Scandinavian Spinning Wheels!

Good morning!

Over the past month or so, we’ve been very very fortunate to find two wheels from Scandinavia. Both Kijiji finds, both very reasonably priced, both with all their parts and both in spinning order! One was in a ready-to-spin-right-now-and-i-cant-wait-to-get-started state, the other more of a help-me-im-smothering-underneath-all-this-nasty-oil-paint state lol but you’ll get to see how I saved her…she was sort of masquerading as one of those captains beds from the 70’s – you know the ones! – and had not been used much in her life but is definitely made to work. I took her for a test spin before beginning the stripping, just to reassure myself.

Ok, so, the first spinning wheel we found….

She was found in Trenton, Ontario and has a little bit of history (as told by the guy we bought her from). She was apparently brought from Sweden, by her Swedish family, and has been in the same family for her lifetime, save the time she spent with the gentleman we bought her from. The interesting thing is that she is actually a Norwegian style double table wheel with distinctive Finnish double upright wheel posts. The beautiful curving end caps on these double posts are also distinctly Finnish.

Check out her bearings! This wheel is absolutely THE MOST SOLID wheel in my collection – old or new. She is put together completely with wooden pegs and everything is in perfect shape. She’s like a miracle wheel, considering her probable age…

An amazing thing…she has all her bobbins! And the wood is beautiful….

After cleaning…

the third bobbin, on the flyer…

Her treadle has the comfy foot indent and she loves to spin…a cleaning, an oiling and away we went 🙂 Her wheel is large, partially hand carved and beautiful. It measures 26.5 inches, approximately.

God bless her original family, they took exceptional care of her.

Now, the second wheel…

We found this wheel on the local Kijiji, just about 30 minutes away. I couldn’t help but notice the double wheel posts with the curving cap which are secondary supports on this tiny spinning wheel and I was intrigued since I had just gotten the first a week or two before.

She was covered in thick brown oil type paint – very shiny. I could tell that it was not original paint because they had painted over her decorative end caps. She was doing a very good job of impersonating a reproduction wheel of some sort from the 70’s and I had more than one doubt when buying her.

My grandson, bless him, loves her. Grandma, for ME?!!! was his reaction 🙂

First things first, when I got her home I took her for a spin and she did spin!

Some pictures of her parts…

The painted over decorative caps

The flyer and mother of all

Yes, she has bearings

This was a job for solvent…and lots of gloves and paint scrubbie pads…

The wheel itself was a lot of work…

And then all the smaller pieces…

The pressure fit whorl

The flyer

The bobbin

The whole job took approximately 20 hours, lots of patience and plenty of elbow grease but now she is perfect!

Her flyer, with tool marks from the file it was ‘sanded’ with

The arched post cap

Tension

Side view/alignment

From the back

One thing missing – one decorative metal ‘cap’

It’s a super cute antique spinning wheel that has seen very little use. There is no foot indentation in the treadle, the hooks may be replacements but they are in good shape and well bent so I didn’t replace them. She has an odd arrangement with the front maiden on an angle to accomodate the flyer and a 14″ wheel diameter.

After stripping the whole thing, I treated the wood with orange oil, no wax so far.

Have a fantastic day! 🙂

Swiss Lateral Treadle – A Very Sweet Wheel!

Good morning my friends!

Yes, we’ve added another wheel to the flock.  My husband has definitely earned his enabler’s certification, lol, as he very smartly and wisely guessed I might really REALLY love this little wheel as a birthday present/project.

Purchased off of our local Kijiji from an elderly gentleman who thought it was polish (though I’m not sure why and the gentleman did not have time to talk and did not share details on any known history of the wheel).

Very loose, very rickety but complete with all of her parts except the tension peg. A very experienced, well used (as evidenced by the oil stains and appropriate wear) lateral treadle swiss wheel! Not really very common where I live and I feel very blessed to have her 🙂

I took her apart as much as possible and cleaned her. Then a coat of blo and turpentine mixed about 50/50. She could drink that for days but I didn’t want to overdo so I’m waiting a few days now for another coat.

Be ever so careful if you are using this mixture – it will self combust and you MUST lay out rags or anything used outside to dry afterwards before safely disposing. Do not crumple up rags! Also, use in a well ventilated area.

She was definitely in poor shape. Her flyer had been bent off center, possibly by too much tension over too many years or possibly by a fall or some other accident. Her orifice leather needed replacing, her frame needed shimming from underneath to take out the rattle and the lean. The mother of all arm which holds the orifice needed shimming from underneath to take out the other rattle, lol.

Check out this treadle pin!

I actually love getting to know these old ladies. It’s like we have this long talk about their every ailment, and then I do my best to fix them one by one by one until the little old lady is ready tCo spin again. You know, the kind of work where you can spend nine hours or so before you even realize that the day has passed? A labour of love 🙂

She has captive rings, which I thought was pretty sweet. To me, it means that someone loved the lady who owned this wheel once-upon-a-time. In it’s day, a wheel was a necessary tool. Only people who love people specially decorate their tools, I was thinking…

So, after the shimming, she can now be carried with one hand, nothing moves and she is, perhaps, the most sturdy wheel in the house!

She stood for having her flyer shaft bent back into straight. Her bobbin degunked nicely for me.

It took a little work carving shoe leather thin enough for her orifice leather but she is now releathered. I did leave the top of the wooden orifice without having the leather come around and it works perfectly with the soft cord as a tensioner. I am planning to replace the cord with leather lacing for a brake.

The only thing left to do is to carve her a proper tension peg (I’m thinking captive rings are in order…) and to become much more skilled in the art of bobbin led spinning!! LOL. These are wheels that pull like crazy and want to put in light light twist. I left the original thread there from the lady-who-spun-so-long-ago. It’s good for the wheel karma. It appears she was a pro – it is very thin, very perfect flax.

Sidetracked, Again (or is that always?)

Ok, I admit it, I just might have a BIT of an issue with sticking to one thing, lol. It’s like some kind of ‘ooooooh shiny, soooooo pretty’ disease. I have so many projects on the go that it’s truly ridiculous.

There is the sweater I am knitting out of handspun light fingering weight yarns, in stripes. The white is cormo/merino hand combed and blended with very fine alpaca, two ply. The coloured yarn is a hand carded silk/wool blend, 2 ply.

The yarn I really did finish (yay, one for me, save the part where there are half a bobbin of singles waiting to be plied into yarn, should I get around to finishing the other ply), created from hand processed, hand combed cormo/fdt fleece from mmfwool….

So far I have two skeins of this, around 700 metres, I’d guess. And I would be guessing, lol, since I have yet to count the strands 🙂

The ‘ooh shiny’ which I just started yesterday. Days off work are fantastic!

Hand dyed silk, cormo/merino fleece and super-soft-camel fluff…it is divine….

And, certainly not last, simply last for today – some super soft gloves I’m working on, created with handspun angora bunny/hand dyed silk blended yarn.

Thankfully winter is a few months away!

My Newest Wheel – A Little Bit Of A Project

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!

Aram! I’m So Glad You’re Here :)

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!

You’ve Got To Love A Friday!

Yes, I know it’s not really friday.  For me, though, it is – so yay!  Not that I don’t enjoy my job because I actually do, it’s just a matter of balance.  My crafts are exactly what balance me 🙂

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.

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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 🙂

What A Beautiful Day!

Absolutely LOVING the gardens this year…(and they are loving me right back)

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!

What’s New? Spring Cleaning….Fleece!

Good morning!

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….

The Acadian Wheel Spins!!

Hello 🙂

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…

It’s A Turkish Wheel!

Good morning! I should call this ‘tales from the rabbit hole’, me thinks 🙂

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…

Getting Cleaner…

Good morning 🙂

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.

It’s a ‘Philias’ – Cadorette CPW

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…

An Acadian Wheel!

I know I’m skipping ahead but check out my latest wheel project! We got this Acadian flat rimmed wheel – missing the footman, and the flyer assembly. She also had some interesting homemade nails placed to hold the front maiden and pegs which were so tight it was a real challenge to get her apart!

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!

Where To Begin…?

Yes, it has been a while! I’ve been stuck in this place called ‘the rabbit hole’ since I bought that first antique wheel. The rabbit hole looks something like this…

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!

A Slider CPW!

Another one saved! Hopefully she will soon be in spinning shape again…

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 🙂

Canadian Production Wheel!

Look what I found!!!!!

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!!!