Normally Thursday is Spinning Guild night. But we are on hiatus until Janary. So, determined to make this a spinning kind of night, I decided to assemble the skeiner for my louet last night.
It reminded me of the joke about how many people does it take to change a light bulb.
The directions, or what they gave as directions was pretty straight forward. They basically gave a sheet of paper with one of those exploded drawings showing how the parts went together.
Luckily I have read plenty of them when helping Hubby figure out how to take apart various farm equipment for repair.
First item on it was to take a hammer and pound the shoulders of a carriage bolt into the side of the riser. Now mind you I was trying to do this while hubby was sleeping on the couch And while running the dishwasher. (And remember: I have to fill it manually with a bucket for each cycle.) I didn’t want to wake Hubby, so I just tried to shove it into place. Not realizing that without pounding the shoulders into the riser the bolt would not be long enough for everything that had to go on it. I assembled bolt, washer, insert, spring, cross pieces, washer and then tried to squeeze everything together on the spring to get the cap on it. A couple times I had it almost together when the dishwasher needed filled. Or the parts slipped and went flying across the kitchen. (Little wire springs can get a lot of bounce when they put their minds to it.). After a few attempts and naughty words I once again looked at the picture. Oh yeah, hammer
So I go to my little tool box, and lo and behold—no hammer. Looked in the back room where my son had hung a couple of hammers on the coat rack that have been in the way for a year, never making it out to the barn. No hammer. I was not going to trudge out to the barn in the dark and the snow just for a hammer, so I tried to make due with a wrench. (Good heavy steel should work, right?) All I accomplished was a lot of noise and a wide awake Hubby.
After showing him what needed to be done to assemble the skeiner, he first looked in backroom for those hammers again. But he had to check the fire outside in the boiler, and said would bring a hammer in from the barn. A few minutes later, one whack and the bolt head was firmly in place. Sigh.
With that done, and utilizing the extra pair of hands to squeeze the spring to keep parts from slipping I had the top of the skeiner assembled. Before long I had it in place and over 100 yards of white alpaca safetly wound and skeined. Well worth the effort and cost. That is in addition to 2 more larger skeins of the same alpaca.
After all that, I even managed to spin a goodly amount of my rose gray alpaca. I think when I get this all done and plied and spin the 4 ozs of black that I have, I may start working on a top down cardigan, with some nice two color work. For me! My first major homespun project.
It reminded me of the joke about how many people does it take to change a light bulb.
The directions, or what they gave as directions was pretty straight forward. They basically gave a sheet of paper with one of those exploded drawings showing how the parts went together.
Luckily I have read plenty of them when helping Hubby figure out how to take apart various farm equipment for repair.First item on it was to take a hammer and pound the shoulders of a carriage bolt into the side of the riser. Now mind you I was trying to do this while hubby was sleeping on the couch And while running the dishwasher. (And remember: I have to fill it manually with a bucket for each cycle.) I didn’t want to wake Hubby, so I just tried to shove it into place. Not realizing that without pounding the shoulders into the riser the bolt would not be long enough for everything that had to go on it. I assembled bolt, washer, insert, spring, cross pieces, washer and then tried to squeeze everything together on the spring to get the cap on it. A couple times I had it almost together when the dishwasher needed filled. Or the parts slipped and went flying across the kitchen. (Little wire springs can get a lot of bounce when they put their minds to it.). After a few attempts and naughty words I once again looked at the picture. Oh yeah, hammer
So I go to my little tool box, and lo and behold—no hammer. Looked in the back room where my son had hung a couple of hammers on the coat rack that have been in the way for a year, never making it out to the barn. No hammer. I was not going to trudge out to the barn in the dark and the snow just for a hammer, so I tried to make due with a wrench. (Good heavy steel should work, right?) All I accomplished was a lot of noise and a wide awake Hubby.
After showing him what needed to be done to assemble the skeiner, he first looked in backroom for those hammers again. But he had to check the fire outside in the boiler, and said would bring a hammer in from the barn. A few minutes later, one whack and the bolt head was firmly in place. Sigh.
With that done, and utilizing the extra pair of hands to squeeze the spring to keep parts from slipping I had the top of the skeiner assembled. Before long I had it in place and over 100 yards of white alpaca safetly wound and skeined. Well worth the effort and cost. That is in addition to 2 more larger skeins of the same alpaca.
After all that, I even managed to spin a goodly amount of my rose gray alpaca. I think when I get this all done and plied and spin the 4 ozs of black that I have, I may start working on a top down cardigan, with some nice two color work. For me! My first major homespun project.
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