I am not talking about The Stupid Sock. Nor am I going to talk about the looming vet school application deadline. I have one week to make sure I have everything in order or “No school for you!”, and, frankly, it’s terrifying. So, instead, we’re going to focus on something completely unrelated: The Thing in the Corner.

This is the thing that lives in the corner of my living room. Does it look familiar to anyone?

How about it I drag it out, so you can get a closer look?

Yup, that’s a spinning wheel. An old, single treadle Ashford Traveler to be exact.

This, I think, would be a good time to distract you, momentarily, by introducing Abby. Abby is the bulldog myself and The Lovely Roommate are watching for the week.

Abby, incidentally, does not like the spinning wheel and, in fact, when it was dragged into the living room, Abby began growling menacingly from behind the coffee table, and barking in order to scare it off. It’s a shame that spinning wheels do not have legs, because Abby was quite terrifying and, had spinning wheels legs, I’m certain that it would have run for it’s life. Unfortunately, it did not run away, and, as such, has been placed back in it’s corner and is once again covered in junk.

Now who, you might ask, would keep such a versatile and wonderful object locked away in a corner, covered in a rarely used jacket? While I’m sure many of you are aghast at the blasphemy I have committed against the Fiber Gods, I would like to note a few things in my defense.

First, may I present exhibit A:

There’s no drive band. Now, when I bought this baby (for the paltry sum of $75 dollars), it had a bit of kite string on the wheel, pretending to be a drive band. I cocked my eyebrows at it, clucked disapprovingly, and cut the darn thing off. So, before I can turn out lovely, handmade yarn, I must replace the drive band. This can be done easily with a $30 repair kit. Yeah, I know. Not a great excuse. But! There’s more!

Exhibit B:

That’s a busted-up bobbin. Ok, yeah, there are two other bobbins that came with the wheel that are in perfect working order. But what if I want to make three-ply yarn? What if I want to make lots of yarn? Ok, fine, I admit I am just making excuses, but, for the sake my case, I will just note that a new bobbin will cost me $10.

Finally, I give you the most significant, Exhibit C:

That’s a broken treadle. Now, like the drive band, this is easily fixed. In fact, the little plastic thingymabob that makes the treadle go is actually included in the $30 dollar kit mentioned above. However, there’s a catch. I can’t spin on a single treadle wheel. Oh, I’ve tried. But the Fiber Gods have anointed me as a double treadler and all efforts to use just one foot result in the wheel going backwards and other badness. So, really, fixing the treadle is going to cost me about $125 dollars for a conversion kit. This makes the total cost of this wheel roughly $250.

So, here is my dilemma. In order to make this a really usable, happy, lovely wheel, it will cost me a total of $250 dollars, which is fully half of the wheel I desperately want - A Kromski Sonata. It folds, it does all kinds of weight, and it spins like a dream. I love them in a way that could be considered unbecoming. But they cost roughly $550. Which I do not have. However, if I could fix up the spinning wheel above for $30 dollars, leave it single treadle, and then sell it, I could probably get $250 dollars for it. Which is almost half of my dream wheel.
Decisions decisions. Anyway, back to the grind. Stupid sock and stupid applications are both calling, and I ought to at least answer one of them.

Daleks do not wear socks! Socks will be exterminated!