Itsumo Mawaru

I’ve been totally occupied these past few days working to get this antique spinning wheel back up and running!

Thanks to the wonderful folks on Ravelry (specifically the CPW Lovers group) my Canadian Production wheel circa 1900 is back up and running again!

Apparently these machines are hard to find nowadays in good working condition. One problem is that since it’s all wood, it can rot or crack or warp. This machine though, it was meant to spin!

Now of course I am stumbling and making the most inconsistent yarn ever. I feel like a newborn lamb learning how to get up!  But just a few seconds ago I was able to actually draft while continuously spinning, there’s hope for me yet!

Four stages of fleece, originally uploaded by mizuhana.

I have embarked on a new adventure, fiber processing! I have become very interested in fiber arts, so I bought a fleece and am learning how to make it into wool. I am documenting my adventure as well as compiling lots of information on my separate yarn blog, Adventures with Yarn. I will be cross posting summaries once I have reached milestone stages, but if you want more details you can read the blog itself.

Dyed Skeins, originally uploaded by mizuhana.

We went down to the Fiber Farm to learn how to dye wool! It was tons of fun and I have lots of awesome pictures on Flickr of cute lambs and the entire process of dyeing.

I chose to create two skeins of sock weight using orange and yellow dye. I’m planning on making socks with them. I also dyed one sock skein in rainbow pattern (red yellow and green/blue) in the crockpot, and it turned out surprisingly well, tons of variations of colors throughout it. I was thinking of making socks with it, but I am now thinking of making a purse or bag. Finally I dyed two skeins of worsted weight using grey-blue-aqua and green.

I learned so much about dyeing wool as well as spinning and caring for little creatures. It was a very fun adventure!