A Yarn to Spin

In this world and all there is science we attempted at turning back the clock to a time when manual labour was king, some call it the good life, but before we could achieve the story I am about to share we had to re-learn how our forefathers thought and did things and took things from there.
The story begins as I was walking down the road locally with our border collie called Jess, we were heading towards the fields on the edge of our property towards the river, when something interesting caught my eye, and like the stig of the dump himself I spotted a large pile of rubbish, like a North to a South pole magnet moment lets call it.
On arriving at the potential pile of goodies within, I saw some large discarded planks of wood which had scalloped edges, you know, like the ones in fashion during the 70's era, one had the edge of its surface chipped off and being a woodturner and knowing my timbers I immediately recognised the dark rich colours of Brazillian Mahogany, there was nobody around at the time so I made a mental pucture and made sure to walk back the same way on the way home, hoping they had no been loaded up and taken away.

And sure enough, as I reached the house which was being gutted and moderized after many years of being empty, the new owner was just coming out with another arm full of chinz, So quick as a flash I asked nicely if I could recycle those old boards over there in the pile, which were by now nearly covered over, the lady said sure help yourself and then vanishes as fast as she came into view, and was I glad she did, because this kind of old growth and high quality timber is no longer available commercially, and is rather expensive if you can actually find it.

What was to follow was a hundred hours or toil and turning with lots of shavings and culminated into this wonderful fully working spinning wheel, made to an old Canadian cottage design that I saw in an old magazine.

Over many years we have spun much of our own wool from local rare breeds like the Jacob sheep, and spun and knitted many of our own woolens from Aran pullovers, hats, gloves to long winter socks, but you have to keep them away from Mr & Mrs Moth or they will feast a smorgasbord and banquet upon them for years to come, and truly bless them with holey reverence.

I have made several different wheel over the years to different European styles including this Saxony Style wheel, at 30 inches the wheel was made using twelve sections of the compass and edged using a wood router, the older way was to spin the wheel in a woodturning lathe but mine was too small to achieve this.
She is made entirely out of recycled English Ash that has some truly striking quarter cut grain and rays within, sporting a double treadle and a traditional angled main body where the wheel dips below to reduce the overall height.

The wheel above in front is made to a traditional Irish design that was often the main stay and way of generating extra income for the population in the most remote parts of Ireland, she is made from recycled English Walnut with an 18 inch diameter wheel.
We have kept some records of our trials which go as follows, To make a traditional Aran sweater it takes the creator around 90 hours to knit and no less than 25 thousand seperate stitches, this does not include the cleaning, spinning and plying of the yarn, so next time you think a hand spun and knitted garment cost a lot of money, you will know what it took to make one, the hundred hours it took me to make the wheel doesn't count of course, but the years of service and warmth each garment gives is worth their weight in gold.

Thanks once again for tuning into the journey of my homemade world and way of doing things.