Yesterday I got a random message from a friend via Facebook Messenger asking about a spinning wheel and loom that her mum was wanting to get rid of. It seems that they were trying to empty their storage locker over two days and I got the impression they wanted to get rid of stuff quickly.

I gave some advice as to places she could offload them but then also cheekily offered to adopt both. As we don’t have a lot of spare funds I was unable to offer any payment. I was concerned that they may just get dumped if they wanted them gone quickly. After consulting with her mum, she passed on that her mum would be happy to gift them to me just to see them used and loved again. So Simon and I went up to their place and had a lovely couple of hours catching up with our friends and brought home my new pressies!

The wheel needs a bit of work for it to be usable. After dusting I tightened the legs up as it was a bit wibbly-wobbly. The mother-of-all is held on with a hinge and unfortunately one of the screw holes holding the hinge on has threaded so I’m unable to tighten the screw and as I was testing how it treadled, the screw popped out. So I’ll either need to just drill new holes or fill the holes and re-drill. My dad is a wood worker who’s refurbished two of my wheels for me so I’ll likely take it up to him for advice. The wheel doesn’t appear to have any maker’s mark that I’ve been able to see as yet but I know it came in a kit form, which isn’t unusual for spinning wheels.

My friend’s mum is going to get a bunch of accessories that belong to the wheel for me which I think will consist of the bobbins (as the wheel didn’t come with any right now) and my friend mentioned hand carders too. So that’ll be good. They’ll be my third set of hand carders though! If I’m really lucky there might be some combs in there but I don’t think my luck will stretch that far!!! 😉

The loom is a different story because I have never weaved (woven? See I don’t even know the terminology!) before so I have no idea what all the many long pieces of wood and ties are for or how any of it works. I must admit, weaving has never really held any interest for me, but when someone offers you a (complete and working, I think) loom, you don’t say no! 😉  I’m hoping someone will be able to share with me what type of loom it is so I can look into how that type of loom works. I don’t know if they all work the same or if they are different. I’ve heard weaving chews up a lot of yarn so I guess I might be able to get through some of my copious stash once I learn how to weave. A girl can never have too many hobbies, right? 😉

So if you have knowledge about what type of loom this is and where I can find some instructions, I’d be most grateful to hear from you. And if you recognise the wheel, I’d also love to know what it is. Cheers!

J x