Friday, November 25, 2011

Woo and Hoo


 Last month I was spinning this luscious stuff - a Corgi Hill Farm merino/angora/silk blend.  And we're talking serious love with this fiber.  It's blue-green at one end, shading down to yellow-green at the other, with white laced through it so the colors shimmer between light and dark.
But then something awful happened - my wheel suddenly developed a horrible clunk.  It took me forever to track down where the sound was coming from, but I finally realized that the pitman rod was hanging up at the top of its arc, making a small clunking noise just before it reached the top and a louder one just after, as the whatchamacallit that turns the axle went up and over.  (You know how I love all that technical talk.)
I would grit my teeth, and try to spin for awhile, but the noise was rapidly driving me batshit.  I could tolerate a few minutes - and I desperately wanted to spin that CHF temptress - but then I'd have to put the fiber down and run walk away from the wheel.  I was afraid that I'd have to call the wheel-doctor to get my baby fixed, but money spent on doctoring is money that can't be spent on more luscious fiber, so I put it off.
I didn't spin for a couple of weeks.  But I missed it.  I really really missed it.  So, last night I sat down at the wheel, thinking "Well, I'll spin as long as I can stand the noise, then go knit or something."
I dabbed a few drops of oil behind her ears, just like I always do, and started to spin.
Silence.  Or nearly so - just that gentle hum of a wheel working smoothly.
I kept spinning, hoping it wasn't just a fluke.
Still with the silence.  Wow.
I finally said to Madman "Ya know, this isn't helping any with my irrational belief that things will heal themselves if you just leave them alone for a while..."
"What?" he asked, turning away from the computer.
"Do you hear any clunks?"
He listened for a moment.  "Hunh."

4 comments:

Bullwinkle said...

That belief drove co-workers nuts - if you ignore a (niggly little) problem long enough it will either go away (fix itself, become irrelevant) or be so bad as to actually require my attention and/or actually break and be fixable.

It worked well in my career ;)

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear your wheel is feeling better. Happy spinning!

Cookie said...

Lube is almost always the answer. ;^)

amy said...

It must have been the spinning wheel faerie. Did you accidentally leave out a glass of milk some night? I think faeries like that, then they'll fix shit around your house. Truefax.