Well, I finally got the chance to work with Stormy. I spun some odd stuff I had around just to get used to her, then took two art batts I carded when I was impatiently waiting for her to arrive, and spun them up as nice fat singles. I got two bobbins filled and then plied them with gold metallic thread. I'm not sure of the yardage but the weight is 4oz. for the 2 balls. I needed to learn how she'd handle, and for the most part pretty good. I do believe she needs a new drive band, this one is pretty stretched out. I e-mailed the manufacturer and asked if I could order some things from them. Hopefully, I can and I'll be able to spin like crazy!

Meet "Stormy"

Well, after waiting a reeeeaaaallly long time, my "new-to-me" spinning wheel finally arrived.

Back in January I happened to see a post on Ravelry for a used Fricke spinning wheel for sale. I've been wanting one of these for a long time but hesitated to spend the money for a new one. This seemed like a really good deal so I jumped on it. The gal I bought it from, (thank you Corinne) was really patient about waiting a week for me to get the cash to her. She lives in Maryland and had to fight the snowstorm they had going on there to get the package sent out to me. Then during the trip here I'm sure the mail got hung up somewhere in the snowstorm we got socked with here in the midwest. So I waited and waited and finally today she showed up at my door. Yippee!!! I figured with all that traveling in snowstorm after snowstorm, it was only fitting that my wheel should be christened "Stormy Thundersnow".

I set her up and hopefully got her all together correctly. So far, I haven't given her a "spin" yet-but will get to it real soon. I was so excited I had to let everyone know. Now I hope I can create some really cool art yarns and fun stuff. I'll still keep my other wheel "Sarah Bootlace", a really nice Ashford Traditional. Each wheel has its good points and, well, I got Sarah free-can't give that away.

I'm off to give it a go-see ya later....

I'm still here!

Wow, It has been a really long time since I last did some blogging. It seems like time just slips by way too fast these days. When I have free time it seems napping in my chair-with knitting in hand-takes priority over all else.

When I am awake I do get a few projects done. I finished the scarf from a class I took before Christmas using Prism yarn. Now,I usually would never, ever spend the amount I spent on that one skein of yarn, but I fell in love with the stuff and figured I deserved a special present to myself. I'm glad I took the class, I learned how to do short rows and use the wrap and turn technique. Reading it just didn't click. I'm a visual learner, and caught on after being shown how to do it. I only could make it for the first half of the class-the second day I had to work-but still managed to finish it. The hardest part was tying on the beads-I didn't have much in the way of beads that yarn would fit through. I managed to find a few things and I really like how it turned out. "Fancy schmancy".

So, me being the kind of person who can't ever stop at making just one of something, decided to make another scarf. This time I dug in my stash and found 20 different kinds of yarns (believe me I have much much more) and from each I cut three 3-4 yard pieces. I lined them up and then took one from each pile and wound them up on my ball winder and tied them end to end. I'm only about half way done, but really loving how its turning out. In the meantime, I've wound up several more of these "eclectic" balls of yarn and hope to do some more knitting with them-probably not the twirly scarf-something a little quicker-maybe even a hat or two.

My next project will be to try the same ball winding technique with some home-spun yarns. I've been a little lax on the spinning due to my purchase of another wheel-which is on its way to me right now in the middle of a huge snowstorm. I'll post more about it when it gets here-hopefully safe and sound.