The next person who buys something on my Etsy shop will be my 100th sale and I’ll send them a little gift with their purchase.  Not sure what, yet, some fiber or a little baglet?

Etsy Buy Handmade goodnessgraciousWV

Sorry I haven’t posted in ages–haven’t progressed on the saxony wheel.  Haven’t done much spinning–have been busy!  Haven’t done much knitting, oddly.  Did a couple pairs of fingerless mitts.  Have been crocheting some–a hat to match a pair of fingerless mitts and now a baby blanket.

I’m having lots of luck (and happy children) with the Brown Bag Enrichment Lunches at school and have been reading to a couple of different library classes, as well as tutoring a boy in reading during school.  I made & sold (for donations toward breast cancer screenings via the Walk for Women) some batik “pink ribbon” t-shirts.  Cub Scouts continues.  All our church activities continue.  I’m reading a good book right now, the second in a trilogy:  The Bartimaeus Trilogy:  The Golem’s Eye, by Jonathan Stroud.

I JUST figured out how to get the flyer assembly OFF.  Unfortunately  I do not really understand double-drive wheels very well and am not sure that the extra whorl thing is doing what it is supposed to.  I have been reading up and I’m getting closer to “getting” it.

The open end of the flyer shaft (where the orifice end is) is fatter than the hole in the front maiden, so I cannot slip it out of the maiden. When I put a leader onto the bobbin and put the end through the orifice and out again and then turn the drive wheel, the bobbin shifts and the leader gets jammed in between the orifice and the maiden opening.

I thought maybe I could put a (new/different) flyer assembly into it instead of trying to get this one to work, but the two I have at home are from my Traub and Baynes wheels and they are TOO LONG to fit between the maidens.

I have also thought about trying to make it (convert it?) to single drive and add a brake someplace. Anyone have experience to share about doing this?

With some reading on the Antique Wheels group on Ravelry I tried again and I got the front maiden to swivel–still a problem since the front orifice end of the flyer is too fat to fit through the bearing, but I managed to un-wedge the leather bearing (that is what I thought was plywood) from the back maiden and get that end open and got the bobbin off so I can clean & oil it up.  Whew!

I mean, it is a saxony-style spinning wheel.  I know THAT.  But what else?

the treadle is missing (I have the footman bar, but the cat was playing with it).  The bobbin does not move freely on the flyer shaft.  The whole maiden setup thing comes loose from the base (it had been glued). So, I have some fooling to do to get it spinning, but I am hopeful.

Wondering if anyone recognizes it (there aren’t any marks that I found to identify it) or has any brilliant ideas for me.

And it is lovely!

The card-pack thing was very sweet, with a coloring book Once Upon a Time and a page from The Hobbit (or one of the Rings books? I will have to go back and look) and a couple of stitch markers, including that pumpkin one…

IF I get a chance, I will post actual info about the contents!  :)

The September Phat Fiber Boxes were sold yesterday.  If you didn’t get one and are in despair, the merchants will all be happy to sell you something to make you feel better.  Me included.  

My Etsy shop has lots of stuff in it–some of them:

Etsy Buy Handmade goodnessgraciousWV

A coupon code for those of you who come from my blog:  blogPhat9 in your checkout “note to seller” will get you a 20% refund on your September purchase, not counting shipping.  :)

I apologize for my sloth in blogging.  Apparently when I spend more time on FB, I blog less.  I wrote most of this as a comment on Nadine’s blog, since she got her Kitten the same day I got mine, then got to thinking I ought to post, so I’m half-recycling… Upcycling my comment!  That’s it!  :)

I have made, lessee…about 6 batts? (turmeric-dyed suffolk wool;  strawberry kool aid dyed grey shetland layered with the natural grey shetland;  a bunch of stuff all mixed up to play;  dorset wool blended with grape alpaca, which I am spinning and is very soft and pretty;  I have some Jacob fleece all picked to go in next, along with more of the strawberry shetland…) Maybe more.

I do NOT like cleaning the yellow wool off the drums.  Or the red.  Or whatever color, but I DO like colors to card up, so, I guess that is just tough for me, huh?  

I have a growing pile of “stuff I cleaned off”, which I had the clever idea of letting my friend have to felt onto soaps, and then I remembered a lot of it is down-breed sheep that doesn’t wet-felt. Drat.  I think a lot of that stuff (from the main drum, not the licker-in) is going to be used for teaching spindling.

 But, I love my Fancy Kitty Kitten drumcarder too! Together with my Kaydessa Wool Picker thing I can produce faster, but, I must say, it is a bit like with my wheel: I love it and it is faster, but SO not portable!  I usually use the picker outside so I can dump all the chaffy stuff more easily.  I have the Kitten on my dining room table (you might be suspicious, but if you have been in my house you would know that I have a very large dining room table and one end is for eating and the other end is covered with books and wool and what we would generally refer to as “crap”, but not if we were more polite) and I keep it covered up with some packing foam sheet thing so people and real kitties don’t get bitten by it.  Since one needs to run fiber through at least twice AND the thing needs to be cleaned off between different colors, I don’t often do more than a couple of batts in any given day.  I watched and LOVED the YouTube videos that Rexene made about how to use a drum carder!  Those, along with the very helpful instructions that came with the Kitten from Ron, got me started.  And made sure I figured out without too much “duh” how to make a layered batt.  Whoo hoo!

Anyhow, my Brown Bag Enrichment Lunch series at school seems to be a big hit.  We’ve had over 15 kids sign up for each of the sessions.  And for my session on Entomology, several of the kids stayed after I said they could go to recess and IDed some plastic bugs with me.  :)

I made some more of the hand-pulled roving balls so I can add them to my shop after the Phat Fiber Boxes go on sale.  I have some of the Enchanted Castle Cotton and Princess Bamboo tie-dyed yarns, too.  Must remember to actually LIST them on Etsy at the right time, now.  lol

My BRAND NEW Fancy Kitty Kitten Drum Carder!

I  haven’t even played with it yet–it came while we were at the library and I have to get the kids to bed.  I just OPENED it and took the photo and the rest will have to wait… If I can stand it!  :)

It is a Fancy Kitty Kitten Drum Carder and it is supposed to be here on MONDAY!  whoo hooo!!  Got email confirmation etc right away from Ron.  

My ACTUAL kitten had to go get her stitches checked today because her tummy looked “too bumpy” to me.  She had bitten off one of her stitches (from getting spayed) and now she has to wear a humiliation cone and have antibiotics for a week.  So far we managed to give her one dose of the abx and it was NOT so easy to do.  So much of her is so sharp!

In other acquisition news, I bought a pack of little crochet hooks and two pairs of plastic knitting needles at the new dollar store near Aldi.  Last week at ACMoore I got some Paton’s Silk Bamboo on sale for $3 a ball–1 got about 400 yards and I’m not sure what to make with it.  Maybe I should go back and see if they have more?

What I need to be doing today and tomorrow and the next few days is finishing up figuring and doing and packing and sending my samples for the Phat Fiber box–yesterday I picked and bagged up some “Baba Yaga Hair” (really a cloud of washed Coopworth fleece).  I have some baglets with dragons and fiber animals, some bamboo and cotton handdyed yarns, some of those hand-pulled roving balls.  Can’t decide EXACTLY how much of what I’m going to send!  Might also just send extra business cards with little bits of yarn attached to them…

hand-dyed hand-pulled hand-carded roving balls

AND, in other news, my Brown Bag Enrichment Lunch series is ready to go!  We’ve worked out most of the problems with the lunch ladies and the first meeting will be Tuesday–Susan Korstanje is going to do a creative writing workshop.  I have some kids already signed up (expect more on Monday & Tuesday, some of the flyers didn’t get home until yesterday) and there seems to be lots of interest!  YAY!

A friend forwarded me info about a WV business doing a contest for purple scarves for pancreatic cancer patients.  All fibery things are good.  Those that are also thoughtful and seek to help people are even better!  This one is local-ish AND you can WIN something, if that piques your interest.  Go to the pancan site for more info on the contest/donations.  My church choir director from Illinois, Don Decker, died of pancreatic cancer about 11 or 12 years ago and the cat that I’d gotten from him as a kitten just died a couple of weeks ago, so this touched me today.  Maybe I’ll try a nuno-felted scarf??

I’m “in” for the September Phat Fiber box, I think.  I have some dragon batiked baglets and some princess themed hand-dyed yarn and maybe some fiber to send in.

enchanted castle cotton

princess bamboo

Last week, when waiting for the kids to get their immunizations, a lady commented on their shirts (Evan was wearing a dragon-batik and Christopher a goat-batik) and I gave her my card.  I forgot to give her a “coupon” and I don’t know her name!  Anyhow, as I told some people before, I raised my Etsy prices because it was suggested that that sometimes actually helps sales, but if you are reading this, I’ll give you $5 off a $25 batik t-shirt or  (paypal refund).  Just put “$5blog” in the Comments to Seller section so I know.

Etsy Buy Handmade goodnessgraciousWV