My mother once gave me some 100s Bradford-count wool for Christmas for spinning (after she asked and I pointed to a catalog entry). I expected a pound; she gave me five, which I gleefully dove into.
I have never seen that fine a merino roving available anywhere ever again, including that supplier. (Although I would say that Malabrigo’s new Finito probably matches it.) To quote from Clara Parkes in the Twist Collective: “The average fiber diameter of an 80s wool, for example, is 17.70–19.14 microns, while that of a 56s wool corresponds to an average fiber diameter of 26.40–27.84 microns.”
So 100s would be… Soft. VERY soft. And I do love a good handspun yarn. It’s like nothing else.
My friend Mary has a spare spinning wheel that she loans out to whoever needs it just then.
I once read that a wheel in good condition can continue 100 cycles after you stop treadling if you do it just as hard as you can and then let go.
Mine does 12 if you’re lucky. It’s been dropped out of a car, it’s been tripped over by a big teenage foot and the flier and handmaiden have both had to be replaced. It wobbles since that last time and has been hard to work with.
Mary surprised me with the offer to lend her spare to me; it’s been wonderful to have.
But I decided recently that I really needed to get going again on my own, though, because I do have it and there are surely others out there who need hers more; I know when I was first starting spinning how much I would have loved to have had that loan. So I told Mary thank you and that I’d be bringing her wheel back. The good women of Purlescence told me I could bring it there for her to take home.
And every week for the last month I would get there and kick myself that I had forgotten it yet again.
Last Thursday I put it where it was in my way so I wouldn’t forget–but it was raining that night. Nope.
Tonight was the night.
And then I got a note from Kaye at the shop, and yes, tonight was definitely the night!
Richard helped me lift it into the car.
Sandi and Kaye told me quietly tonight why someone needed that wheel now. That story isn’t mine to tell, but I said to them, You know, I’ve been kicking myself all those times I forgot it. But if I had… It would have been loaned out to someone else, whereas… And that would have been good too! But I think this is the more important place for it to go. Clearly.
Maybe my forgetting wasn’t just me being such an idiot after all.