Car Spinning

On our way to the Whidbey Island Spin-In the first weekend of April, I tried Car Spinning.

The Hansen Electric Spinner has a car adapter,

 and there was plenty of room on the floor of the front passenger seat.

Peggy drove and I set it up.

There are two glove boxes and the upper one was perfect for holding excess fiber.

It was a short trip, less than two hours, so I didn't get a lot of spinning done.

The only problem seemed to be 'spinner error' ~ I kept allowing the fiber to break.

Trying to reset the system with a seat-belt on was awkward.

This is not very good Jacob fiber.  

Along with the vm, which is abundant, there is an amazing amount of kemp.  

Even though I have one full spool, I have to consider the wisdom of continuing the project.

So what if I end up with enough two-ply for a sweater?  Who wants to have all that kemp sticking out?

If you enbiggify* this photo, you can see the loads of kemp, those white wire-like bits.  

Ick.

*Thanks to LindaK for this word.  Is it a Portmanteau or a Sniglet?

Road Trip to Wenatchee, part 2

The way to Wenatchee: into the mountains on Highway 2 going east out of Monroe, Goldbar and Sultan.  It's pretty country and the mountains aren't scary on the inside lanes going east; it's a different feeling going west because we're on the outside lanes of the freeway, the 'cliff side', where the mountain falls away and it's a very, very long way down.

By 10:00am we were mid-road-trip, past Leavenworth and heading for Cashmere, the town not the goat.

This is our favorite fruit/vegetable stand east of Leavenworth, Smallwood's Harvest.  We didn't stop because we were running a bit behind schedule for our 11:am w/ Betty, plus we were still full from breakfast.

The Wenatchee River runs along Highway 2 on the east side of the mountains.  It's a short trip from Seattle to white-water rafting and camping, neither of which we do but it's there is we want to.

Peggy was driving and I was taking pictures out the window. 

Here we have an example of Law Enforcement in action.

And here is an even bigger example.

You just don't see that every day.  My guess is the trucker was doing better than 45mph.  

We arrived in the parking lot of the Wenatchee Walmart (as close to actually going to Walmart that we ever get) and met up with Betty.  Betty was mighty surprised to see the new car!

We swapped wheels ~ Betty took the Koa

and we took Bruce, a wheel owned by Jerri in Monroe and that Betty had been repairing.

Jerri came to collect it shortly after we returned.

We sat down for a nice visit and then headed home, but not before visiting  Ohme Gardens.

They have a nice but limited supply of plants for sale; their focus is The Garden Itself; the plants they sell are all on display in the natural setting and all the plants are native.  We bought a couple variegated Silene for the stone retaining wall by our drainage ditch. 

The goal is for a variety of ground-cover-draping-type plants to cover this: 

 July 2010

July 2011

July 2012

We think the plan is working.  The wall looks much better.

I got to drive Peggy's new van part of the way home (the scary bit going down the mountain in the outside lane) and by 3:pm we were finally hungry for lunch, so we stopped in Monroe.  We were home by 4:30.

And that was our Thursday.  Taking a day off for a short road trip is so much fun!

Road Trip to Wenatchee, June 21st

Last October Betty came from her home in Oroville for the 3rd Annual Betty Roberts Spinning Wheel Owners Spin-In and Potluck, which was held at our house.  She brought along 3 new wheels from her most recently completed batch of 6.  She likes to have our group test-drive them, and maybe buy one.  We all test-drove but resisted wheel acquisition.

Betty left her Koa castle wheel for us to take along to fiber events, big 'for sale' sign attached.  It got a lot of attention but no buyer at the three outings it had: St. Distaff Day, Madronna and the Whidbey Island Spin-In.

Fast forward 8 months and Betty has sold the Koa to a spinner many states east of here, so, since both of us love a road trip, we agreed to meet Betty in Wenatchee for the hand-off. 

But first: breakfast at the Maltby Cafe.

 

My $6.95 Basic French Toast was $2. cheaper than the nearly inedible french toast at the Blue Bird last month.   

This French Toast was outstanding in the way that I hope every French Toast experience will be and 99% of them aren't.  Fresh butter, warm syrup, fat bread.  It was all great.

(Or, it was 'brilliant' as my new friend from England would say.  Raphael is a visiting professor in the department where I work, and he likes to stop by my desk to inquire how my 'quest for global domination' is going.)

Peggy's Country Breakfast eggs were perfect, the freezer jam on toast was perfect, the sausage was perfect and the potatoes were interesting.  She would have preferred hash browns.  She couldn't finish it all, portions are huge.


We consider our first trip to the Maltby Cafe a success, and will be back as soon as we can.  Yum!

**********

We left for Wenatchee at about 8:30

~ to be continued ~

2009 Tour de Fleece - Day 1

Rebecca will spin 9.4oz of 50/50 yak-merino blend from Sarah Anderson of Great Balls of Fiber and hopes to spin it the same as the 4oz 2008 Tour de Fleece batch. This should make enough for a very large circular or square shawl.

Peggy has decided on one pound of CVM/Angora from Yellow Creek Cottage in Ohio. Ultimately this will be plied with one pound of 100% CVM from the same source.

That's the plan. We shall see.

Wheel opportunity

For those of you interested in acquiring a Betty Roberts spinning wheel, there's one for sale in the secondary market.

Betty sent me a very few photos and a little background, all of which can be found on the Betty Roberts yahoo fan club site.

If you're not signed up for that yahoo group, here are a few details: the wheel was made in 1995 out of European Beech wood which came to this country as dunnage on a ship carrying steel. It is the only Beech wheel Betty has ever made and she says it's heavy. It is an 'accelerated' wheel (double wheel double drive), comes with a lazy kate and 8 spools (bobbins) and has hand painted wild flowers on the wheel and the orifice hook.

The wheel is in 'like new' condition and is priced at $1,000.00, which is less than the original price. If you're interested in purchasing this work of art please go to the yahoo site for more photos and Bettys' contact info.

My Betty Roberts Spinning Wheel

Occasionally Peggy and I are asked about our wheels when we've taken them to a spin-in where other spinners haven't seen one before. We've started a yahoo group for owners of these wheels to post photos and chat (the curious and spinners interested in acquiring a Betty Roberts wheel are welcome to visit) and we enjoy showing our wheels to people in person.

Not many people know about Betty Roberts, mostly because she started making wheels before the PC was a staple of life and now that she's in her 70's she just doesn't want to do her business on-line. So, here's a brief history:

Every small shop spinning wheel maker has her own designs. Betty Roberts has been making wheels since the 1970's, when she was Betty Williams, and her designs have evolved through several permutations, many when she and Lloyd Roberts married in the early '80's and he joined her in the workshop. Betty says that Lloyd believed in making a thing 'sturdy', and many of the wheels from back then had steel pegs to hold the spools on the lazy kate, thick wood where thinner would have done, metal nuts and bolts instead of simple screws. And these wheels weighed a lot. After Lloyd died Betty gradually lightened up her designs
and made her wheels more portable. Peggy and I don't have any problem traveling with them in the Mazdaratti.

Betty has the mind of an engineer and the heart of an artist; her creations have function and form. The wheel above is a 'double wheel double drive' style, made of Russian Olive (a 'volunteer' tree common in eastern Washington State) and dried flowers covered with resin. She also includes mushrooms, butterflies, honey bees and other items local to her area, The Okanogan.

On my wheel there are two drive bands at work at all times ~ one thick black band between the two wheels and a lighter weight cotton band between the top wheel and the flier. The treadle drives the lower wheel, the lower wheel drives the top wheel with the black band and the top wheel drives the flier with the white band. There are also three whorls: one at the flier, one at the lower wheel and one on the top wheel. This gives me 8 speeds. I haven't checked out the ratios on all speeds yet, in spite of owning this wheel for almost two years. Betty helped me figure out one ratio and it was 31/1. That's fast. That's what an accelerated wheel design will do for you!

Those who have never seen a wheel such as mine may well wonder how the heck one swaps out the long black drive band for the shorter one and I understand that - so did I. The two 'cams' on the top of the frame don't have a thing to do with it though, they are there to increase or decrease tension on the black drive bands only. The spinner (me) removes the top wheel to swap out the shorter drive band for the longer one, and vise versa. At first I was more than a little intimidated by the process, but soon after getting my wheel home I discovered that it was a simple process.

Here's a series of photos showing how it's done and it probably took me three minutes, including taking the pictures. The small band is on the small upper whorl and the small bottom whorl and I changed to the longer band and put it on the large upper and lower whorls. Simple. I then put them back as they were because I was in the middle of a project, and that was easy, too.

First take the white drive band off the top wheel and the flier.

Then pop the thicker black drive band off the lower wheels'
small whorl and the upper wheels' small whorl.

Grasp top wheel and pull out of the base.

These are the two lengths of heavy drive bands
made from parachute cording.

The longer of the two is now placed on the outside of the lower wheel and the larger of the two upper wheel whorls. Replace the top wheel onto the frame, adjust the black band onto the two whorls.

Replace the white drive band from the top wheel to the flier

and tie the spare smaller black band to the back of the frame.

Waa-la!

But it was a warm rain...

We decided to take a day trip to Eastern Washington on the hottest day of the year - July 14th. Hottest in Seattle, anyway. Hot for us is 80. We were looking for 95 or better that day.

This trip to Yakima consisted of taking a few snapshots -- occasionally one of us was in the frame, but often not. Case in point - these 2 pictures.

We had a plan, and it was a good one, too!
Yakima was going to be an adventure!

Plan A: Big city girls from west side go to east side of State, buy spinning wheel, have lunch in recommended Yakima restaurant "Mercedes", then high-tail it for home.

The first part of Plan A worked great -- the weather was perfect, the road clear, the scenary breathtaking, AND best of all, the spinning wheel was beautiful.
Thanks to Shirley and Bob for parting with it. This 1991 Betty Roberts Spinning wheel started its' trip home with us belted into the back of the Mazdarati mini-van.













Where Plan A started to go horribly wrong was lunch. Sure we had an address for the restaurant, and sure, Rebecca had gone to Map Quest for directions and a MAP. But the kicker is that first y'all have to be reading the map correctly. Talk about driving around in circles!!

On one of the more colorful circles around Yakima streets, we found a great store, athough we didn't stop to shop.



When we finally stopped for directions THE SECOND TIME, we had a lovely few minutes with a couple of local 'mechanics' at a garage -- no shirts, no shoes, no problem on the eyes! WISH I had a photo of them to show you!

When we finally found the restaurant, this is what greeted us:

So much for Plan A.

Plan B was to find, oh well any ol' Mexican restaurant. Anything would do as we were getting rather hungry. As it turned out, not just anything would do if it smelled of Pine Sol, and had a cavernous feeling.



But at the Plan B restaurant, we happened upon another TWIN reference -- weird. Two in one trip when usually we don't see any.


Plan C - moving on. We found another Mexican restaurant but they only served a buffet at more than we wanted to spend for lunch.









Followed quickly by Plan D, where we finally ate at the 'Tequilla', a quaint little train mall restaurant.








Finally lunch was over, we were ready to drive back to Seattle at about 2:00p, and what happens but it starts raining! In Eastern Washington, no less. On the hottest day of the year. But it was a "warm rain", don't ya know... (Rebecca took proof-positive rain-drop pictures to show the DH.)








That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Peggy