Today I went to a lovely spinning guild thing where a local farm has a yarn shop and she hosts local folks and fiber artists for some spinning and knitting. It was great. Lots of fiber talk, a cute dog and I got to watch people spin and got some ideas on how to improve spinning on my wheel. I hadn’t brought it because hauling wheels around is annoying but I got some work done on the black alpaca roving ,which is so pretty. I need to figure out if I’m going to ply it or what because it is spinning up so fine. As it turns out, I bought a hard mode wheel. Flax wheels are meant to put a lot of spin onto very fine thread so the spinner has to draft quickly to keep up with the wheel. I’m getting there. What I’ve spun with wool is decent, although not yet up to weaving quality. But good for thin fingering weight probably.
I’ve also been doing some research into the wheel and I doubt I’ll be able to get replacement parts meant for the wheel because there’s very little on the internet about the makers of the wheel as it is. Sanford spinning wheels. It was a family business with a couple of generations involved and possibly some son-in-laws, based in Newtown, CT in the early 1800s. Probably. Not much to go on and I’m not that savvy at historical research. I might dig into it another time, when I’m not super distracted by watching hockey games.