The weather is beginning to warm which means that I'm able to return to my studio. I'm really excited about some wheel thrown spindle whorls that I've been working on. They're time consuming, but I have fallen head over heels with each and every one of them even though I'm sure that they're not saleable. (Of course this means that I'll be making a lot more of them...)
It's more than a month since I had hoped to have the Etsy shop back up and running. I mentioned in my last post some interpersonal drama. No sooner had it passed than our house was hit with some form of awful plague. The coughing has lasted more than a month and we ended up taking Sprout to urgent care where she was diagnosed with bronchitis. It's hard to believe that at 3 1/2 years old, we had never been required to give her any kind of medicine. We'd given her some infant tylenol when she was first teething, but she quickly decided that she didn't want or need it. Unfortunately, this meant that the antibiotics they prescribed for her illness were grounds for quite a few contentious battles.
I really do intend to re-open the shop. I have realized that I'm really not a business woman. That said, I have said before that I'm afraid of being buried alive by my own work. In the interest of seeing that work into the hands of those who will love and care for it, I will post pictures of the items I'm planning to list here on the blog at least a day or two before I update the shop. If you see something that you are particularly interested in, leave a comment, or drop me a note and let me know. When I list the item, I'll list it as reserved for you and give you 3 weeks to finish the transaction before removing the "reserved" label.
Well, I'm only awake and typing because of hellish leg cramps. In spite of my desire to stay up and watch the end of the PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation of Sense and Sensibility that I taped on Sunday, I must get some sleep. Tonight is "Night at the Museum" where I will be playing the role of a frontier woman spinning the night away as her babes sleep. More on that later...
Showing posts with label spinning wheel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spinning wheel. Show all posts
05 April 2008
07 March 2008
The best laid plans
Obviously, in spite of my desire to do so, I did not re-open the shop on March 1st. To explain the delay, I need to go back to some of the circumstances that led me to close the shop in the first place.
I've mentioned (once or twice) that I have been diagnosed and am being treated for major depression. I've learned that I'm vulnerable to downward spirals. When I sense that one of those spirals is approaching, I need to take the time to address the underlying issues. In this case, the issue is one that started 2 1/2 years ago with the loss of a significant friendship. I was devastated by that loss, and would have given a great deal to "fix" things.
A few weeks ago, this lost friend contacted me out of the blue. In the last 2 years, she has moved and has dealt with a lot of personal trauma and some major transitions in her life. I kind of admire her for doing it. She had no way of knowing what to expect when she contacted me. She couldn't have known whether I would even respond to her since I honestly didn't know myself when I saw her email.
There have been a lot of things going on in my life that I couldn't put on hold. My parents have had some ongoing health problems. They were offered a rather unconventional (and perhaps extreme) opportunity to address several of those problems simultaneously with "minor" surgery. There was quite a bit of uncertainty as the date for the surgeries approached. My sister was going to come "home" from Germany to help take care of our parents. My mom's sisters came up from the Louisville/Southern Indiana area to help care for them. It was a really scary thing for me, but they're doing great and if everything works the way that it should, their health should be dramatically improved and their life expectancy extended.
While all of that was going on, Sprout and I were both a bit sick. It's like everything happens at once. It's not so long ago that all of this would have sent me into some kind of dark pit. Instead, I took a look at what was going on in my life and identified some things that I didn't **HAVE** to do deal with right then. The biggest thing that could be postponed was getting the shop set up. I've got everything that I need to start taking pictures when the time is right. I've got a couple of new designs that I'm about ready to launch and a little extra time gives me a bit of a chance to refine them a bit further before they debut.
My parents are recovering fine. Sprout has been diagnosed with bronchitis and we've started a course of treatment. (she's not very cooperative and I hate forcing medicines onto her but we'll do what we have to to make her well) I have a book review that got lost in the shuffle and should be ready to post in a couple of days. Etc...
The situation with my "friend" appears to have reached its conclusion. For the sake of my mental health, I just came right out and asked to put all the cards on the table. My request was met with a passive-aggressive "Sorry I bothered you." and I have decided to just let it go.
Through all of this, my spinning has been a constant comfort and an act of meditation. Remind me to post soon about the spinning demonstration that I'm doing at the Springfield museum. It's forcing me to dust off the wheel and explore an interest in historical re-enactment/re-creation.
I've mentioned (once or twice) that I have been diagnosed and am being treated for major depression. I've learned that I'm vulnerable to downward spirals. When I sense that one of those spirals is approaching, I need to take the time to address the underlying issues. In this case, the issue is one that started 2 1/2 years ago with the loss of a significant friendship. I was devastated by that loss, and would have given a great deal to "fix" things.
A few weeks ago, this lost friend contacted me out of the blue. In the last 2 years, she has moved and has dealt with a lot of personal trauma and some major transitions in her life. I kind of admire her for doing it. She had no way of knowing what to expect when she contacted me. She couldn't have known whether I would even respond to her since I honestly didn't know myself when I saw her email.
There have been a lot of things going on in my life that I couldn't put on hold. My parents have had some ongoing health problems. They were offered a rather unconventional (and perhaps extreme) opportunity to address several of those problems simultaneously with "minor" surgery. There was quite a bit of uncertainty as the date for the surgeries approached. My sister was going to come "home" from Germany to help take care of our parents. My mom's sisters came up from the Louisville/Southern Indiana area to help care for them. It was a really scary thing for me, but they're doing great and if everything works the way that it should, their health should be dramatically improved and their life expectancy extended.
While all of that was going on, Sprout and I were both a bit sick. It's like everything happens at once. It's not so long ago that all of this would have sent me into some kind of dark pit. Instead, I took a look at what was going on in my life and identified some things that I didn't **HAVE** to do deal with right then. The biggest thing that could be postponed was getting the shop set up. I've got everything that I need to start taking pictures when the time is right. I've got a couple of new designs that I'm about ready to launch and a little extra time gives me a bit of a chance to refine them a bit further before they debut.
My parents are recovering fine. Sprout has been diagnosed with bronchitis and we've started a course of treatment. (she's not very cooperative and I hate forcing medicines onto her but we'll do what we have to to make her well) I have a book review that got lost in the shuffle and should be ready to post in a couple of days. Etc...
The situation with my "friend" appears to have reached its conclusion. For the sake of my mental health, I just came right out and asked to put all the cards on the table. My request was met with a passive-aggressive "Sorry I bothered you." and I have decided to just let it go.
Through all of this, my spinning has been a constant comfort and an act of meditation. Remind me to post soon about the spinning demonstration that I'm doing at the Springfield museum. It's forcing me to dust off the wheel and explore an interest in historical re-enactment/re-creation.
12 September 2006
An' The Wheel Goes 'Round
I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd recently learned to spin on a drop spindle. What I didn't mention was that I was also the recipient of a beautiful Country Craftsman spinning wheel. The wheel, she hasn't told me her name yet, came to me with a broken footman. After looking closely at the point of failure on the original part, I realized that it had broken at least once before in the same location and had been repaired.The first thing that I did was to research Country Craftsman wheels in an effort to find a stock replacement. What I found was that these wheels were made by hand by a woodworker in Massachusetts for something like 25 years before he retired a couple of years ago. Needless to say, replacement parts are not exactly growing on trees.
In retrospect, I find that I'm actually glad that I wasn't able to get a stock replacement. I quickly decided that what I needed to do was to find someone to re-make the footman. I took measurements from the original, studied how it fit onto the wheel and how it worked, and took matters into my own hands. I created an Alchemy request on Etsy.
If you're not familiar with Etsy Alchemy, you're not alone. It is a system set up by the wizards at Etsy to connect buyers with artisans/craftspeople who can fulfil their makery wishes. It's also a little confusing. First, the buyer posts an alchemy request saying what they want. They include pictures or links to help clarify their needs. Then one or more Etsy artists bid to fill the request, supplying their own pictures or other information. Then the buyer chooses a bid (or several bids) and from there the commissioned work is completed, paid for, and feedback is left. It is a wonderous and magical process.
In the case of my footman, I got one bid from a woodworker in Canada who I'd corresponded with earlier this year about custom pottery tools. Barry is a great guy and the two of us exchanged quite a few messages about measurements and tweeks to the design of the original footman. In the end, he recommended a footman made of 2 layers of maple laminated together with metal plates on either side of the keyhole opening where the footman attaches to the flywheel. We changed the dimensions of the footman, as well, widening it so that the holes do not come so close to the edges as to weaken the structure of the finished part.
My new footman arrived from Canada in Saturday's mail. In the last few days, have admired it, fondled it, shown it off to my spinning mentor, and finally, attached it to my spinning wheel where it will live until the end of time. With the new footman in place, I took the wheel for a real test drive. I spun up 1/2 ounce of leaf green corriedale wool that I had purchased for a needle felting project. My thought, when I started spinning it, was that I would pull it off the bobbin and allow it to relax so that I could use it as vines for my planned needle felted embellishment. Now that it's spun, however, I can't decide whether to go with the original plan, or to ply it back on itself and save it as a momento of my first real yarn spun on my very own spinning wheel. For now, I'll leave it on the bobbin where I can admire it while I work on glazing beads for this weekend.
Expect some fun fiber posts over the next week or so... A tutorial, a long overdue explanation of my spinning fascination, more images of the large wavy motif in progress, and maybe even some yarn, assuming that I get my clay work done. Wish me luck finding the time that I'll need over the next three days.
Image: [Irish Spinner and Spinning Wheel. Co. Galway, Ireland] Found via Library of Congress online collection. REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-DIG-ppmsc-09892 (digital file from original) No known restrictions on publication. photomechanical print : photochrome, color. [between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900].
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