Louet Victoria Spinning Wheel

I am in love. Not with a guy unfortunately...not yet anyways.

I went to my Thursday night knit gathering last night and lo-and-behold, what did I see at Sarah's store? A Louet Victoria spinning wheel! I was a little star struck...I've been researching spinning wheels, but I didn't try one out yet. Sarah took one look at my face and asked "Do you want to try it out?"  Of course I said yes. Then Adrian helped me get started on it.

At first, there was a learning curve on coordinating my feet to treadle smoothly. So I just treadled for a bit. Then came spinning the fiber. Ugh, I wasn't used to it at first, but after a while of practicing the simultaneous drafting (I over spun the fiber a lot because I couldn't get a rhythm going as I was trying to pull the long fibers), I was finally getting the hang of it. I couldn't stop spinning. Luckily, Sarah had some test wool she recently dyed and she needed it spun. I was so enthralled with spinning, I forgot to take pictures of my spun yarn.

Let me tell you something, you can spin a whole heck of a lot of yarn faster on a wheel. The Victoria was the perfect size and it folds into a compact item when you don't need it use it. It ain't cheap, but as I am a financial specialist, I will be taking my own advice and saving up until I have enough to buy it out right.

That reminds, as I work in the financial industry and I as a designer with an art degree, if there's one piece of advise I can give all you crafting/artistic folks, its this:

It's not worth going into debt for the things that later will cause huge financial headaches.

It makes life harder and you live with the consequences much longer than the moment you decided to splurge. There's something about delayed fulfillment I think a lot of people are missing. The satisfaction of working for something and the peace of mind of not having to work harder or be chained to a job you hate to payoff debt. If you have a craft you love, it's a good bet you have a stash of stuff you can still work with without getting more. It also makes you more creative and a better designer working with what you already have. In these tough times, let's be wise. There are a lot of people out there worrying about their futures and I would hate for you to be struggling. Love you!