12 Days of Christmas: Day 11, a day of rest, kind of

Day 11, Friday: A kind of Day of Rest, as in not much spinning done, because life caught up with me.
However, I did manage to listen to a podcast of Marian Finucane's radio programme from 16th November, 2017, where she spoke to three people involved in the Irish Fashion industry. One of them, Deirdre McQuillan, a fashion journalist,  has written a book called The Aran Sweater, which I subsequently went and found on amazon and ordered. She also mentioned Mourne Textiles, which I would love to go and visit next summer. Maybe I could combine that with a visit to my brother in Monaghan and a trip to Belfast to see the Ulster Folk Museum and to the Titanic museum also.
https://mournetextiles.com/
Another of the participants spoke of recreating the same fabric that was used to make coats in the First World War, on the old original hand-operated loom in Sussex, I think.

This reminded me that I also want to visit McKernan Woollen Mills in Tuamgraney Co Clare, not too far away at all, They make scarves and their website is at http://scarves.ie/

I also had a look at my Craftsy account and realised that I have a few classess there waiting for me about Spinning and Drafting etc, which I would be well advised to have a good look at, Craftsy often have sales, and I may have purchased another class or two this week.
www.craftsy.com

And I had a good look at the Yahoo Group for the Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers, which I joined at the end of 2017. I do not think that Yahoo Groups is very user friendly, but I guess I will have to grin and bear it. I will overcome!

And this morning, the spinning goddesses were certainly smiling down on me - yesterday when I was fixing up the Prinsenhout, I realised I had lost a little circular clip which comes from Ashford Spinning Wheels and holds the footman onto the crank of an Ashford Wheel, I thought maybe I had dropped it at M's house, or it had gotten lost somewhere in between. I was sad, as I wanted this for another friend V, who needs one for her Ashford wheel. I would just have to order one from UK, imagine the postage, grrrrr.....
Then walking out onto my porch this morning, I happened to glance down onto the black wooden step and what was there right in front of me, yes the black Ashford circular clip! Amazing, what with all the people who had come and gone in and out that door over the past 36 to 48 hours, plus heavy rain and high winds, the clip had fallen just there and stayed put till I saw it. Oh The JOY!!
Happy bunny now - nr 11 wheel works and can be fixed, circular clip is in my bag of First Aid for Spinning Wheels and all is well with the world!

Spinning on my Ashford Joy.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 10, fixing a wheel

Day 10: Thursday morning, bright and early, and it was time to start working on the Prinsenhout Staphorster wheel which had followed me home from M's house on Tuesday.
The problem: a footman that hops off.... all the time.....
I started by going online on Ravelry and posting photos and asking questions, and then after an answer or two I took matters into my own hands.
It seemed to me that for some reason the white plastic bearings in the hole at the top of the footman was protruding too much and not giving me space to put a washer on the end of the crank to keep the footman from jumping off. So I got a hammer and gently coaxed off the white plastic from one end.

I cut off a small ring from the plastic, with the thought that I might put it back on now that it was shortened, bu only if it turned out to be necessary. I tried the footman first with only one plastic bearing on and a black rubber tap washer to hold the footman on.
I also retied the cord at the end of the footman which had tied it to the treadle. Now both ends of the cord go through the treadle and that means less wobble and jerking around of the footman as I spin.

And then I sat to spin - and it spun!
Only minor problem was that the knot under the treadle worked its way up through the hole and now the treadle fell to the floor. I used the tiny ring that I had just cut off to anchor the threads together under the treadle to eliminate that problem, and retied the knot.
I had already noticed that the one and only bobbin was missing a bushing at one end, and that the existing bushing at the other end looked identical to the white plastic piece I had taken off the footman, So I tried it, and yes it fitted. Waste not, want not!
I tried again, and yes, the spinning wheel spun without any problem.
Later that evening I spun on it again, and yes it still continued to spin.
 All I need now is a better, more permanent solution than the rubber washer, I am thinking that if I can find a C-clip or a lock washer with teeth, diameter quarter inch, that I could use that to hold the footman in place, especially if I could get somebody to just cut a shallow groove in the crank for the clip to catch on to.

And the wheel ideally needs two or three more bobbins, so that the spinner can ply with it, with relative ease. (Otherwise, with only one bobbin, the spinner has to wind on the singles from the bobbin onto kitchen roll cores and then ply using them. Possible , but not easy)
The bobbin on the wheel seems to be about 16.8cm long, and the bobbins I see for sale on www.wolplantage.nl/ger are 17.5cm long, sadly. Nevertheless, I will send a message to Marianne on that site and see if she has anything that would suit.

I have started an Instagram account and I aim to post mostly spinning stuff on it. Rest assured that there will be no photos of my children doing funny sweet things! You can find me there, under the name spin_me_a_yarn_ie. There is a 30 day photo challenge for spinners, #wemakeyarn. I am trying to post one photo a day for that challenge. Let's see how that goes, once I return to work next week!