Spinning a Purple Yarn (Part 1)

At the same time my Back of the Bus friends were working on breaking black, I determined that dyeing is probably not for me at this time – it is a little fussy and fiddly.  The house that we have recently moved into screams for antiques and other similarly styled objects.  The corner of the living room was occupied by a baby grand piano when the former owners lived here.  Being not musically inclined, I was not willing to move another baby grand in.  But what I thought would be perfect there was a Spinning Wheel!  A full-on, Sleeping Beauty type spinning wheel.

I was in love with the styling of the spinning wheel and how it would look in the corner of the room.  I also thought it would be a great tie in with my love of yarn and knitting.  I never really gave a lot of thought to whether it should be a working wheel or a really beautiful antique with ‘some parts missing’.  I set the 14 year old son who is addicted to EBay about finding me a spinning wheel.  He gave up when he saw how much they cost and how difficult it is to find a nice looking, working antique.

It was at this point that I started researching new, but still old looking, working wheels.  And the thought crossed my mind that perhaps if I had a spinning wheel in my house, I may actually use it.  This thought was spoken out loud in front of the 14 year old boy who promptly rolled his eyes and pronounced me a “Dork”.  Apparently, I am not a dork if it is used as decoration, but if it is a useful and decorative tool, then I have passed over some invisible threshold into Dork-dom.

At this point I took a step back to think about spinning my own yarn and how I would do this.  This post is but one in a series about my new foray into the art of spinning.  There will be more to follow.