when i took the spinning class i didn’t expect to enjoy spinning. i was just taking it to learn more about fiber and because it was a free class. but, alas, i did. whatcha gonna do?

but wheels are expensive.

while perusing craigslist one morning i noticed an ad for an ashford traditional wheel being sold for $40. it was in pretty rough shape, needed some parts replaced and the wheel put back together and balanced. but the seller was willing to part with it for only $25, so we took a chance on it.

a few parts were purchased, tom did some deconstructing, gluing and reconstructing:

and got it all fixed up:

it seems to work just fine:

the person selling the wheel bought it from the fiber art center, which, sadly, recently closed, and we’ve been able to determine that it was manufactured around 1976 (a bicentennial baby - just like us!)

we call it snail shell:

i was able to take a class last weekend through the yarn store - introduction to spinning:

we rented a wheel and got a basketful of fiber-y goodies.

this was my first attempt at a single ply:

it started as this:

and became this:

ick. not so good.

attempt number two started as this:

became this:

and ended up as this:

a little better. (it’s got a little thick ‘n thin action going on, but so does debbie bliss soho)

on the second day of the class, i turned a big pile of brown fluff (i guess i didn’t take a photo of the roving) into this:

i then plied the two singles together to get this:

much better!

and what’s that skein hanging on? i’ll show you tomorrow…

as of monday morning, jaz was still knitting! how do i know? well, jaz is the fabulous sidekick on, and producer of, the bill dwight show (in addition to being on-air and music director at wrsi.) and on monday morning, the first two and a half minutes of the show went like this:

that’s right, bill dwight considers us a “knitting cult.” nice.

oh, and what’s that you say? you would love to own one of those t-shirts bill and jaz discussed? you’re in luck! just click right here!

last night was “teach jaz to knit” night! so we had a little shindig at the compound.
after an amazing meal, the boys went to traci’s to play poker and the knitters settled into katy’s living room:

there were snacks, there were drinks, there was yarn, there was new-ish knitter progress:

(we sucked molly in a few weeks ago…she made such great progress last night!)

and there were dance moves. zombie dance moves:

we have plans…big plans:

most importantly, the night’s goal was achieved:

jaz learned to knit! hooray!

oh, and tom won one of the rounds of poker, so we blew his winnings on breakfast this morning at the green bean:

abby loved rocking out to the smooth stylings of memories from the space age tonight. (thanks to the live mp3 stream)

this is a big week for our friends!

i just found out that our friend jon’s band, memories from the space age, (myspace page here) is going to be on third rail radio, this sunday, 6-9pm.

listen in on 88.1fm if you are in the college park, maryland area. if not, you can listen to the mp3 stream instead.

yay!