March 6

Well I have been having a ball with the new spinning wheel. Although it did take me a couple of days to get used to the ratio. My older double drive didn't have the ratio that the Fricke has, so I needed to get used the speed of it. I will be attending a workshop later this month with Cat Bordhi and I thought I would spin up some yarn for it. The purple skein I plan to use for a felted moebius bag we will be making,and the green, pink and old roving I hope to use for a moebius. I will need 200 yards so I hope I will have enough for it. I will also need some sock yarn for the workshop, I'm not sure if I will use handspun or some that I have in my stash. I did hand dye the roving. My daughters are beginning to work on their 4H projects for the year. One is to learn to spin on a wheel. They already know how to spin on a drop spindle and they do a wonderful job. Yesterday we dyed some roving with Easter egg dyes, so while they were working on that I decided to dye this roving. I used these little cups of dye that I have had for a while. I'm not sure what they are but the colors are just wonderful. I will post a picture of the finished yarn when I'm done.

March 2

I have a new toy! I have been hand spinning for about 5 years on a double drive wheel that my parents bought back in the 70's as decoration. They gave me the wheel about 3 years ago and I have had tons of fun with it. The problem is there were no extra bobbins and the wheel is rare. So I don't feel comfortable taking it to spin in's or let children use it. Two of my daughters want to learn to spin on a wheel this year as a 4H project. So with some Tax return money I bought a Fricke s-160-F. The neat thing about this wheel is it folds up for easy portability. I plan to have a bag made for it. My big problem now is I have get used to a scotch tension. My old wheel didn't have a lot of difference in ratio so now I have quite a few options. I gave it a try out and realized its going to take me a few days to get the rhythm down. I'm looking forward to making some yarn up for a workshop I plan to attend later this month. I have in the past put together an Ashford traditional, I found the Fricke to be much easier. I think the hardest part was getting the cap off the Danish oil can. I kind of lucked out with the oil. Fricke's come with some of the wooden parts already finished. I bought the Danish oil a week or so ago and I chose medium walnut. As luck would have its just about the same shade as the pre finished parts.

Feb 26- Finished

I finished my Olympic project with time to spare. I'm real happy with how the socks came out. I did change the toe a bit. The pattern called for you to decrease down until you had 6 stitches remaining and then weave in the end. I found that to be very uncomfortable, so I took it out and finished it as most socks with the kitchener stitch. I have never made socks on size 1 needles so I have never worn them either. I find them well worth the extra work.