Sorry for the no post yesterday. I wound up staying home with a pretty bad headache. Suzie did arrive and I put her together Wednesday night. I was able to get to know her and have already bonded. One problem though, the knob that holds the flyer head in place was missing from the box. I’ve jury-rigged something that will work so I can use it. I did call the Woolery yesterday morning and they are contacting Majacraft to get the replacement sent directly to me as soon as possible. I can still use her regardless, but that’s why the flyer is tipped to one side. In about an hour of spinning with her on Wed. I was reminded of how very smooth a Majacraft wheel is. I love the effortless treadling. the wheels spins so nicely. I do have to admit, I’m tickled with the green accents on this one. I’m glad I went for the "Pro" instead of the redesigned base model. I spun up about 1.25oz of some pink superwash stuff that has been hanging about for a while. Those singles are currently aging on a bobbin in preparation for winding into a ball and plying with itself. Shouldn’t amass to a lot of yardage, but might be enough for a hat for Kat…. or maybe me, we’ll see.
I was feeling a bit better yesterday afternoon and finished off the four ounces of "Cinnamon Sugar" roving that I started last week on my Journey Wheel. It was heaven to spin and I zipped through the remaining two ounces while the twins napped. I plied it last night during 
the evening’s television watching. While there were no great lighting conditions, I managed to get 426 yards from the 4oz and took this lovely picture to show scale. I took advantage of the HUGE bobbins on Suzie and used her to do the plying. This way I was able to create one honking skein rather than two on the JW. Yes, one bobbin has way more on it than the other. I plied them until the first one ran out. Then I wound the second into a center pull ball on the ball winder and plied from both ends. Its all skeined up and stashed away for proper aging.. or bubbling to the top of the knitting queue. Depends on when I get the real itch to do the Victorian Shoulderette.
Between finishing the spinning and starting the plying, I finished up the second front piece for Twist and cast on for the first sleeve. Looks like I’m back in the spinning mode. Having not touched a wheel in weeks, I’m back to spinning rather regularly. Now that Suzie and I have gotten to know each other, I’m ready to do a little greasy fleecy spinning. I do have that beautiful Border Leicester fleece that I bought in Maryland to make myself a cabled sweater (okay whats the difference between a Gansy and an Aran??? or are they technically the same thing, sweaters knit with all over cables and the name depends on whereabouts they originated?). I also have a couple of other fleeces, including a beautiful Shetland from Laurie that I’d love to work with… and then there’s all the roving projects that I’ve already started (cormo, romney, cvm, blah blah) and haven’t finished… not to mention the shetland that I’m going to need for the Anniversary Pi shawl KAL in January. And you thought I was bad with knitting projects!
Craft on 
7 responses so far ↓
1 Sue // Oct 21, 2005 at 3:55 pm
I’ve always thought of the difference between ganseys and arans being one of construction. To me, ganseys have underarm gussets and shoulder straps, and freqently a “horizontal” feel in the patterning (either from actual horizontal bands of knit/purl motifs, or from a break point between a plain lower portion and a patterned upper part). Arans have more of a “vertical” feeling, with panels of various cables, which cover the whole surface. I think of knit/purl patterns more than cables when I think of a gansey.
That’s just how I think of them, and I’m sure many would disagree. There’s probably a lot of overlap!
2 Kim // Oct 21, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Congratulations on the new wheel! Suzy is a wonderful spinner
I have always thought the difference between a gansy and an Aran had to do with the weight of the yarn. Aran being a heavier weight yarn, but I could be wrong ;-0
3 Marcia // Oct 22, 2005 at 12:14 am
You got me wondering, so I went and grabbed Beth Brown-Reinsel’s book on ganseys. Lots of differences…the gusset, as mentioned above. Plain areas, such as at the end of the sleeve and towards the bottom of the body. Knitted in the round. Often a split welt at the bottom. Several ways to join shoulders, but she doesn’t mention a saddle. Dropped shoulders. The traditional yarn was a “highly twisted 5-ply dark navy blue yarn, known as ‘seaman’s iron’” or about a sport weight. Now I’ll have to go look up Arans!
4 Marcia // Oct 23, 2005 at 12:11 am
I meant to ask…what is the “curing” time before you ply? I took a chance today with some stuff that I needed to clear out of the way: one bobbin was pretty stale, the other was much more recently spun, including a frenzy of spinning over the past two days. I’m holding my breath!
5 Laurie // Oct 23, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Cinnamon sugar looks SO good. Glad Majacraft is working well. I can only applaud your wheel glut, and yarn creation…then I feel less gluttonous. *sigh*
6 Kristen // Oct 23, 2005 at 6:45 pm
everything looks great! (and another wheel name to thrown into my “someday” I’ll try it wheel list)
I’m excited to see how the greasy fleecy spins up – pictures won’t really be the same as being there, but they’re better then nothing.
7 Kristen // Oct 23, 2005 at 6:48 pm
everything looks great! (and another wheel name to thrown into my “someday” I’ll try it wheel list)
I’m excited to see how the greasy fleecy spins up – pictures won’t really be the same as being there, but they’re better then nothing.
(I hope this isn’t being posted twice – there was an error message about halfway through the posting process…)