Spinning with more control

I'm having fun with my new spinning wheel. It's the Babe Production wheel, and boy does it produce! I've spun more in one day than I could do on the drop spindle in a week. It's pretty amazing. But there is a learning curve for sure. I've found that you have to really learn to coordinate your hand and foot movements.

I also found that pre-drafting is key when your first learning to spin on a wheel. It just makes it easier and really helps. I've been using Maggie Casey's book Start Spinning and she had a helpful hint on drafting. When she pre-drafts for worsted spinning, she drafts the piece of top a couple of times, not just once. That made a big difference!

Here are my first attempts....you can see that I hadn't read Maggie's book yet :) This is over spun and not even or uniform


After pre-drafting (and checking it twice) ... much better I think:

I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Luckily they sent a nice amount of top along with the wheel to practice with.

Still working on the crochet rag rug. Littleman is totally passed out! Gotta love cats :)

Catching up

Haven't written anything in a while. I've been taking an online art class and I kind of always feel like I'm behind in everything. And it's a "go at your own pace" kind of a class! That's pretty pathetic. And of course, now there's Christmas just in case I wasn't feeling harried enough.

Well, at least we got our tree up and decorated. Only took us 2 days. This is the largest tree I've gotten in a long time. 7 foot. It's the first year since my AN diagnosis that I've felt like decorating and stuff. It really helped to go on a brief trip to NC with beloved friends to visit beloved friends and the cold and Christmas feel just really helped ...

Haven't made snowmen in a long time :)

Here is the progress on the rag rug I'm crocheting. I'm surprised I've made progress on anything.
I thought maybe I could just use ready made fat quarters on this, but after using the art cloth I made last summer, I sort of think I'm going to have to just make my own cloth or it won't come out right.

And the "piece de resistance" .... I'm getting a spinning wheel for Christmas! I'm sooooo excited!
http://www.woolery.com/store/pc/Babe-Production-c120.htm