Spinning and Spinning Wheels.

 I am fascinated with yarn and spinning it:

Some of my spindles.

  

Recently I fell in love with an old Walnut spinning wheel on Ebay and I managed to bring it home! 

Hand carved Walnut spinning wheel.

When I asked the dealer if he had any more information about it he replied:

“It comes from an eighteenth-century country house in the center of the town of Balangero in the province of Turin. I know the family. The spinning wheel belonged to the Lord’s great-grandmother who gave it to me for sale. This gentleman is 64 years old. His mother was from 1930. Therefore the spinning wheel can be dated towards the end of the 19th century. The carving is the work of carpenters from Lanzo or surrounding areas. The design is typical of the Lanzo valleys.
Here typically walnut or chestnut was used, never birch”

I had told him that I have another wheel from Sweden which is Silver birch. Strangely here on my blog I don't seem to have added photos of that! 

Old Silver Birch Swedish Wheel.

I did document the one my DH made for me back in May 2015 though! It is in a previous post.

Now the adventure will continue! 

Yay! It works!

 

Let's hope I can really learn to spin well! 

Washing "Never ending story!"

 

The book was strategically put to hide the coffee stains!

Well after so much shaking and fear I washed the bedspread.

I was really scared it would not come clean or would fall to pieces!

I soaked it in cold water first for 24 hours. 

Then I soaked it with a solution of Omino Bianco in cold water. 

It was still stained. 

I washed it in the washing machine at 40°c without wringing. 

Took it out. Still a few stains. 

I took a new makeup brush and gently brushed the stains with bleach until they were less.

Put into the washer again at 40° without wringing. 

Took out. Rinsed well in the bath and then rinsed again with fabric softener! 

Hurrah!

I never thought it would really come clean let alone so brilliantly white! 

Started : October 1987. Stained with wood smoke age and coffee. 

Finished now. 

Doing a happy dance here!

Never Ending Story.

 The story of a bedspread: The work of almost a lifetime!

Way back in 1987 I bought some crochet cotton to make a bedspread. 3.5 kilos at the great price of 95000 lire! Less than 50 euro in todays money! Wow!

 I can’t even start to imagine how much it would cost today!

Poor bedspread is yellow. It has been forgotten for so long. Smells of dove soap as I put a bar of soap in the bag it is in! Lol!

I started this when I calculated a design for a friend charting the bottom corner. It starts at the corner, turned, then worked to bed width and then second corner. Then it is worked continuously across the blanket width, fringe included as you work, I cannot imagine doing that math nowadays!

I don’t know where the original design is from. It is a “campione” sample worked that my friend had. People used to work from sample pieces not from paper designs. It was done in stripes and sewn with the border sewn on and gathered at the corners which I didn’t like. I decided to modify to make in one piece.
We used to sit and work together in the mornings for an hour while the kids were at nursery school. Happy days and nice memories.

It took me so long to do those calculations so the corner design would be correct. All on squared paper! I can't find the design I drew out but still hope to find it somewhere in my old craft things. 

We used to sit in front of the fire and work on our bedspreads. In fact there is still a lot of wood smoke on it! Then disaster struck and I dropped some coffee on it. 

I gave up working for a while. I thought of starting all over again but just couldn't face the idea. At that time it would take me a day to do a row! 

After a while for some reason I decided to do a bit more....on and off slowly over the years it grew..getting ever more yellow in colour! 

This summer (after a difficult time with two family deaths) I was looking at all the things I have to finish thinking I would never manage. My youngest daughter commented that this was "bella" and jokingly said she would put in in the coffin with me if I didn't finish it! 

So I started working again. Always with the doubt that it is a waste of time and will never come clean. That is still the next challenge! 

She took a couple of videos of me working on it on the steps in front of the house and I just had to finish! 

Yesterday I crocheted almost all day and in the middle of a very unusual rain shower she took photos of me finishing! The final countdown to cutting the thread! 

My daughter weighed it. Total weight 3.2 kilos!

Follow the next post to see how and if I manage to wash the thing!