After a day's hard tidying up, the dining-room table was finally Ready for the Assemblage of the Big Christmas Present. It arrived in November, but I didn't want to make it up before Christmas...
What can it be? It's certainly in a big enough box! (The people at the post office were worried about how far I'd have to carry it... then they looked at the address and realised that 'about 50 yards' was the answer...)
And it came with a Christmas card...
I opened it when it first arrived just to make sure Customs hadn't done Bad Things to it on the way in, but all the little bits and bobbins were securely contained in a sealed bag, so I took out the card and left the rest alone...When you get it out of the box, here are all the bits... The envelope in the foreground says "Assembly instructions. *Read first!!!*" (If only everything in life came in a flatpack, with instructions.... no, don't go there...) Look at all that oaky goodness, on my ash dining table...
Making it up was a doddle. I got out my box of 51 screwdrivers (I haven't actually counted them in and out, some of them are socket-set-type-things, but that's what it says on the label) despite only needing one #2 Philips; and it took only a short time to assemble the windmilly bit on the front (seen here sitting on top of the base with its rotation-counter)
wonder very briefly about which way round the main post went into the the base - before, you know, actually looking at it: this guy leaves nothing to chance:
sort out the bits which needed to go onto the main spindle [ditto]
and finally, wind a skein!
I had the idea of a 'can you guess what it is yet' series of photos, but I got carried away with the precision of the thing, and how it all made up so perfectly, and forgot to take photos of most of the assembly. But it's a skein winder from Ball and Skein, and it works brilliantly. Thanks to Mam and Dad for going with my somewhat strange idea of what I'd like for Christmas, and to Judy and Chris for the help with shipping info, different woods, etc.!
Dyeing day tomorrow, I think - better check the vinegar situation...
4 comments:
It is a thing of extreme beauty, you are a very lucky girl.
I am deeply jealous.
Cor! Am I right in thinking that it counts how many rotations it has done? (I always get muddled when trying to count how many revolutionsI've done on my niddy noddy). Hope the dyeing goes well!
Rosie: it does indeed... The skein size is adjustible so there's not much point it counting metres; you wrap a length of yarn round once to get your skein size (I'm sure you *could* make this very easy to calculate, but I'm sticking with the rather quirky measurement my niddy-noddy gave me, on the grounds that people didn't seem to find the yarn pooled badly whatever they were knitting), and then work out how many rotations you need, or what length you have on the basis of number of rotations... I've done both today - have wound off a mile and a half of laceweight from a cone I got from Texere earlier in the year and didn't have the will to wind! It took about half an hour including doing the calculations and tying off four separate skeins...
Cool! An impressive piece of kit!
My big pressie was a desk for the bedroom, ie. an art space. :-) I would love to be able to say I did it myself, but because I am a pathetic girly little thing, the husband who gifted me with said desk was also forced to devote 3 hours of his holiday time to assembling it for me.
Happy rotating!
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