A Midsummer Night's Dream

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

- Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare

The night of the Longest Day, something strange happened. Suddenly my dear old antique spinning wheel started insisting that I really should be spinning with her - instead of doing any of those pesky tasks that people do when they're planning a trip away from home for several days (I was about to leave the following day to spend the Midsummer weekend with my family).

The thing is, the dear old antique wheel (also known as Elsa) is really rather far from the perfect spinning fitness. The footman is missing its head, the wheel axle is not quite straight and yes, the bane of antique wheels - there's only one bobbin. Still, there's not much you can do, when the other insists, and you'd really rather be spinning than packing or doing dishes...

I managed to fix a thing like a metal hook to the footman, so that it would spin the wheel and fall off only every 30th round or so. Then I greased the axle and spun away... some pre-yarn. Considering the condition my old lady is in, I'm not sure it's up to anything more strenuous, at least not until I get the footman properly fixed (if not even replaced). Still, we had a couple of hours of nice, not-very-nerve-wrecking twisting of yarn with a proper tension and all.

That's unspun pre-yarn....

... spun into pretty one-ply. 

Now I just need to decide what to do with it!

(Let's not tell Elsa, but I really wouldn't mind having a nice, smooth, modern, double treadle wheel too. Just to get Elsa some company of course. And to save my lower back from the ache of pedaling the antique wheel at million rounds per minute.)

The day before Tour de Fleece

This year's Tour de Fleece (the spinning event which pays homage to the Tour de France cycling competition) begins tomorrow.


Like all clever participants, I've spent the last weeks preparing for the event. Unfortunately for me, most of my preparation has focused on making sure my fibre stash won't run out. It's not likely to happen, as spindling is a more time consuming craft than spinning on a wheel, and I have plenty of wool stashed around my flat, but as a former Girl Scout, I feel one should always be prepared ;)


The last I spun for any length of time (and the first time I spun with my new-ish 31g Schaht hi-lo spindle) my right hand seized up for a few days. I decided to have a little test run today, to warm up my spinning muscles up a bit. I was hoping to spin the rest of the baby camel and superfine merino blend sample that I'd begun spinning at a spinning meet I went to at the end of April, but that may have to wait awhile, while I do some work, and give my hands and shoulders a rest.

Preparations, part 2

As I wrote in my last post, I ordered Tuulia Salmela's eagerly awaited spinning book.
 It arrived last week, and I can already tell it's wonderful.




 I'll be able to review it more thoroughly once my holiday starts (one more day to go, yay). I'm definitely looking forward to that :)



I also managed to buy some limited edition fibre that Tuulia had dyed specially to celebrate the release of her book.