The Heathen Housewife

It’s been such a freakishly long time since I’ve posted that people are actually starting to get concerned. I’m really sorry. I’ve had more than one reader ask me where I am and if everything is okay. The truth is, everything is going exceptionally well (knock on wood) and I’ve just been a little distracted by the newest member of our household, among other things.

It all started last Saturday when my friend Laura and I took a drive out to Detta’s Spindle to check out her spinning wheels. It was a wildly fun time. Detta’s shop is in her home, and the wheels are all in a not-so-huge room along with a bunch of other interesting and related fibery stuff. While we were out there, a whole bunch of other ladies showed up to try out wheels too, so it got a little crazy cozy, but more like a party than anything else.

That’s Laura in the green, and Detta to her right. Laura was just along for the ride, but had brought her knitting along and was incredibly patient with me as I tried wheel after wheel and then went back and tried a couple wheels a second time just to be sure.

Here I am at a big, beautiful Schacht-Reeves Saxony towards the end of the day. I loved this wheel, but it wasn’t the one I ended up bringing home.

Let’s do a little more catching up on events from the past week or so. We had some little friends over last week, and I was trying to come up with something fun, exciting and new to do in the yard in order to keep the girls all entertained while their mom was off having dental work.

I dug out a bunch of old sheets, rugs and beach towels to make a silly tent-like structure.

I think they all thought I was a little nutty, and while they were somewhat entertained by the whole business, I also think I probably had more fun with the whole thing than anyone else.

And then on Sunday there was this Aquatennial thing going on over at Lake Calhoun. It’s a local Minneapolis celebration thing involving boats made out of milk cartons and sand castle contests. This kind of thing is totally not Joe’s cup of tea. He hates crowds. So the girls and I hopped on the bike and in the trailer and I pedaled us on over.

We had a picnic lunch, and then I bought us all ice creams for dessert. The girls didn’t want to sit on the grass without a blanket, so we were all sitting like this when a nice woman passing by commented that we would make a great picture. And then when I pulled my camera out of my pocket she took our picture.

We didn’t actually get to see the milk carton boat races – we kept being in the wrong place at the wrong time at the starts, and then they were over before we could get there. We did get to see the sand castles, and this was one of my favorites – a turtle with a castle on its back.

By the time we got home, the girls looked like this – Sophie’s in there too – that’s her blue helmet Julie’s leaning on. I don’t know what I’m going to do if they outgrow the trailer before Julie’s able to ride her own bike for distances. I love taking them for bike rides.

And finally, a picture of Sophie from a morning last week when Julie was at school. We were outside playing with bubbles. I think I’d pretty much given up getting any spinning done at this point, but she just looked so cute with the sun dappling her round little face that I had to run in and grab the camera.

Anyway, I did my best to finish the spindled sock yarn before the big wheel-buying trip, but it took me most of last week to get it plied. That was one full spindle towards the end!

I totally love the way this yarn looks, but I’m certain I over-spun the singles, which made for some strong but not-so-soft yarn. And the high-energy twits also seemed to make for some crinkles after it was washed.

So I re-skeined it and left it on the niddy-noddy for a couple days to straighten it all back out.

And then I tamed it further with some steam from the tea kettle. I’ve got a sock started with it, but I’ll save that for another post. Let’s get back to that spinning wheel trip.

I went out there totally wanting to fall in love with the Schacht Ladybug because it’s so darn cute and it doesn’t hurt that the price was right. But of all the wheels I tried, including the Schacht Matchless, the Ashford Traveller, the Louet Julia, and a couple of Majacraft models, the Ladybug was the least fun to use. The treadling was stiff and less than smooth. Of all the others I tried, I have to say that most of them felt more or less the same with the exception of the Schacht-Reeves Saxony, which was both beyond my budget limits and somewhat less versatile than the model I chose – and the model I chose.

The Majacraft Rose was the third wheel that I tried – right after the Ladybug – and when I started to treadle it, you could have knocked me down. It was so smooth, so natural. The treadles on this wheel are a little closer to the floor than most of the other wheels I tried, which makes it more comfortable for my long legs.

It’s hard to explain just how right this wheel felt. Pretty much all the other wheels I tried, I had to keep leaning forward to move the wheel clockwise in order to get it started in the right direction. This one had no problem going the right way based just on the intuitive pressure from my feet.

Add to that, it’s a beautiful wheel. It’s made from Rimu wood, native from New Zealand. It has a traditional look to it with somewhat modern, cleaner lines than some of the other wheels on the market.

And on top of that, it’s a pretty darn versatile machine. It can do fine to bulky yarn, it has all kinds of available accessories that will keep it growing with my spinning abilities for the forseeable future.

Lucky me, it was (barely) within my price range, and I got to bring Rosie home with me last Saturday.

I had some Mountain Colors Targhee wool on hand, and before I knew it, half of it was spun up on a bobbin.

I’m so used to working with the smooth superwash merino, the Targhee was a little tough to draft. Actually, even after splitting it into pretty thin strips and a ton of pre-drafting, I still had a hard time avoiding crazy slubs. But I carried on, victim to the siren song of the wheel, and before I knew it there was a second bobbin full of the stuff.

And then it turned into this…

Definitely beginner-level yarn – thick and thin, unevenly twisted, and I totally love it. Now you know what I’ve been doing instead of blogging this week.

Here’s a shot of all the yarn hanging on the line to dry.

And another one, trying to get a true-to-color photo on my dried-out weedy lawn. The colors still look a little washed out here.

After washing, the blue yarn was a lot more relaxed, a lot happier looking.

There’s already another project on the wheel. This time, it’s some cotton-candy soft merino. Excuse me while I go obsess.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 2:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.