Now, where did I leave that?

Monday, March 28, 2011

Spinning a Tale

Once upon a time, two womyn visited  the NY Sheep and Wool Festival on a whim, and one of them fell head-over-heels in love with all things woolly. A year after that festival, having taken a class, read books and rented one from Country Wool in Hudson, she bought a spinning wheel of her very own--an Ashford Traveler, to be exact.  It arrived in a box. A big box.  It arrived at the same time as house guests and the impending holiday season and, well....never came out of the box until February.
As daunting as this was, it almost went back in the box!  But wool's siren call drowned out the fears, and some "antique red" water-based stain and several coats of acrylic later,
it was time to help her get her act together.  Thankfully Linda likes assembling things AND is very patient and good at it.  In the end, the assembly took maybe two hours.  Claudia from Country Wool was kind enough to make an adjustment or two (it may be a double-drive wheel, but that doesn't mean both drives should be engaged simultaneously!), and at last, she's finished!

She's a thing of beauty, although neither photo captures her lush, deep rosewood coloring.  She's 'functional art', and I can't wait to finally pick up spinning again!  There's all sorts of alpaca and Romney roving here just waiting to be practiced with, not to mention the Lincoln fleece from Cricket and Leicester fleece from Ozzie, obtained last Fall in anticipation of this time.  I keep reminding myself it's an art that will take lots of practice and time, like all great love affairs.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Split Personality

Time has been a tad stretched of late, and a bout of tendonitis kept me away from the computer.  I'm working on getting a few photos together to show off the stunning spinning wheel.  And I'm a wee bit tied up doing some work that I thought I'd left behind several years ago, work I once loved and felt called to, then felt I had no choice but to leave.  I was pretty sure I'd moved on, but now I'm learning that maybe you 'can go home again'.  We'll see...
But ANYWAY, I haven't been twiddling my thumbs (tendonitis saw to that)....I'll post for real here again very soon, but in the meantime...Happy Spring!
http://hudsonvalleyroots.com/