(as usual, click to make it bigger)

Why yes, I had a good Christmas.  Daan and I had to burn some time in a Wisconsin antiques barn, and they had not one, but about FIFTEEN spinning wheels.  This is, of course, because I stood outside in the rainy parking lot and said, where the fairies could hear, "Wouldn’t it be funny if we found some spinning stuff here?"  So I spent a couple hundred dollars on this wheel, and…

a weasel, and a pair of carding paddles.

A weasel is a kind of swift, which is doing above what most swifts do, which is hold skeins of yarn in lieu of grumpy family members.  But a weasel is better than a plain old swift, because it COUNTS.  "Round and round the mulberry bush… pop! goes the weasel!" From Wikipedia:

The ‘weasel’ probably refer to a spinner’s weasel,
a mechanical yarn measuring device consisting of a spoked wheel with an
internal ratcheting mechanism that clicks every two revolutions and
makes a ‘pop’ sound after the desired length of yarn is measured.

This one does indeed click every revolution, but I think there’s a piece missing, possibly a twangy piece that has since broken off at the two screws that are left.  Something to research.

And yes, that there on the weasel is a handspun single that I did with my drop spindle while at Christmas.  It’s merino top, I think, a gift from a fiber friend who dyed it, and I wanted to see how finely I could spin it.  I don’t think I’ll finish the two ounces at this weight, though, because I’d like to make the hat with a buckle from Knit 2 Together.  I’ll spin the rest heavier.  (And I need to get going with that if I want to have the hat to wear with my coat to a wedding in Detroit in February.  Yikes!)

I don’t really know that it’s an Irish wheel.  But go to the spinning wheel page on Wikipedia.  Scroll down to the second picture.  Ta da!  Very similar, huh?  By the way, that old woman must be about four feet tall.  This wheel is eensy.  But it works, especially since I got it a new drive band (leather shoelace)and I’m going to clean it up a bit.  First I have to learn what will take the accumulated grease off the bobbin/flyer connection.  Then I’ll make it pretty with some lemon oil.  Lastly, I need to figure out what exactly goes in the empty hole at the top of the wheel.  From the Wikipedia pic, there’s a third, um, maiden?  It came with some flax wound on it, so I know I can use it for that, at least.

I’m going to take my treasure to the Spin-In later this month that’s in Destin, and see what I can learn from those folks.