A Rose By Any Other Name

One of the "problems" the Lilly Fellowship has helped me solve is the fact that I had no spinning wheel. Now, I have several drop spindles made by my father, but compared to a wheel, those are like bicycles compared to cars. You can go a lot further and faster with a wheel.

I ordered my Majacraft Rose spinning wheel from Sue Baughman at White Creek Wool in Deford, Michigan and anxiously awaited its arrival. One fine day at the end of May it arrived. I lugged the big box home from work and tore it open . . .



I thought the handle looked remarkably like the stock of a rifle . . .



But when unpacked it was apparent I had the parts of a spinning wheel.



Alas, when I started to put it together, it seemed that one of the parts was not all it could be. As you can see below, the drive shaft of the wheel was bent (bottom). Andy at Majacraft kindly sent a replacement (top) winging my way from New Zealand.



It arrived last week and after much muttering I got the wheel put together today. Normally I am pretty good at following directions, but these stumped me a few times. The problem might have been Kiwi-speak or Spinning-speak. I don't know enough about spinning (or Kiwi English)to know. (A pozi screw? A plastic bush?) Anyway, with perseverance and much consultation of diagrams, I got it put together.



It's a beautiful wheel and all reviews I've read say it's very versatile and high quality.



And of course, it has a rose.

Now I just need to learn to use it! I leave two weeks from today.