New Toy

My charkha finally arrived! Just in time for Mother's Day, I might add, and I simply love it.

Here's how it looks after a freshly-applied coat of Wood Beams:





























And here you can see the itty-bitty skein of 70% cotton/30% silk singles I spun up as my very first test project:















It's a little tricky to figure out at first. If you don't get it started just right, all the twist runs right up into your main fiber and you wind up with a thick, slubby mess. But when it does work...boy, it's just incredible. Right now I'm doing some more practice with 100% cotton roving my friend L gave me; once I feel like I can reliably make something that's actually worth keeping, I'll get to work on some of the more luxurious short fibers I've been hoarding for the past couple of years. There's a bag of buffalo fluff in my stash just begging to be spun up!