Anybody else feel like curling up into a little ball and hiding somewhere dark, warm, and quiet for 24 hours straight after the holidays? I usually do. I had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed our whirlwind Christmas visits (3 families across 3 states in 12 hours!) but I am very glad to be home. I missed my kitties and my cozy knitting chair and most of all, I was super excited to get started playing with all this:

Wonderful new spinning things!

The Fiasco masterfully putting together my new Babe spinning wheel.

It was nice and simple.

One bobbin even came loaded with pre-spun leader yarn!

We had it up and spinning in no time.

The spinning involved some failed attempts and false starts, of course, but wasn’t too bad.

I also learned to properly card some nice, fluffy rolags.

The kitties were pretty impressed (maybe not).

My generous and wonderful parents gave me a Babe Production Double Treadle spinning wheel for Christmas and I love it already! It’s not much too look at but there are plenty of good reasons to love it, and for a first wheel I think it can’t be beat for simplicity and ease of use. I’m not very mechanically inclined and am weirdly intimidated by moving parts so a wheel made of a simple wheelchair rim and PVC pipe is a less scary way for me to ease into ‘machine’ spinning. And since various family members have gifted me so much roving and top that my fiber stash doubled in a single day, I’m sure I’ll get plenty familiar with the wheel as I try to spin my way through it all (more about the fiber to come).

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! I’m going to go back to hibernating now, with my Fiasco, a movie, and my wheel spinning away.