A Spinning Day

Saturday was the quarterly meeting/Spin-in for my area (6010) of the Northwest Regional Spinners Association. The Spring meeting is always at Woodland Woolworks in Carlton, OR, which has the added advantage of being about 12 minutes from my farm. (that can be it's own evil temptation, of course, but I try to resist stopping every time I'm driving that direction)

Diane of WW is a great hostess, providing coffee, tea, water, hot cocoa, and a table of new items to drool over, designed to appeal to spinners of every level and inclination. Folks bring sack lunches, and snacks/treats to share, and we spend the whole day. Sometimes people have to just stop by (as Trish did to drop off a bunch of GORGEOUS merino/tencel door prize and snap a photo) because of other commitments, but most of us try to schedule so that we can be there the whole day.

I always take way too much than I could ever spin in 6-7 hours, especially when I am chatting, eating, and (possibly) shopping. This is what I took to spin-

See the little gap just under the handle? That was home to the small batts that I spun up, though admittedly they were spun at about 40 wpi. What you see are the 31 small bats that I overestimated, took, and carried home. This reminds me of going through a buffet line as a kid - my eyes would be bigger than my stomach. Now my eyes are just bigger than my hands/wheel.

This was the first official outing for my new little Louet Victoria (also pictured), and I really like the portability of this wheel. An added advantage that I hadn't considered is that the footprint is small enough to fit nicely into a crowded Spinning Circle, about the same width as my chair. It doesn't walk or wobble; surprisingly, for the size and weight of under 6.5 pounds, it's very stable. I am looking forward to the lace flyer becoming available, though, the max ratio of 13:1 on the standard flyer is just a tad slow for comfortable spinning, and way too slow for cotton or laceweight. I'm going to call Morgaine to see if she has any inside info on when it will be in. Maybe by MDSW?

A couple of weeks ago I couldn't find the Victoria, and searched all over the house, feeling very puzzled. Finally I asked Adam if he had seen it, and he sheepishly brought it in to the family room about 20 minutes later. Turns out he saw the wheel packed in its case sitting in the corner a few days earlier, and without reading the side of the case, assumed that it was an empty carry-on. These go in a stack on shelves in the basement, so that's where the wheel had been put. Really, that's how small and lightweight this wheel is - he never noticed there was anything in the case.

Here are a couple of shots of the happy spinners

Notice the empty chair fourth from the left? That's the invisible me.

See our shortest spinner? And the 5 vacuum bags of angora that was donated to us? Amazing, huh?

Today I've been doing some pruning on the apple trees, because I can now see where there are no blooms opening up. It's a little late in the season, but I'd rather have the trees' energies go into producing apples than supporting un-needed branches and leaves.

(Oh, and for the record - no shopping for me at the Saturday meeting, this time anyway)