Ta Da!

A friend of mine from Weaving class came over for her second spinning lesson yesterday morning. Last time she learned the basics on a drop spindle and then had a go at my wheel. This time she'd borrowed a wheel from the Guild and was ready to go. Here she is with her first skein of hand-spun yarn:

"Flushed with success!" is the expression that comes to mind. I think I was nearly as pleased as she was. I love to teach and she picked it up so quickly.

Technicalities: The wheel is a sweet little Alice upright, double band drive. The fleece is a Romney-Border Leicester-English Leicester cross from Lucinvale in South Australia. She's spun it in the grease. In fact, I encouraged her to spin straight from the fleece without even combing it first, since I believe that developing a rhythm of work is the key. After all, as spinners we spend the rest of our lives refining our technique, but that first day of, "look, I can spin!" is magic.

Meet my Little Gem

Little Gem--I said she was well named! A , double treadle portable spinning wheel from Majacraft in New Zealand:Double treadle means that I'm working equally with both feet when I spin and I can sit nice and squarely in my chair. That's important when I want to spin for hours. And I do spin for hours and hours some days.

By portable, I mean, portable. I once rode my pushbike to the Guild with this wheel in my rear carry basket. Admittedly it wasn't a fantastic trip--the centre of gravity was too high on the bike--and the next day I went out and invested in a set of panniers to replace the bike basket. But definitely portable. It comes apart and folds flat into a handy carry bag. Here it is, packed and ready to go to school with me this morning,
And it's not a toy. I do all my spinning on this wheel. It's nice to have something that take up so little space in my unit and still allows me to do everything I want to do.

We're off to the Guild today, the little Gem and I. We have another full day of the Spinning Certificate today. The forecast is for 44 degree heat with gusty winds and the Guild lives in an old Scout Hall. I'm not expecting a comfortable day, but I am expecting to learn a lot.