dining room – possibly with matching placemats if the warp holds out that long!

Ok – so I’m back, officially, and we’re all moved into our new home We found a lovely house in Orillia, all the wheels are settled in but I can’t really find all the ‘bits’ of everything I was working on when we packed up to move. What is it about moving that seems to kill any train of thought one has going on?! The bits shall surely reveal themselves as soon as I stop worrying about them.

I’ve got a few things on the go anyways…of course I’ve decided I *must* fix up this old weaving loom. It’s time for a restoration!

As I recieved it….

The loom was given to me – I posted about it HERE at the time – oh, AND HERE. If *anyone* knows what those pullies on the sides are for, I would LOVE to know! I’m working on cleaning up the reed and the heddles, first of all. Then I plan to find/make lease sticks and a warping board (or even those little boards you can clamp to the table would work).

I used mineral oil and sandpaper to clean the reed…lots and lots of sandpaper lol. I settled on the 100 grit medium – the paper seems to hold up and the sand itself seems gritty enough to do a good job. 150 grit wore out way too fast and the 60 grit was overkill. I cut the sandpaper into strips and worked in each dent, from one end and then from the other end – in order to sand every surface. I used a mineral oil dampened paper towel to wipe away the tarnish/rust as I removed it.

It’s coming out pretty well! These pictures show the difference between the clean and dirty sections….

Hopefully very soon I shall have a completely clean reed to show you! And then to the heddles

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted and I’ve got so much to share!! Christmas is creeping up on us so fast this year. I’ve been working on a few secrets but not too heavy on the elf business this year. Santa must certainly be disappointed with me! Most years I’m a Christmas dynamo. This year, we’re doing so much, getting ready to move, that the elf business took a seat in the back.

You must see my orifice hook handles though! I’ve discovered carving and I love it. LOL – the livingroom, however, looks like a woodworkers barber shop when I’m done a carving session. Other than sitting by myself on some porch or in the basement, not sure what one does about it but clean it up afterwards

I’m thinking they would be great to make and sell but, as usual!, I’m unsure what to price them at. They are super light to ship which should be helpful for selling on the internet. They are hand carved from a light wood (basswood) and have hooks which are attached without glue or epoxy so they could (theoretically) be replaced without damaging the handle itself.

I’ve also been finishing up some knitting…my seamless multnomah falls (check it out in my projects on ravelry)

The big difference is that I didn’t seam the back at the centre of the shrug section. Instead, I continued it and reversed the shaping for the second sleeve. I like how it turned out but would knit it a little larger in the arms (especially upper arms) if I make it again.

Have a fantastic day!

We acquired this beautiful Turkish ‘Nomad’ Spinning Wheel this past weekend. She’s beautiful and very very old. The couple who sold her to us bought her on the Turkey/Russia border, years ago, on a trip. I haven’t mastered spinning with her – she’s a little bit moody and operates on a bobbin led, no brake system. Apparently spinning on these is similar to charka spinning. Of course, I’ve never charka spun, either!

I scrubbed her down with methyl hydrate (standard warning – these rags will spontaneously combust if left in a pile and not dried flat and disposed of properly) and a bit of steel wool. I tried the toothbrush (my favorite method) but her dirt went a little deeper. The steel wool is fine and doesn’t mar the wood…

She cleaned up really nicely…and with a few shims to tighten up some joints (I used stretchy plumbers tape – not sticky – to wrap the maidens so they weren’t loose) and plan to use some wire to stabilize some of the more serious cracks. I feel like the cracks are stable as is but who knows how heat/humidity and use will affect things. I feel like the wire wraps will be a good way to repair her without taking away from her history. I would HATE to have to replace a part completely.

Another view of the dirt – precleaning -

My baby after her bath…and a little tung oil massage…

I’m working on the cutest ‘bunny rabbit’ sweater – from some fleece artist ‘peter rabbit’ which I had in three pinks. Not enough of it for a one colour sweater but I think my striping helps the colours work together. I’ll post a picture as soon as I’m able….probably November first

We had my daughter and my grandson visiting recently and boy oh boy, is that boy ever growing!! She’s doing a fantastic job with him….

Have a great day!

I worked like crazy to clean the new ‘Philias’ and I believe I shall call her Grace. Because she has the grace to spin quietly, and she’s made it through the last 80 years or so with a lot of dignity

Nice red wood wheel – beautiful tone to her underneath the shellac! They were certainly wild men with the shellac back in the day, weren’t they?!

The black gunk and shellac comes off very nicely – with a lot of scrubbing and methyl hydrate (shellac thinner). Always important – Remember that rags should be laid out flat to dry and NEVER balled up, and ALWAYS dispose of them safely.

I did my best to keep the makers mark but I definitely didn’t do a great job with that. You can still read it, thank goodness. I tend to think this is an early Philias. I think so because of the three bead spoke pattern – more like his father’s, I believe, and he worked with his father for the first year (1922-23). Following this thought – I wonder how good the inks were…maybe it was bound to lose some in taking off the shellac. Next time (if I have another with a mark), I’ll take more care.

She’s covered in years of grime and old shellac but she is in MINT condition and was obviously waiting for me to find her Or so I like to think.

Philias Cadorette made spinning wheels in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec from 1922 until the mid 1930′s. He took over his father’s (Michel Cadorette) business.

She spins perfectly and silently and I love her so much! Not that I could easily choose one to get rid of (should that come up) but this lady is definitely a keeper – the nicest spinner of them all.

I’m going to remove the old shellac and do my very best not to remove the makers mark! It’s a little scary, actually.

This is the flyer, so you can see how much lighter the wood will be…

This is how we recieved her…

She has a 27″ wheel and was begging me for an oil treatment on that first day. Now her wood is looking a little better…

The maidens had to come out, to have their leathers replaced…

First we removed the pegs underneath – they were so solidly in there for so long that we had to use a metal punch and a hammer and pray that nothing went wrong (which it didn’t!) Since the front maiden was nailed as well, that wasn’t the end of it!

Took out that big nail and then a small one in the front which was flush with the table and which very very barely met the wood of the maiden. In the end, somehow, the maiden is left with a shard of nail in her where the nail was. I felt very lucky that none of the original pegs/parts cracked or broke. All the little damages were there already, caused by those little nails.

The leathers needed replacing so I went to the local ‘cowboy store’. LOL. Ok, we call it the cowboy store but it’s not really called that. They do boots, moccasins, cowboy hats, leathers of all kinds, coats, etc. They also have a shoe/boot repair guy/builder guy who very kindly found me the perfect leather – a boot sole, the strongest, thickest, hardest leather he had in the shop. And some black dye to make it black when I’m done He looked very confused when I veered off of leather qualities and tried to explain what it was for! Muggles

I carved the sole a little thinner and bonded it to a piece of tool belt leather (a little thinner but it’s what I had) by scoring it to make it rough, applying glue and clamping it in between two books to keep it flat and straight. Like this…

The pattern was drawn by tracing what as left of the original leather and then I traced a proper leather (on the cpw) for the missing section. It’s a little larger than the cpw leather BUT so was the original and so is the whole wheel I’m making it for. I think the proportion is correct. I’m waiting to drill the hole for the flyer until I have the flyer (seems the sensible thing, to make sure it’s right). My leathers here have holes that vary from 3/8 to 4/8 of an inch.

I cut the leather out with a scroll saw, once dry and then carved and sanded it to the perfect shape for the maiden hole. The maiden has a larger opening at the flyer side than in the back so there’s a little shaping involved.

She will be spinning in no time!

The wheels are abundant…and beautiful…

I’ve been busy cleaning them and oiling them and doing my best to get them spinning well. Grandma is doing very well with her new spokes! She’s also glowing from her blo treatments…her old self is shining…

I carved her spokes from a dowel, since I didn’t have a lathe. It began because I was thinking of putting dowels in place, temporarily, until I could get replacements made. Necessity is the mother of invention, for sure! I just gave it a try and figured it out along the way…

And then she had her clean-up…

And now she is much more beautiful…

She spins really well! I’ve spun a two ply superwash merino (approx. sock weight), so far…

Winding those bobbins of singles was enough to convince me I NEEDED to built a bobbin winder. More on that coming up tomorrow. I used a formerly-useless spinning wheel type object to do it!

We got her from a lovely lady in Sudbury. The wheel was her great grandmother’s (on her father’s side) and has been in storage for years. The seller’s husband wanted to THROW IT OUT!!!

So, you see, we saved her in the nick of time!

Her wheel is seperated, a little, at one of the joins…

Pretty sure I’ll be taking out the screws shortly. I just need to figure out if it’s best to take them out first and then oil the wheel or oil and then remove. I’m thinking the first option but waiting for advice from those that know before I begin! She’s been through enough already.

I’ll be replacing the missing spokes, either with old ones (if I can find them) or with new ones – we’ll see

Her flyer is beautiful but needs a little work…

She has the slider tension…

Her footman is the old hammered type – original, I think…

She’s going to need a little tlc but I think she’s going to be just perfect, when she’s done

This is what I’ve been working on, on the porch…

The backstory – A while ago (like last year), a good friend of my husbands gave us his great grandmother’s old treadle sewing machine, in the table. It had sat out for a while at his house and the veneer was peeling on the top. I gave it a quick look and said ‘Store it on the porch’. Yeah. Really. So then, a couple of days ago, I was looking at it (took the tarp off – thank goodness I used a tarp to protect it through the year) and realized the machine is in great shape and the table in very near to great shape once I took off the old veneer which was too badly lifted to redo.

I looked her up. She has a one letter prefix in her serial number and was manufactured in 1906 in Elizabethport, Elizabeth, New Jersey, as part of 10,000 machines (model number 27) destined for montreal. Makes perfect sense since the grandmother in question and our friend’s family come from Cornwall, Ontario.

Here are some progress photos…

I used the old favorites to clean the machine – baking soda, vinegar, toothbrush, elbow grease Oh, and lots of rags to protect things that weren’t getting cleaned!

I used murphy’s oil soap and steel wool on the wood…I’m still in the process of getting it all cleaned down. My ultimate plan will be to oil it with a mixture of boiled linseed oil/turpentine/red wine vinegar. I think she will be gorgeous!

Wow. Ok, picture heavy post.

I shall soon be back with a more finished look, I hope!

I have (as you may already have read) just recently acquired a beautiful CPW (canadian production wheel). One of the things with an antique wheel is the fact that one usually only gets one bobbin. Of course more can be made BUT I thought up this solution to the dilemma…

I bought a lot of quill bobbins (from ebay) – 25 of them for a mere $4 + shipping!! They are a good size and quite beautiful actually. Of course, I have a real weakness for antiques/old wood and these have brass AND old wood – HOW could one NOT love them…

They obviously needed a home (or as they call it, a ‘kate’) so that once I’ve wound the singles onto them, I can easily ply off of them.

I found a piece of scrap wood. For real, lol – it was sitting on the porch, an old abandoned piece of a long dead dresser. My son thought it was hilarious that I thought I could make something out of it. I showed him

I cut two pieces about 12″ each, for the cross bars and split the remainder (about 8″ each) for two supports/legs. I sanded the wood and let it breathe again! (it was happy) I marked holes about two inches in from each end, on each piece – making sure the drill holes were going through the solid part of the wood, not the grooves cut into it from it’s last life. I used a small drill bit to drill most of the way through the base pieces and all the way through the cross bar pieces, used a larger bit (the size of the dowel – I think it was 5/16) to make countersink holes in the cross bars and the dowel holes in between them.

Put her together, waxed the heck out of her (wow did that wood ever soak up wax!) and sanded the tops of the dowels to a roundish shape. (oh yes, the dowels were cut to be about 4 inches tall)

I love how she turned out. Bonus! My Kromski bobbins fit on her perfectly too Now I just need a little bit more dowel, to fill in the empty spots

(without her flyer – presurgery)

(her flyer/shaft and bobbin – the whorl is there somewhere too)

(another pic)

I know, ridiculous. Like a dresser who’s drawers don’t open, like a fridge without coolent, like a car that won’t drive. It boggles my mind how much fine wood and how much effort has gone into making these almost-wheels. And, they’re everywhere!

So, I did what I could. Nothing. Just looked at poor pathetic pinnochio in the corner, wondering what in the world she was good for. (my daughter seriously suggested the garden) I call her pinnochio because she really, really, REALLY wanted to be a real girl and spin!

So, in the interest of quieting pinnochio and satisfying my own curiousity and need-to-work-with-wood – I thought ‘Why Not?!’ and here are some pictures of what I’ve done and how she looks now….

I call it “The Pinnochio Project”

She came with a rough (really rough, not even rectangularly cut – an actual parralellagram) homemade flyer. The arms looked ok (so ok, I suspect they came from a REAL GIRL) and the centre (where it goes through the shaft) was very rough cut. The flyer shaft was seperated (or had never been attached) and had a huge hunk of sauter? or something where the orifice area was attached the straight shaft of the flyer. The shaft itself was threaded from the end past the whorl, up under the bobbin a ways (and not reverse threaded) so I presume they sautered an orifice shaped object onto a normal bolt or something like that, to create this flyer shaft. The orifice itself was very small, shallow and rough. Just a show orifice, not to really use. Ok, just a thought BUT – IF one is making something ‘for display’ then WHY the h*ll would they not make it display worthy?! As she was, Pinnochio was ashamed of being displayed!

(the tiny orifice)

(the hideous parallelagram shaped thing)

The bobbin was rough (as can be, not sure yet if that will really work well, ever) and it appeared that the original ‘display’ idea might have been that the bobbin and whorl were not made seperately but as one piece and someone in Pinnochio’s history had cut through them to make a seperate bobbin and whorl. (why, oh why, mysterious repairer, did you not notice the hideous state of the flyer?)

The wheel itself seems in excellent shape. I hesitate to say it’s well made, considering where it started but to my eyes, it looks good.

(the wheel)

The table, legs, mother of all – all good. The tensioner? NON EXISTANT. That’s the major idiocy of these wheels, if you ask me. The fact that someone did everything to make a spinning wheel and then bailed on creating a tensioning device. WHY? Something for the stupid files. Pinnochio had a fake medallion thingie to look like a screw tension but nothing that moved or worked.

So – to fix her. I decided to work on the flyer first. I sanded down the parallelagram. I sanded down the hunk of sauter around the orifice join as well. I did most of this with the favorite tool – the wood file. I love files! I also filed off all of the threads on the flyer shaft that I didn’t need and smoothed down the ones under the bobbin without totally removing them. (I didn’t want the flyer shaft to have a ‘small’ spot there). I used a nail file (best sandpaper in the house) to smooth a spot on the flyer arms where the bobbin rubs, to sort of widen the flyer a little at that spot and then used epoxy to attach flyer to shaft, once I had things sitting level and looking as pretty as possible. Pinnochio wants to be pretty….

The next thing was to figure out the best way to create an easy tensioning device. I decided on a tilt tension system (of course, with my current canadian production wheel obsessionn) using a u-bolt and a carved groove. Really, very simple! I thought about doing a screw tension (which would suit this little wheel better) but decided against the adventure of trying to figure out how to make or where to get screw boxes. I’m a simple girl – I work with simple tools!

I first removed the mother of all – had to take out stupid staples but at least it wasn’t glued or nailed), removed the medallion (with a putty knife I managed to loosen the glue on that piece), cut off the dowel, flush with the table (to keep the table bed kind of solid instead of having a random hole that I would have to fill or plug anyway) and then marked my groove and used my wood carving tools to chisel out a groove for the moa.

I bought a length of threaded rod at the hardware store and bent it into the U shape. This transpired because there are no suitable sized U bolts (or at least not that day, at that store) and the ones I saw were so clunky and thick that I though the rod was better anyways. I used a similar size table leg to bend the rod around, by hand, and then filed down the threads in the section that will show. Because the rod becomes very weak once all the threads are off (I know this from cutting through it with a file), I left a bit of them there. The roughness actually helps it grip the wood nicely and with a project like this – there is NO WRONG. Two wing nuts and two washers attach underneath the table to secure the U bolt and the MOA.

And, YAY! She spins. Not well, lol, but she does. I need to super grease her up and open up a little more space for the wheel axle in the uprights, to see what she can really do. The tensioner works perfectly!

And here are her ‘after’ shots…

I also need to trim the U bolt, underneath the table. Oh yes, and add a flyer hook nearer the beginning of the bobbin (and take one away at the end – I suspect these flyer arms and this bobbin ran away together since they certainly don’t really belong together)

Isn’t she pretty?

I was lucky on the weekend – we found this beauty at a small Ontario flea market, completely unexpected (we stopped for the fries, lol) and an extremely good deal!

She even spins! After a few repairs and adjustments and after creating her a cheap homemade whorl. I used a small toy wooden wheel, from the craft store, and a file (to create the groove for the drive band). The predrilled hole turned out to be the perfect size to thread onto the flyer shaft by hand, creating the threads by the threading itself. An excellent (if not long term) fix for less than $1.50!

the wheel;

there are two grooves in the wheel;

the hub;

the flyer/bobbin/mother of all;

that ‘fancy’ homemade whorl;

which started like this;

and ended up like this; (I used the knitting needle and a small rubber piece which fit on the needle to help me keep the groove even. It made things a lot easier!)

the maidens look like this;

she has a pretty narrow front;

leg detail/cast iron treadle;

Lovely, lovely wheel. I’m so happy to have saved her!!!