Spinning Wheel

I think we all knew this day would happen. Namely, the day when I got my hands on a spinning wheel*, and promptly lost all desire to do anything else (do homework, go to class, see friends, eat, sleep, leave this machine at all).

Despite the consequences, this is a beautiful picture. An appropriate caption would be, maybe, something like, “Caroline + Lendrum, Together Forever,” except, you know, this is not forever.

(also, note, revived sandals, on their 5th cobbling– this time with real nails!– & somehow still going strong).

and I’m spinning Corriedale top from Three Waters Farm, at a fingering/lace weight. I’ve not got a lazy kate, so everything I spin, I’ll knit single, which is fine. Takes less time, at any rate.

The nice thing about a spinning wheel is the same thing which is nice about a bicycle (a fun game: playing count-how-many-wheels-are-in-this-room. I think 7 or 8 was our record)– more effective than doing said task Absolutely Simply (spinning on a spindle, going à pied), but the only energy input is still one’s own. Also, its workings are immediately apparant (Look, different gears for different speeds: makes sense), for more immediate understanding (and quicker repair).

Here, we see a very advanced and difficult variation on the “let the wool dry by hanging it on a doorknob method,” which is based on the principle of the Sunnier Back Porch, and the Heavy Peanut Butter Jar.

I bought (and received) 12 oz. of wool ingesamt, which will spin to ~1200 yards of yarn. Which I’m planning on using for a Cobblestone Pullover.

So, I have half of it done so far, as well as some merino I’d been begrudgingly spinning, and some more birthday-wool from the farm. Will let it rest during the bike-trip, and start work once I get back, I think.

*NOT TOGETHER FOREVER: this spinning wheel isn’t mine. Rather, it’s an “I never use this and feel guilty about never using this, so if you want to go ahead and let your girlfriend use it for a while, please do, but I need it back sometime in August,” present. Which is perhaps even more perfect, because, imagine my conflicting loyalties between this (seductively productive) and schoolwork (menacingly necessary), come fall semester.

It would basically look like this

but in reverse: Caroline v. Rumpplications to Graduate Stiltskin, OR: spinning words into stipends.

From Tunis Sheep.

Got this wool on Thursday, from friends of Zac’s family; started spinning it immediately.

“pergunt inde Collatiam, ubi Lucretiam…nocte sera deditam lanae inter lucubrantes ancillas in medio aedium sedentem inveniunt.”

They then continued to Collatia, where they found Lucretia…spinning wool, sitting in the middle of the house, among her maidens, working by lamplight, late in the night.

Livy, The History of Rome, Book I.57

Creatrix.

See that yarn, that yarn on the bottom of the picture?

I made that. On a wheel. Out of the wool one sees above.

Bursting with pride – feeling slight shame, at being so happy about something so ridiculous.

Clearly, my woman-powers are at the highest they’ve ever been.