I Love Loosey

I have raised numerous small critters over sixty years--kittens, puppies, chinchillas, parakeets, scarlet king snakes, hamsters, and more--and I have noticed something about myself that I nearly always castigated myself for. I play favorites with critters. I don't play favorites with my family--hear ye, hear ye--but I think, to a lesser extent, that I do it a little teeny bit with my dear friends. I've prayed for understanding about it many times over the years, and the last time I meditated with the labyrinth (last week) I seemed to gain a little insight.

You know when you meet a new friend that really "clicks" with you? Somebody who seems to know the next thing that's going to come out of your mouth? Somebody who understands your every experience or thought or emotion? I've always noticed that it's a little like being "in love." You think about the person a lot. You want to do things to help her/him. You get (even if mildly) a sensation of enthusiasm or excitement or happy anticipation when you know you're going to be doing something with your new friend. Of course, over time these feelings morph into something more manageable and long term, kind of like marriage. You become comfortable with one another, although one tries hard never to take the friendship for granted or abuse its unspoken terms.

An old canoe paddling shanty that I learned at Girl Scout camp said it well:
Make new friends, but keep the old;
One is silver, but the other gold.

So. I raised long-haired hamsters for a number of years, but each one in succession was my "favorite" for a time. Archie and Jellybean especially. Not Nero; he was mean and got returned to the place where I got him. I've had lots of kitties, but overall I think I had about 3-4 favorites over the years. Dogs are different for me; I've been "in love" with nearly every dog I've ever had at some point in time.

Now it seems to have spread to so-called inanimate objects. Like spinning wheels.

I love my Majacraft Rose, Rosey. She is such a great wheel, rarely giving me a tittle of trouble--and usually all I need to do to fix her is oil her spindle. She spins fast and true, has hair-trigger tension adjustment, and we have sort of become one over the last ten years. But. I'm in love with Loosey. Madly in love with Loosey.

[All non-fiber freaks may now stop reading. The rest of this post will most likely tell you nothing at all.]

I love Loosey.

Loosey, for those who are new to this blog, is my (still new) Majacraft Little Gem, a tiny (4 kilos) little wheel that I got specifically as a travel wheel and that I now spin on every day. Every day. She has a tiny wheel, standard Majacraft whorls, fabulous Scotch tension like her big sister, works silently (not even a faint hum), and produces marvelous yarn from short-draw worsted sock thread to big, fluffy long-draw/woolen yarn, soft and lofty blanket yarn. Now it takes some doing to coax her into spinning a tightly twisted lace or fingering yarn, as her spinning ratio only goes up to about 13:1, as contrasted with 19:1 on Rosey, but she has other features that Rosey doesn't have which more than compensate.

She has an accelerated drive, which is what allows her to spin much faster than one would expect from a wheel this small--I think it's about 8" in circumference, which means that she has two drive belts, the lower one and the upper one. If you reverse directions in your spinning (i.e. changing from Z to S, from clockwise to counterclockwise), you just reverse the accelerator belt and Loosey automatically turns in the direction you have chosen. So cool! Plus the whole flyer head rotates on the center post, so you can loosen it, turn it to the left, and draft against the (delta) orifice for a non-supported long draw. I can't really do a Paula Simmons-type long draw with Rosey unless I really add a lot of tension. She has a little bitty knob on the very top of her head which is so handy for carrying her from room to room and for wrapping my yarn-in-progress around when I must leave her for a time.

I love Loosey. And I don't think it's going to wear off. Kind of like my fabulous flute. I still feel a thrill go through me when I pick it up and play a few notes, even though I really can't play it much anymore. In a small way, kind of like Brutus or Akira or Timey, although they're really some of my dearest friends. And so is Loosey--she's the shining silver, so bright I can sort of "see" her from my car in the driveway. But Rosey is still my girl, her golden spirit burnished from love and work and glowing from within like the sun, warm and live-giving.

I'm a polyamorous spinner. I guess.

*******

Madrona was fabulous. The Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat is one of the high points of my year. This year it began on Valentine's Day and ended yesterday (Sunday, 2/19), with over 550 in attendance. It was held at the Hotel Murano (formerly the Sheraton) in downtown Tacoma, so it was only about a ten-minute drive from my driveway--handy, huh? I took two knitting classes.

Pat Bruner's all day class on Thursday was named "Knit to Fit" and consisted of six and one-half hours of amazing information about resizing and reshaping patterns to fit your body (or someone else's) precisely, about designing and marketing your designs, and many, many other highly useful things. Pat is a marvelous teacher. I'd take another class from her in a flash.

My second class was on Saturday morning with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) and I learned--and laughed--even more than I had expected. She did a lot of stuff with socks, with design tips, with advice about working from a "stolen" pattern, and lots more. She answered every question we had with clarity, expertise, and humor. Plus she stood there and knitted on a cabled sweater without looking at her hands at a rate of at least 120 stitches per minute. I've never seen anything like it. She has a warmth and humility and genuineness that is strongly charismatic, and a wit and humor--frequently aimed at herself in a very healthy way--I haven't witnessed in a long time. Need I say that I enjoyed Stephanie's class?

Now it's over. Sniff. Now we have to wait another year for the next "Madrona." I'm already planning my schedule. I have to take Stephanie's class on "Knitting for Speed and Efficiency," and I have to get a class with Judith MacKenzie McCuin. Whatever she's teaching. Lucy Neatby was the presenter Friday evening and was so inspiring that I'd like to take something maybe on color and design with her next year. And so many others. People come from all over the world to this conference, and it's so cool.

Well, I feel kind of like this long fiber post has redeemed a little of my "time off," so I'll sign off now and maybe talk about the spirit a little at my next blog session. Love to all of you. Happy spinning, knitting, weaving, crocheting, felting, tatting, and all the other fibery things we do!