Spinning wheel!

My new wheel was delivered yesterday afternoon! It is a beautiful Kromski Symphony in unfinished wood. It took me a couple of hours to unpack it, watch the assembly DVD, and put it together. Here's what it looked like before:



And after assembly:



It came with a tensioned "lazy kate", 2 extra bobbins, a niddy noddy, and 2 pounds of wool. I was really happy with the bonus items!



Of course Merlin had to examine it.



For my first try, I decided to use some natural grey/brown corriedale wool that I got last year when I bought my spindle. It's an inexpensive fiber and it is supposed to be one of the easier types to start with. I spun a little bit of it onto 2 different bobbins, fairly thin.



Then I put those 2 bobbins on the lazy kate and plied them together. This bobbin was the result:



Then I wound the yarn around the niddy noddy. Each full loop around the niddy noddy equals 2 yards of yarn.



Then I twisted the yarn up to show what it would look like in a little skein.



I ended up with a 36 yard sample. Not bad for a first try I suppose.

I also started working on spinning some of my "kites" colorway BFL roving, but I couldn't get it to come out quite the same as the 40-some yards that I had already spun on my spindle. So instead of trying to match it up, I decided to start spinning it thinner so that I can try to ply it and see what that looks like. Spinning it was not going nearly as smoothly as spinning the corriedale. I don't know if it was because I was really tired by that point or if it was all due to the difference in the fiber and the fiber preparation or what. But practice makes perfect. The more I work with it the better I will get. I have a few pounds of wool left to work with.

Eventually I plan to put a finish on the wood. I haven't decided yet if I am going to leave it natural looking and just put a clear coat on it, or if I will stain it a different color.

Today I used a couple coupons I had for Michaels' Craft store and got some more beads for making stitch markers with. I'm pretty excited about that. I think I am going to improvise some stitch markers that I could use for crochet. JoAnn is having a 40% off bead and jewelery supples sale this week and I have a couple 50% off coupons for there so I will probably check that out this week too.