In Which the Pirate Has a Spinning Emergency.

Last night I had about an hour before bed. I’d worked on Mom’s gloves and on my sock, and thought I’d treat myself to a bit of spinning on my attempt at a three-ply sock yarn. “I’ll finish off the bobbin,” I said to myself, “there’s not much left before I have to go to the next one.”

Well, I sat down at the wheel and started to spin, but something didn’t feel right and worse, something didn’t sound right. It didn’t take much inspection to figure out what it was – the large end of the bobbin, the brake side, had completely come loose from the axle and was spinning freely. I took it off the wheel to look more closely, and sure enough, it was threatening to pop off entirely if I let it go.

Downstairs to Pirate-Husband – “Help! I have a spinning emergency! Can this be glued… with the yarn still on it?” No, of course not, not without the risk of gluing my yarn to the bobbin. I threw it onto the lazy kate, put the brake on the small end of the bobbin, turned the tension way up on the wheel and put the drive band on the smallest whorl, and whipped through winding my singles onto one of the new bobbins that I bought at WEBS in October.

Whew! Crisis averted.

The failed bobbin is one of the wheel’s originals, so I’m not really surprised that the glue failed after twenty-some years. Pirate-Husband has wood glue and clamps that I can use to repair it, and then it should be good as new!

I think I am going to name the wheel “Patience.” Goodness knows I need it in order to spin with her.