$3.62 later...
But first... the painted Pinkie!
Even with my not-very-good spray-painting skills, it looks pretty cool. :-D The only problem I've run across is that after staining the treadles was the left treadle was squeaking badly. It appears that the guide screws on the frame were rubbing too much on the bottom of the treadle (oddly it doesn't bother the right treadle at all). I think I've solved the problem by screwing them all the way down, but I haven't spun on it much yet because I've been a bit distracted by....
The $3.62 project - my first Navajo spindle!
I bought the parts at Hobby Lobby - a dowel, a round-ish blank (we found it wasn't completely round when trying to center the hole :-/), and the glass beads with the flat bottoms (in the stained glass section, and in the wedding section).
Drilled a hole in the blank, super-glued the beads on the outside of the whorl, whittled rounded points on both ends, and put the whorl where I thought it should be and put a rubber band underneath it to keep it in place.
I found my favorite turned bowl (turned by DH :-D) to use to keep the tip in one spot:
And spun wool on it all day at the demo yesterday:
Even though I was spinning from around 9:30 til around 2:30-ish, I didn't get tired (from the spinning), and still have no discomfort from spinning for so long (granted, a lot of time was spent talking to passers-by). It was quite the attention-getter, which really surprised me as there were 5 spinners with wheels - one has a Kromski Minstrel which is quite lovely. But in thinking about it more, perhaps it was because with the big Navajo spindle, it's easier to follow the 'action'.
If someone has never seen spinning on a wheel before, it looks like magic (at least it did to me!) - the hands are moving quickly and the flyer is spinning and the drive wheel is spinning and the feet are treadling - everything is moving and it all goes so fast you can't tell what's happening. Even on a drop spindle it can be difficult to see what's going on if the spindler is even halfway proficient. Not so with a Navajo spindle. With the long draw they can easily see the twist go up the fiber, and there is very little distracting movement going on. I wasn't spinning in the traditional Navajo way; I used it like it's smaller supported-spindle cousins but with the long draw, as it's pretty difficult to do short-draw on the Navajo. It was fun, and my long draw is a tiny bit better now. :-)
And I've include this picture just because it turned out so cool. :-D
Even with my not-very-good spray-painting skills, it looks pretty cool. :-D The only problem I've run across is that after staining the treadles was the left treadle was squeaking badly. It appears that the guide screws on the frame were rubbing too much on the bottom of the treadle (oddly it doesn't bother the right treadle at all). I think I've solved the problem by screwing them all the way down, but I haven't spun on it much yet because I've been a bit distracted by....
The $3.62 project - my first Navajo spindle!
I bought the parts at Hobby Lobby - a dowel, a round-ish blank (we found it wasn't completely round when trying to center the hole :-/), and the glass beads with the flat bottoms (in the stained glass section, and in the wedding section).
Drilled a hole in the blank, super-glued the beads on the outside of the whorl, whittled rounded points on both ends, and put the whorl where I thought it should be and put a rubber band underneath it to keep it in place.I found my favorite turned bowl (turned by DH :-D) to use to keep the tip in one spot:
And spun wool on it all day at the demo yesterday:
Even though I was spinning from around 9:30 til around 2:30-ish, I didn't get tired (from the spinning), and still have no discomfort from spinning for so long (granted, a lot of time was spent talking to passers-by). It was quite the attention-getter, which really surprised me as there were 5 spinners with wheels - one has a Kromski Minstrel which is quite lovely. But in thinking about it more, perhaps it was because with the big Navajo spindle, it's easier to follow the 'action'.If someone has never seen spinning on a wheel before, it looks like magic (at least it did to me!) - the hands are moving quickly and the flyer is spinning and the drive wheel is spinning and the feet are treadling - everything is moving and it all goes so fast you can't tell what's happening. Even on a drop spindle it can be difficult to see what's going on if the spindler is even halfway proficient. Not so with a Navajo spindle. With the long draw they can easily see the twist go up the fiber, and there is very little distracting movement going on. I wasn't spinning in the traditional Navajo way; I used it like it's smaller supported-spindle cousins but with the long draw, as it's pretty difficult to do short-draw on the Navajo. It was fun, and my long draw is a tiny bit better now. :-)
And I've include this picture just because it turned out so cool. :-D
Labels: spinning
posted by CL at
08:03
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