Saturday, April 14, 2007

Spinning yarn in Tim Horton's

So the boyfriend had to fly out of town on business. And since the company could save some money on the plane ticket by flying him out of Dayton instead of Cincinnati (where we live), I had to drive him an hour up to the airport. Yesterday I had to go pick him up, but I used this as a chance to possibly scope out some new yarn stores and meet some new knitters. I put up a post on the Lime and Violet message boards, and I got a couple of messages, and I ended up meeting up with a knitter named Andi. We had planned on going to a few yarn stores, but I *thought* I got lost, and I ended up at Fiberworks, where I met Andi. We looked around, and I didn't see anything that called out to me (other than the Cashmere fingering weight, but we all know how that goes, heh heh), until I saw a Charkha spinning wheel. Now, primarily used to spin cotton, this wheel would be perfect for me. With my wool allergy, I have problems finding sock yarns that I like. I can wear some wool blends, but theres a limited amount of those, too. So this little wheel was calling my name. It was the size of a book, and the price was right.

So I bought it. I also got alot of cotton, hemp, and some wool for blending. By the time we got out of there, my budget was done and I was fibered out for the time being. But we had some time to kill before I had to go to the airport to pick up the boy.

So we ate at a great Chinese place, and decided to stop by a Tim Horton's to kill some time. But there was no way we were just going to sit there and not play with the wheel! So we took in the small bag of wool, and the wheel.




Look! Is it a book, or a spinning wheel? I certainly see donughts in the picture, though.



This is me trying to get my groove back from when I used to spin. Yeah, it still might take some time.



Andi lookin' at me taking her picture, and her playing with the wheel. She has some major Charkha envy now.



Of course, the first thing this I did this morning is get the wheel out. This is a closer pic of it.

This is the wheel laid out. Its about 18-20 inches long. And that's Socrates checking out the fiber next to the table.
Some yarn spun from it (although the flash obliterated any detail) and the c-clamp we bought last night to keep the wheel stable.
This thing is sooooo awesome. I just want to hole up and play with this until I have spun up all my fiber, and then go buy some more and repeat the process over.

3 comments:

Andi said...

I had a lot of fun yesterday. I spent some time last night checking out charkhas online. Even buying directly from India, once I factor in shipping, it will cost me about what you paid for yours. (just in case anyone wants to critique your decision not to shop around...) There is the option of building one using the directions from Spin-off, but I'm not sure when I'd get around to that.

Yeah, I've got a major case of Charkha envy. Have fun with it. (her?)Let me know what you name it. (or are you one of those people who doesn't name inanimate objects?

Corbie said...

How cute! Congrats ;)

Terri said...

Hi Sarah,
Your charka looks exactly like mine, I guess there's not much variation in them, but I haven't really seen too many. I'm going to try your idea of clamping it down to a table (a friend had also suggested that but I hadn't tried it yet).