A Little Spinning, A Little Dyeing and A Little Bit of Party

So my new friend Julia came this week. I think she may be a friend for life. She's simple, she's a smooth talker and she can spin a great yarn. This is the newest creation from Louet. The treadling is very smooth. There are 4 ratios and I could spin a good worsted weight yarn down to a gossamer weight just with the ratios provided. This does no t even take into account the available fast flyer that fits bot the Victoria and Julia. This is a strong wheel. There's one screw on the back which allows it to be disassembled for traveling. Now I wouldn't call this a traveling wheel but you could if you needed to.
For a limited time it's being shipped with the lazy kate and 4 bobbins. After the introductory period it will go to 3 bobbins standard and the kate will be additional. The bobbins and flyers are interchangeable with the Victoria.

Let's talk about the lazy kate. I think it's genius. The tensioning is done by tilting the thing toward the floor and the tension is achieved by friction with the floor or carpet. So less tension, less friction. You can tilt it all the way in the opposite direction to remove tension altogether for very delicate yarns.

Genius I say!

Here's the thing. I'm not very bright, apparently. I only ordered one to begin with. The next one will arrive in June on the next shipment. If you'd like one let me know and I'll order it right away and you can have it in June too. In the mean time come in a try out the floor model. Maggie tested it out tonight and she gave it a thumbs up...then went back to her Ladybug:-)

Natural Dyeing Workshop
In the center of this picture is Kathy Rowe. She taught the natural dyeing class this past Saturday and it was fantastic. On either side of her are Hannah (right) and Tricia, Hannah's mom.
The colors were amazing and instead of taking pictures of people in the class I just kept snapping pictures of the yarn. I have not done much dyeing and was so amazed by the whole process and the results.
Here are some mohair locks dyed with onion skins.
We dyed with logwood, cochineal, osage orange and onions. Then there were several post mordants which further changed the colors.

Just beautiful

We focused on the yarn but did a little bit of roving just for experimentation. I did do mohair in all of the basic colors and started spinning a tiny bit on my Russian spindle. Lovely.

Spinning Lessons
Here's Ryan actually sitting semi-still for a spindle lesson from Maggie. He really does want to learn and I thought this would be a great way for Maggie to get some teaching experience. She's using a Greensleeves Bare Bones which is her current favorite spindle.

Maybe this Christmas Santa will treat her to a Tabachek.

Happy Birthdays
Friday night I took Chelsea out to dinner and a movie for her 21st birthday. Maggie Moo was at the theater handing out coupons. The face on that cow cracks us both up.
Chelsea got new earrings from the jewelry clearance at Target.
Then she pretended that McDreamy is her boyfriend.

The movie we saw was 21. it was quite interesting and fun I thought. We both really wanted to see Babymama but Lou wanted to see that with me so I had to be a good wife and choose something else.

Lou and I did see Babymama on Saturday night. I love Amy Pohler.
Sunday was Chelsea's official birthday and so she came for dinner and I made a cake. Yup I did. I think it looks like the cake is going to burn down.

More New Wheels
Yesterday we had a new resident come to the shop. She is for sale and spins like a dream. This is a 30" Jensen. It is in the original style when Mr Jensen was still doing the historically accurate mixed wood wheels. It has a walnut stain and includes the distaff, 4 bobbins and 3 whorls. It's quite a fast wheel and I was spinning on it tonight and it is so quiet. Just a beautiful thing. Come and try her out if you're in the neighborhood.