And So It Begins

Confession: I now own three spinning wheels.
My husband, Mark, isn’t thrilled. He says it would be like him buying three table saws. But it’s not the same; I have an emotional attachment to my wheels. And anyway, what do I care how many table saws he has? Unlike him, I don’t judge.

I bought my first wheel new, around 2004. Mark surprised me with the second one, an antique walking wheel. He thinks that because it’s very old—two hundred years, with its original blue paint—and it’s the most thoughtful Christmas gift he’s ever given me, I should be all set in the spinning wheel department. I thought I was, too.

But in July, I attended a spin-in where I tried several antique wheels. One was so worn, its wooden treadle bore the contour of a spinner’s foot from long ago. I kept thinking of all the unique, still-functional wheels out there that sit unused and unloved or, worse, are destined for the dump. I had to save one.

When I first told Mark, he looked from the wheel behind the love seat to the wheel next to the couch. He insisted that the house was already at maximum occupancy in terms of wheels. I said nothing; I was too busy scouring the Web for one to buy. I studied the various styles. I made a list of what to look out for when buying an older wheel. I learned the vocabulary, so if someone said “mother-of-all,” I’d know it is part of the wheel and not an insult.

And then one day, I found it: a Canadian production wheel, or CPW. This type of wheel, manufactured in Quebec during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, produced a fine yarn at a factory-worthy clip. A young woman was selling the wheel for her grandparents. We made arrangements to meet at their house two hours away. Mark, oozing antiwheel negativity, said he bet the seller wouldn’t even show. But he couldn’t blunt my enthusiasm.

I arrived at the address but found no seller—and no cell service. I waited 45 minutes before giving up all hope. I started back toward home, crushed. But then, a few miles down the road, my phone dinged. I pulled over. I had a message from the seller saying, “Sorry! I gave you the wrong house number.”

Whooping like a rodeo rider, I whipped the car around. The woman met me at the door and apologized. “Fine, whatever,” I said, shoving her out of the way in my eagerness to get to the wheel. And there it was: a classic CPW, well used but beautiful and in full working order. “Sold,” I said in a reverent whisper.

Arriving home two hours later, I carried the wheel into the house, past Mark, and gave him my smuggest smile. He harrumphed. That evening, I started spinning. The wheel made old-fashioned whirring noises as I treadled away. Pure joy.

I could see that Mark was torn. On the one hand, he didn’t like our house filling up with spinning wheels. On the other, he hadn’t seen me this happy since the last Ben & Jerry’s buy-two-get-two-free sale.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Why don’t you buy a few more wheels, and then we won’t even be able to walk through here?” I didn’t have the heart to tell him; it’s probably only a matter of time.

Jessie Raymond is a knitter, spinner, and humor columnist who lives in Vermont. See more of her writing at www.jessieraymond.com.