her name is clara

i've been surprised with my descent into the rabbit-hole. that's what they call it on the antique spinning wheels forum on ravelry. once you get the bug for antique wheels, it's as if you have dropped down to wonderland, and your wheels multiply as fast as rabbits. every time i meet someone there who seems to have a lot of wheels, then i meet someone who makes their collection look very.very.small. one ravelry friend has 35 wheels. some people think getting a new wheel for every year you've been spinning is very reasonable.

i've been in kind of a minimalist mode since we moved to NC. minimal for me, anyway. i love stuff, but the old house just got completely unmanageable, so i wanted our new home a bit more streamlined and modern, but still cosy. all that seems to have gone out the window now as i indulge my passions for second/third/whatever-hand quilts, and now wheels. one good thing about all this rabbit-hole is that much of my time there has been spent reading, and so i'm learning a *lot* about wheels, and consequently about spinning.

so i'm shyly introducing my new muse, clara. she's an antique swiss production wheel. i adopted her from a spinner in oregon.






she has so many lovely details, and so much to teach me. she's one of those wheels where you sit sideways, treadle with your right foot and the wheel spins toward you! i like being able to watch the bobbin fill, and once she gets going, i get quite a breeze off the flyer! she also has "captive rings" on her spokes, which clatter when you're spinning slowly!

i've been spinning since around 1998, but i've never been technical about it at all. i usually just do whatever i like and what works for my projects. now i'm very interested in learning all the "rules" of spinning because i want to understand everything about it. with clara's help i've been spinning woolen, long-draw, which is wild, and also means having to learn more about wool prep. spinning is truly its own universe.

i love you, clara.