A few days ago, there was a note on Ravelry.com in the El Paso County Crafters thread about a spinning wheel for sale. I looked at the ad and thought, I wants it, I do. I have been yearning for a wheel for quite some time, now. I used to wheel spin years ago as a demonstrator at the Texas Renaissance Faire. We're talking spinning with castle wheels, walking wheels and drop spindles as well. I have also tried my hand at spinning a few times over the last 10 years as a part of the Renaissance Scots Living History group.
I googled the Louet S15, which was the model that was for sale. It's a little workhorse of a single treadle wheel made by a reputable company. I have actually spun on one of these before, years ago. I thinking to myself, how am I going to buy it?
I was in a quandary. It's a good price, it's here in this city (no shipping), I could help out someone by buying it from her. What to do, what to do, where's the money going to come from, yadda, yadda, yadda? Well, the other day I got a letter from Uncle Sam telling me that I was getting an incentive payment, Cha-ching! Hmmm, found money! new tattoo, new tires, put towards a new digi SLR camera, the spinning wheel, what?
Then I talked to Erin about it and she's like, oooooh, cool!, a wheel, maybe I'll get back to spinning as well. To that end, this morning we went to ColoKnitter aka Gretchen's home to check out the wheel. I sat and treadled it and looked at the wood parts, the leather part and metal parts and checked out the general soundness of it's action and wrote out a check for it and came away with my, new to me, spinning wheel.
We parked it in the back seat of the car belted in and Erin brought it home as I was on the way to church to work on the garden plan and plant the tree (earlier post). Best part, besides my new toy, is that I have a big ball of merino roving ready to spin up here at home. It was meant to be, I suppose.
As you can see from the picture, I have a blank canvas to work with for decorating. So, I have to figure out what Celtic knotwork designs I want to put on the wheel. I will paint one on each side of it so that I see one as I spin and other folks see one as I demo spinning at the festivals this coming summer.
Here is the start of the painting of the big wheel on my used but new to me Louet spinning wheel that I got last year. There are still thistles to come, but I discovered that I don't have the paint colours I need. Can you believe that, with a bucket o'paints we have, Erin? However, the irony continued as the drive band broke last night on the wheel, which meant no spinning, yikes! Fortunately, Table Rock had one in stock, so I am happily spinning again.
