This is Frankenwheel. The possibility of Frankenwheel, and its kin, is why one listens when Lucy says “take this and put it in your car.” Frankenwheel demanded a certain amount of creative part-swapping, and seems to have come through the experience without any ill effects, and with a much better outlook for the future.
Pardon the mess… So this bit, the part that holds the flyer, is called the mother of all. And the tall bits, those are maidens. Also, this wheel has a distaff. Fortunately, it’s not the Sleeping Beauty sort with stabby bits.
This is what Frankenwheel produced yesterday, in the spirit of experimentation. It’s very difficult to photograph skeins of dark-colored yarn in artificial light with a camera that thinks it’s smarter than me, but I perservere and perhaps one day will figure out a trick for it. Or start using a real camera. If you hadn’t guessed, it’s a very small skein of fairly decent two-ply yarn, which needs a good cooking and whacking (because, well, Frankenwheel is going to be a challenge) but will pass quite nicely for now.
Frankenwheel needs a few things – a new footman, for one, that isn’t made out of a wire coathanger; a driveband which is not mercerized cotton (hey, it was handy, and there’s lots of it around); some bits need to be glued together properly, and some other bits need to get unstuck – but then, with a little care and thoughtfulness, should be an excellent working spinning wheel.
Frankenwheel is a flax wheel. This is going to make spinning wool very interesting indeed, for values of interesting that are overspun beyond belief; I may have to invest in some flax, just to see how it works.
Also, my plying skills are getting better now that I’ve seen someone doing that Andean plying bracelet. Stuff is starting to come out looking like proper yarn. Even if it is made with recalcitrant milk protein fiber, like this stuff.
