The Beebas' Bottoms

to my Fiber Tools Arsenal will be…

… a lovely Antique Canadian Production Wheel!

This one, to be precise:

She is old and desperately needs a good bath, but she is mine (as soon as I send payment, lol)

I will decide exactly how much to do to her when she gets here, but for now, my plan is a bath with good old fashioned murphy’s oil soap, and a good scrub of the hardware with steel wool and oil.  (that is, the treadle and the tensioning unit, which are made of Cast iron, and look fairly rusted)

Yep, if you know even the least bit about wheels, you might have realized that she is missing a critical part – the footman, which is the part that goes from the treadle to the wheel… Don’t worry, I have that taken care of.  CPWs were made to have a thin rod of cast iron as a footman.  I don’t have cast iron, but I do have old thick metal coat hangers, which will work just fine.  Should I decide I want something more solid down the line, I will pick up a steel rod at the hardware store and bend that to shape.  Either the coat hanger or the steel rod can be spray painted to match the cast iron if I feel the need.

To fund this lovely creature, I have been having a sale in my Etsy Shop.  I have made my goal, (in an amazingly short amount of time) and by rights, should be ending the sale today.  But, as a thanks to all the people who have helped me make my goal, and to make sure that all my blog readers have a chance at it, I have decided to keep the sale going until tomorrow afternoon.

With Code CPW in the purchase notes, get 15% off of anything in the shop (not including shipping or custom prices).  Only till tomorrow, mind… after that, this sale is done!

I am also thinking that after I have my new pretty home, I will probably be feeling generous.  Keep a look out for a naming contest on the blog sometime in the next couple weeks… there might be a pretty prize up for grabs…

Now, dear Blog readers, would you like to know how I came to ind this lovely wheel?  I had, in fact, stopped looking for a “new” old wheel… I had decided that I could not take the time and energy required to look, to drive out to see wheels, or to do possibly all sorts of rehab on an old wheel in who knows what condition…

And then arrived the hoard.

Yup.  I said it.  Out in Michigan, in fact.  There sat over 100 old wheels, all lonely creatures, recently rescued in an estate sale from where they had languished without a spinner’s company for somewhere around 80 years.

Apparently, back in the Great Depression, there were a lot of people who no longer were able to make a living wage for their families by spinning production amounts of thread and yarn.  Makes sense, as by that time, there were factories making those things in bulk amounts.  Well, these people needed to eat, and so they brought their wheels, which had previously been the means of their survival, to 2 brothers, who had opened one of the very earliest pawn shops.

Over the course of time, these brothers ammassed a very large collection of wheels and all sorts of other things.  Of course, the wheels are where our interest lies today.

After the brothers’ deaths, there was an estate sale, where, of course, as I mentioned before, the lot of wheels was bought.  Happily, they were bought by a couple who, while they did not yet know anything about spinning, were interested in learning, and in re-uniting these wheels with loving homes where they would be once again, nourished, nurtured, and most importantly, SPUN ON.

They spent some time trying to match wheels by themselves, cleaning them as best they knew how, and listing them on Ebay.  These early sorting adventures, I am told, were not always the most accurate, as the couple had no prior knowledge of spinning wheels, or how they functioned, and even less knowledge about antique wheels.  BUT, it brought the hoard to the attention of the Ravelry CPW Lovers group.  That’s when one of the members there stepped in and got involved in the process.

after one successful trip to the hoard and back which resulted in several wheels being united with happy spinners, she decided to return again, and spent a day there, during which, using descriptions given by members of the group for “desired traits” in wheels, she and the lovely owner of the hoard sorted and found wheels for quite a few other happy spinners. (that’s where I come in)

My description was rather simple.  All I wanted  was a Complete, Functional, wood colored (not painted), Iron treadle wheel.  Normally, that is a tough description to fill in a day.  But not at the hoard, cause they did great!

Now, for the moment, that is where the story leaves off.  But really, you have to know that this will really only begin a much longer journey, as first, the wheel arrives, and must be named, and cleaned up.  Then, I’ll have to learn its nuances (I am told even the most experienced spinners have a learning curve with these large beauties).  Then, eventually, though not till summer, I may decide, depending on the state of the wheel’s finish, to begin the process of re-finishing to its original condition.

So stay tuned, and watch for updates in the CPW saga!

Tags: CPW, history, SALE, spinning