Spinning with a Wheel

Hello again!  Welcome to the first post of 2011.

A few weeks back, a very special Yule gift made its way to our home- a spinning wheel. While I had finally been getting the hang of spinning with a drop spindle, in order to reach our self-sufficiency goals, I will need the increased productivity that you can only get from a wheel.  The model I got is a Kromski Minstrel, a castle-style wheel and perfect for folks like me with limited floor space.   I was very surprised at just how little room this wheel requires, and it is a beautiful piece to look at.

My husband was kind enough to put the wheel together for me.  Gotta love a handy guy!  A free lesson does come with the wheel, but it has been rescheduled a couple of times now due to winter weather, and now I have another week and a half to wait.  Regardless, I've been playing with it, testing out the different mechanisms, trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing, attempting to trouble-shoot my own stumbling blocks, and even getting a good stride here and there.  Thanks to the Fiber-Arts Gods for Facebook and Ravelry which provided me several social connections far more knowledgeable about spinning than I do!  And a special thanks to the many kind folks who have given their time to make YouTube videos demonstrating spinning with a wheel. 

Tomorrow, I'll post a few pictures showing the wheel and my very beginner attempts at spinning yarn with a wheel.