Spinning Bliss

I finally finally finally got a text from my Dad saying that a parcel had arrived for me from the Netherlands.
I havent posted about this previously as I had bought a spinning wheel on ebay and 3 weeks later it still hadn't arrived.
I have been in contact with the people I bought it from and they were very good, they use a track and trace system and were able to tell me where it had ended up and they were in the process of trying to retrieve it to send it to me again when it arrived.
I was so relieved. Its the largest amount of money I have ever spent on myself for a hobby or for pleasure, I'm not counting buying a car here now or a house!!
So of course I couldn't wait to get home to get it and put it together.
They also included some lovely gift cards with sheep on them, and they had the ingenious idea of using fleece to pack the wheel with to make it secure!4 packets of Blue Texel sheep, which is a rare Dutch breed..on the increase though in Holland.
I'm looking forward to spinning with it.
There were a few parts to assemble, but it was very straightforward.

I did have to wait for Micheál to do one little bitty bit, (can you see where it is in the photo above, all you spinners??)but that was because I was due at the pub to meet my sister and bro-in-law and decided to leave it for M.
He sorted it out first thing the next morning and I started spinning this

which went to this

and then this

and then this.

I still need to wash it and hang it to set the twist on it, but I'm happy!

I retrieved the drum carder from Cheryl when we met up on Saturday, and I did a bit of carding with it.
I carded together some of the fleece that I had dyed while in Clare, this is a mixture of the cochineal and madder dyed fleece
and this is some Jacob fleece that I threw into the exhaust of the cochineal, pure fleece at the time, I hadn't carded it at the stage that I dyed it (it was washed though).
The photo's don't do it justice, its actually a really nice colour blend of pinks, mid-brown and dark brown.
There was also kool-aid that my aunt sent me from Boston to be played with...and I did..
I think I may be doing some more fibre pursuits this evening again....would you blame me?

posted by tangelled angel @ Monday, August 14, 2006