My Baby Spinning Wheel

In news that's sure to keep me from getting much knitting done, my spinning wheel showed up, unfinished and unassembled, on Tuesday. I ordered it from The Woolery last week; it's a Kromski Mazurka. I've wanted this wheel since the last time I was actually spinning yarn, mostly because I think it's really attractive. Thing is, I never really cared for any of the factory finish colors, but I know from experience that I'm not so great at finishing wood. Somehow it always ends up splotchy. This is probably due to lack of skill and/or lack of patience, I'm not sure which.

Lucky me, I've got a gunsmith for a fiance, and he knows how to apply finish to wood. So we went to Rockler to pick up some supplies. I ended up choosing good old "make it look good" Minwax in a color called "Gunstock"; whatever, it's a nice reddish brown. Not too red, not too brown. I also spent some time admiring the purpleheart available there, along with a few other exotic woods, which I plan to force Zack to use to make me things like a yarn swift and knitting needles.

Last night he applied the first coat of finish to the wheel, and it looks even nicer than I'd expected. There are a couple of different woods used in the Mazurka, though, and they're taking the stain up differently. It still looks quite nice to me. Audrey tried to help with the finishing by standing outside the door of the spare room and meowing at full lung capacity. Sadly for her, I think she's ditzy enough without breathing in paint fumes, so she had to stay outside. Zack will do another coat tomorrow, then hopefully seal it on Saturday so I can do some spinning on Sunday. As you might imagine, it's killing me to have a spinning! wheel! sitting upstairs in pieces.

You may notice, however, that it's sunning itself dry on the Sunday New York Times; it's that kind of wheel. No name, yet, but soon. I'll have to do some spinning first - I don't even know what sex it is yet. Can't tell until I give it a good run through its paces, don't you know.