Loving My Spindle

Today, I am loving my spindle in more ways than one.

For one, I am loving how the color fluctuates in this spin.  Earlier this morning it was still that strawberry-ish color on yummy fluff (thank you guys for having a look at that, by the way :) ).  That was pretty enough to me.

But now, it is a gloriously vibrant yellow!

I think it’s just beautiful!

Now, the way I loved my spindle today wasn’t really second nature…It kind of had to knock me over, lol.

I don’t know if it is my need to have good-looking spindles or if it’s all the dusting I’ve been doing around the house…But one thing that bothered me about that spindle itself earlier was that I felt it needed some conditioning.  Spindles are functional.  But they are also drop dead gorgeous art objects! Mine, however, was looking a little dusty.  See there in between the grooves in the top photo…Mmmhmm.  Dust!

This is a Golding RingSpindle.  The “Ring” in the name refers to the bronze alloy around the edge of the whorl.  They are excellent spinners due to the majority of the weight being located at that outer ring.  It keeps the spindle spinning longer.  The Golding spindles are also known for being pretty intricately designed (and have you ever seen one of their wheels…Good Lawd!).  I’ve got my eye on the Silver Lace for my next Golding order.  But, today, that very intricacy was somewhat of a problem for my dust sensitivities of late.

Coincidentally, the hubby had been talking to me just last night about how the dumbest thing anyone can do is buy a house.  Now, of course, we live in one (dummies! :) ).  But, his point was…Well, he gave me an analogy on why houses never really appreciate.  Forgive him, he has no filter for creative types, lol.

An engineer looks at a space for a bridge to be built and says, “I can build this bridge with ten million.”  A finance guy looks at that same space and says, “Nope, you will need to set aside twenty million .”  When asked why, the finance guy says, “At some point, you’ll probably have to pay for men to work overtime when plans fall through…and you have to factor in inferior materials being sent back and re-sent…When you buy a house, you have to consider all the things that will need to be done with the house over time…roofs need to be replaced after 25 years, the heating and cooling elements will give you ten years easy, but after…”

If you’re anything like me, this is where your eyes start glazing over and you think about how you could be spinning something. ;)   The good thing is, you always wind up with something that you can take away from these cerebral types.  And, hey, he has been listening to my ramblings on yarn.  This time, what I took away from his superbly detailed financial spiel was simply that my spindles need some sort of maintenance system.  I got there somewheres around the part about the roof being replaced.  After that, everything started sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher in Peanuts so I cannot be held responsible for how accurate that ten years for the heating and cooling elements actually is.  But, suddenly, it all made sense!  I’ve had many of my spindles for nearly a year now.  Some more than a year.  So, today, I figured I’d take a few minutes and see what I could come up with to maintain them.

This is carnauba and lavender wax from an Etsy shop by the name Magical Moons.  It smells really nice! And though it has many uses, spinners have been known to use it for leather bearings on spinning wheels (Schacht recommends it, actually).  Other spinners have used it on woods…”Others” meaning, me, lol! I’m not really being revolutionary.  It is indicated that it does give woods a high gloss that dulls rather than flakes over time.  Sweet, right?!

As per directions, using a lint-free cloth, I rubbed it on to the wood of the whorl of the spindle with circular motions.  I gently got into the openings of the design with my cloth-covered finger.  Just a thin coat.  You want to know something?

It worked! It’s shiny and dust-free.  It smells really nice too!

Sigh.  Spindles are so pretty.

I’m really loving this spindle again!