Spinning
In circles, and every other direction.
There are three spinning wheels (and a lot of related stuff) under this roof that I call home. Last week, I decided it was time to do something with them.
At that time, none was strictly functional. They’d survived moves and neglect for more than a little while.
The first wheel, the smaller one in front in the photo, is a reproduction wheel that my husband made for me. Given that it took him twenty years to finish the project, I didn’t feel too guilty waiting for my interest in spinning to wax again. That’s not to say that I didn’t try it from time to time, but never for very long, or with very much spinnable fiber.
Mom told me that she never used leather belts for her spinning wheel because leather stretches. Well, I put a leather belt on it because I thought leather looked cool. It stretched. Before attempting to spin, I had to shorten the belt by about three inches.
Belt managed, the wheel still didn’t spin very well. The belt kept coming off, mainly because the alignment of the flyer (the part that does the spinning) with the wheel wasn’t good. After a trip to the shop with the hubby to adjust the Mother of All (the base that holds the flyer assembly), and some strategic lubrication, all of that got fixed. So the wheel now works.
