Thor is Complete!

There's something about accessories that brings out the OCD in me.  I can't seem to get piece of equipment without obsessing about acquiring every possible accessory that I might NEED someday.  (Note to self:  don't ever buy another sewing machine that has 20 bazillion presser feet again!)

Tuesday's mail brought something special all the way from the Netherlands for Thor -- the distaff that Moswolt sold as an option to the M1 and M2 wheels .  It even has a hank of what I assume is flax tied to it.  Now Thor has everything.  These are just about impossible to find and I was very lucky.

Here is Thor with distaff and reel installed, along with his other goodies.

 I found this wonderful Dutch company - Low Lands Legacy - that had a photo of a Moswolt M1 with the distaff attached on their site.  Funny thing was that I was not even searching for Moswolt at the time.  I had just seen a gadget called a Bogway Handspinner and wandered into their site looking for more information on it.  So I emailed to ask and lo... they had a distaff for sale.  

Hans and Gerrie were very kind -- they concentrate their business in the Netherlands and rest of Europe, but agreed to ship to the U.S.  They were able to fill me in on more of the Moswolt company's history:

" The Moswolt spinning wheels were produced in ‘De Achterhoek’ (a region in the Mid-East of Holland). Originally it was a furniture mill and they also produced spinning wheels in de ‘70’s. The company doesn’t exists anymore. And therefore you won’t find anything on the internet. We do have the original Moswolt brochure. You can have a copy if you want to. Nowadays the Moswolt has become a collector’s item and rather rare to find. Even more rare is the distaff."

I already had a copy of the brochure translated into English, but here it is in the original Dutch:

And by now you know that I couldn't pass up the little Bogway -- me and my gadgets!  People either seem to love it or hate it - I played with it a little bit and have to say it's kinda fun.  Who knows - using it may help firm up my flabby arms (gotta remember to switch hands occasionally) or maybe scare off muggers.

Here it is in action.  Not in English, but you can get the idea, anyway.

The rest of the Angelina fiber order arrived yesterday, just in time to take it to my class.  Can't wait to see how everyone uses theirs.

Love at First Sight

I don't usually hold with naming inanimate objects.  Well, except for my first car, a 1970 Ford Maverick.  He was called Otis, for a reason I don't care to discuss, and I thought he was the next best thing to sliced bread.  But yesterday morning, while browsing forums on Ravelry, I saw a post headed "FS: Moswolt Hammer Wheel."  Well, wouldn't you need to know what a Moswolt Hammer is?

 I opened the post, and this wheel shouted "My name is Thor, and you need me!"  OK, maybe he didn't actually say it, maybe it was more of a mind meld thing, but I got the message.  Sent the seller, who turned out to be a really nice lady named Judy, a message right away, and that was it.  I'm not sure it would have even mattered if the wheel was functional - it was just so cool I couldn't resist.

 

 

Went down to Garden Grove to meet Judy and retrieve Thor.  Spent the afternoon giving him a couple of coats of paste wax and buffing, and he's now ruggedly handsome.  He has a built-in yarn winder and came with a tilted lazy kate and three bobbins.  Judy also threw in a pair of hand cards that came with Thor when she bought him (a late-night ebay purchase).  I haven't seen cards this coarse -- maybe they're for carding yeti fur.

 

 I've been looking for information on this wheel all weekend.  It apparently was manufactured in the late 1970s for just a short time.  An ebay seller from the Netherlands had one just like it, calling it model M1.  They also have a Moswolt Hammer M2, which doesn't have the cool hammers - it has a  four-piece wheel and is nowhere near as appealing as the M1.  Seller says that Moswolt stopped building spinning wheels in the early 1980s.  Bobbins are huge -- seller says they will hold 9-10 ounces of fiber.

Moswalt Hammer M2

Other than a reputation for a very strong draw, I can find very little else (in English, German, or Dutch) about Moswolt wheels.  I did email the seller - hoping he may have more info or be willing to sell me a copy of the documentation that comes with the new M2 he is selling. 

In other news,  I finished washing the first alpaca fleece this weekend -- turned out to be 2 lb 2 oz - a bit more than the seller had advertised.  Smart lady -- she has certainly earned my good will.  Yesterday I had a chance to card some of it on an electric drum carder.  Wow!  a)  These things are really cool and b) now I understand why people charge so much for their fiber batts.  To get any volume of production you need heavy duty equipment which is not cheap, and it takes a lot of time to make a batt.  Don't think I'll ever raise my eyebrow at the price of a batt again.   I came home with these lovelies:

2.85 oz. done, 31.15 oz. to go.  Gulp.

IEHG West (a subgroup of the Inland Empire Handweavers Guild) met yesterday afternoon.  Just a handful of us this time, but I always enjoy the chance to see what everyone is working on and have a good visit.

I also put a couple of coats of satin polyurethane on the wool picker tonight -- it came unfinished and seems a shame not to give it some protection.

Highlight of the weekend, though, was having one of my sisters and her daughter as our houseguests. They had business to take care of so we didn't get a lot of time together, but I'll take what I can get.

Now that I have Thor, the MiniSpinner, the  Joy, and the Koala are not going to leave me alone until they get names of their own.    

Postscript 4/16/12:  Thinking about Kilby for the MiniSpinner.  Jack Kilby was the inventor of the miniaturized electronic circuit.  Seems appropriate for an eSpinner to be named after an innovator without whom it might not exist.

PPS 5/9/22:  @joke.klein , I"m so sorry  I didn't realize you had sent a comment until just now.  After searching for the  brochure on the Moswolt, I realized I had only scanned images, which I posted in two of my later posts about Thor.  The titles mention "Thor" or "Moswolt" so they should be easy to find.