Midnight rambler

I should so not be doing this. Thursday night is Coven, and I always find it difficult to settle down to sleep after the drive home. I've taken to asking the DSM not to turn off the computer, so I can do a last check-around before going to bed, which is quite fatal, as here I sits, some thirty minutes after he has settled down - and he slumbereth most peacefully, I can hear him doing so.....

We are out tomorrow night, too, and I don't want to be comatose.

So why am I doing this? Because I can, I suppose.

I have been spinning tonight. I seem to have rediscovered the joys of spinning recently, what with the WWF finished. Now I am having fun with some Abby Franquemont batts that I bought from her ebay store a while back when she was having a sale. Very, very nice. Pretty colours and lovely fibre. There may be enough for a small shawl, I'm not yet sure. Photos as and when.

So, I took my Majacraft Little Gem on an outing. I had some dark Falkland top to finish that has been hanging around for ages, and I did indeed get on quite well with it, in the sense of being nearer to completion.

But the wheel - oh, I don't know. I haven't used it all that much, and I genuinely do think wheels can need running in (if anyone remembers that particular concept). And maybe I am spoiled, with having the Timbertops as my main wheel. But I certainly don't yet feel comfortable with it, and my yarn is, well, let's say not brilliant.

Now, I don't particularly subscribe to the notion that wheels impose their own personality on your spinning. You are the one in charge. Wheels have a range of ratios, and a few differences, but in general do pretty much the same things. But Majacrafts perhaps differ more from the norm - I'm meaning principally the delta instead of an orifice. But this one (it is a long time since I used my Tiny Tim, if I even know where it is - no, I haven't sold it yet although it is on my to-do list....) at least has some further idiosyncrasies. There is a decided pause and then grab action as the bobbin turns, spinning isn't just as smooth and free-flowing as I would like. Then plying - with this wheel, you have to switch the lower drive band around to ply, but regardless, you seem to have to work very hard to get as tight a ply as I like. Can't quite work that one out yet.

So, obviously, what I need to do is to give this wheel a lengthy work-out, get it thoroughly broken in and really get to know it. Another resolution to go with all the rest.

I'm going to finish that Abby-candy (ahem) first, though.

Nighty night.