Its all about the wheels baby!
Its still a bit misty over the fields, and grey skies are the backdrop for the giant windmills churning the breeze into power alongside the A12 to The Hague. Its open day at De Spinners with Glynis and Owen Poad (Majacraft) there for the day, I figured there was a pretty good chance that I was not the only one traversing the dutch landscape with a Majacraft wheel strapped into the back seat today. I was pretty much there on time, but there were already some people and wheels that had arrived before me. I am always interested in checking out other peoples wheels, what do they have and what are they spinning?!The first wheel I see is an Aura! The lovely Maria and I were very soon comparing wheels. She had made some really cool felted covers for her treadles! They looked cosy and great protection too. As the day went on more and more people arrived with their Majacraft wheels, there were Roses, Suzies, and our Auras too. All these wheels! This of course kept the Poads very busy for the day, doing some needed maintenance, tweaking to improve the spinning, this was how I saw Owen for most of the day: Well, like that, or taking things apart and putting them back together, better than they were before.. And Glynis was busy with it too, shortening stretched drive bands, tightening screws, AND she gave us some great demos, combing fibers with the hand combs, and she showed us some spinning on the stylus, I got some great tips. There was of course, also a bunch of general chatter! It was great to catch up with Karen, a fellow kiwi who I had met least year at the Jazzturtle workshop, I persuaded her to have a go at the stylus on my wheel. I did some spinning too, I started and finished a new yarn based on my silk hankie wrapping technique. This one is a single coiled yarn, wrapped with silk and including some organic little felted nepps that I just wrapped with the silk fibers. This one I N-plyed, but next time I want to make it a simple two ply and let the nepps spread out more along the yarn. They seem to be pretty well held in place with the silk, what an amazing fiber that is! It was a really fun day, nice to be in the middle of a bunch of kiwis, the accents, the special kiwi-isms.. And I really enjoyed Glynis and Owens company, really lovely people and I am very happy I have been able to spend some time with them during their trip around Europe. And after all their work today...
Read More