When do wheels become a collection?

My sunday morning laze-around was interrupted by the newest entry at the Bellwether:
http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/ suggesting that my foot size was as long as the distance between my elbow and wrist on the ourside of my arm; foot sole to outside arm is not the easiest of positions to maintain before my morning coffee, but it does beg the question: who decides what average measurements are? And who decides that clothes that sit beautifully on an anorexic model are ideal for the more Juno-esque?
This was not supposed to be a rant against fashion designers with tunnel vision, but to lead nicely into the supersized spinning wheel I have just bought myself - an Ashford Country Spinner. I'm a sucker for Fairs, particularly when they are to do with spinning, and there was one at Littlehampton in the Adelaide Hills on thursday to sell excess equipment. There were three of us from the Elizabethan Spinners, in a tiny car, with an elderly traddie to sell, as well as my spindles, and I was determined I did NOT need any more fleece.
I resisted temptation! I ignored all the luscious bags of fresh fleece displayed about the hall! but the wheel was too much for this little black duck! I've been searching for one for a few months, and anyone who has ever picked one of the older ones up knows they do not travel well by mail! I also picked up an Ashford bulky flyer with matching bobbins, and my favourite Finn breeder was there....................fortunately we sold the elderly traddie, because there was not much room in the car on the return journey!
The Country Spinner works well, although I am still a bit tentative as to how few twists I can put in the yarn before it drifts apart. I wanted it for bead plying among other things, and its nice to think I can spin longer skeins without having to worry about joins! A few tweaks, and it will work better than ever before, which just goes to prove the adage, one spinner's junk is another spinner's treasure!

Once more with feeling!

I'm an expert at blogging! I have started several, but forget the passwords, lose track of time and pouf, they vanish into cyberspace, never to be seen again! So here we go again......

My business registration arrived today: Spinning Down Under, to match my domain name, my ebay store, and now this blog, so I am making a blind leap of faith into the unknown.

Why start up a small business at all when the world as we know it is collapsing around our ears?
Well why not? I've been selling on Ebay in my niche market for several years now, so this is the next logical step, and if the world really is collapsing around our ears, I have a feeling that spinners and fabric makers may just be in great demand as humanity tries to recycle its way into a brave new world of climate change and resource shortages and carbon neutrality.
I make and sell drop spindles; recycling new and often useless items of little value into far more useful tools that bring great pleasure and satisfaction to the user and tap into the creative urge that we all possess. Some people use the term reconstructing rather than recycling, perhaps because its new items being used for a different purpose, but either way, its a fact that small wheels make good reliable spindles that are ideal for learning on, taking travelling and using at demonstrations, and will not reduce you to tears if it gets lost or stolen. and I'd be right in assuming that these days theres not much else available that can give so much satisfaction for such a tiny cost. And helps, in a tiny way, to reduce the amount of rubbish in land-fill.
I also sell spinning fibres, recycled silks and reconstructed banana leaves and, all pretenciousness aside, I aim to stock recycled and designer yarns as well, once I sort out exactly how to work this blog, which neatly brings me back to my opening statement.
SO
WATCH
THIS
SPACE
dear reader, and I promise to do my best to update this blog on at least a monthly basis, and even write down my password not in a safe place so that this time I do not lose it.