Monday, September 21, 2009

Knitting and Spinning news...

I won the Customer Appreciation drawing on the Peaches n' Creme Ravelry group for September! Two pounds of any yarn! :D I got the Article 940 in Capri Blue and 984 in Sky Blue. YAY!

I finished knitting the Odessa hat my little sister asked for. I just need to dye it. She wanted in yellow and I couldn't get my hands on the right yarn in yellow, so I got Cascade 220 Superwash in a natural sort of color and I'm going to dye it with acid dye. I just need to get my hands on some vinegar.

In other news, I want this wheel so bad, OMG! Saw it in an ad in Fall 2009 Spin-Off (there are some really interesting articles in there, including information about raising silk worms, growing cotton in your backyard and spinning wolf fur!). The wheel is called the Mach II by SpinOlution.

I've been thinking about how I probably need a double-treadle castle wheel that I can place directly in front of me when I spin for a few weeks now. Not that I have any money to buy one. I'm not even entirely sure what I want to buy. But I think a double-treadle, castle-type wheel might help with the bursitis in my hip. I still can't spin for a prolonged period of time. I've managed a half ounce of fiber per day that I've spun three times this last week, and I've been okay doing that. No pain, no strain that I can really feel. It's something, but nothing like what I used to do. And I've asked on one of the spinning groups on Ravelry for advice about it and a double-treadle castle was recommended because the orifice and the treadles are directly in front of the spinner, instead of placed at an angle - either to the spinner or to each other or both - and this might encourage better posture, save one side of my body from doing all the work (or even allow me to switch feet entirely when I want to), and keep me from doing something I've noticed I do with my other wheels...

I had never noticed this before, but I'm trying to be more conscious of what my body does while I'm spinning that might be causing repetitive motion issues. I have a very pronounced tendency to turnout my hip and whole leg while treadling! For those who might not know what it means to turnout, it's a ballet and dance term for the motion where one rotates the hip joint (and therefore, the entire leg all the way down to the foot) away from the center of the body. I have noticed that I sometimes do this much less often while driving as well... This could be the source of my injury, and I'm making a conscious effort to not do it, but it is difficult. It feels very natural to allow my hip to turn out while spinning on my HitchHiker, and though I haven't used it in a really long time my Saxony practically begs me to turnout because the treadle is already at the perfect angle for it, but I can see that turning-out makes my posture lazy and it puts greater strain on my hip joint in a very short period of time, even if it is otherwise quite comfortable. Bad, bad, bad. So I really would like to try out a double-treadle castle wheel as soon as I can to see if this change in the treadles and orientation of the orifice helps with this problem.

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