Spinning on a Great Wheel

On October 19, 2025October 16, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

I had the absolute privilege of spinning on a Great Wheel from the 1860s.

Photo description: double nut New England Great Wheel dated to the 1860s and brought outside to demonstrate spinning for Founder’s Day in Mansfield Texas

The wheel is older than the house she lives in (any item that is 165 years old deserves a pronoun upgrade, in my opinion.) The wheel was used to spin cotton, which was a primary staple in Texas at the time. She was in a private collection for many years, but was placed in the Man House as an honorarium to her former spinner. It is an appropriate placement historically and a valuable display for visitors to see this wonderful piece of human-powered engineering. I was the first to spin on the wheel for ten years, if I have my stories straight, and it was a joy. I did spend an equal amount of time spinning, adjusting the wheel with field-expedient fixes, and talking about the wheel. I took with me Texas Coop cotton sliver and spun two cops of yarn over six hours.

I like to keep these posts relatively short for this blog, so I’m going to spread the deep dive into my spinning experience out over several days!

Where there is prey…

On October 18, 2025 By CarynIn Insects

I was quite confused when I saw Queen butterfly wings caught in the foliage of the Gregg’s Mistflower as I walked by.

Photo description: Queen butterfly wings at an odd angle surrounded by Gregg’s Mistflower plants

I stopped to look and saw that the butterfly wasn’t just haphazardly hung up, it was in the grip of a large Praying Mantis the exact color of the leaves. I had stumbled upon the predator mid-meal. Here is a video short.

The Carolina Mantis was completely unconcerned how close I was with my phone. If I had passed by a minute later, I would have only seen the butterfly wings on the ground, and not the camouflaged mantis.

Sock progress

On October 17, 2025 By CarynIn Craft

I’m trying a new-to-me sock pattern that dates from the World Wars and was distributed to help with war relief efforts. The spiral pattern creates a stretchy fabric that conforms to the heel without having to stitch a heel. For soldiers this meant a longer wearing sock, since the heel rotates and takes longer to wear out than a designated heel. For my family, my youngest has trouble lining up a heel on her foot, so this is a potentially frustration-saving accommodation. The stitch pattern is easy, but does require paying attention. The body of the sock is a 4×4 rib, but offset one stitch each row, which is what forms the spiral. I’m using Cascade Heritage Prints yarn, which is self striping.

Photo description: spiral socks in progress, knitted as a pair on two 2.5mm cable needles with Cascade Heritage Prints yarn, with a 1×1 rib cuff

My spiral is not forming the tight twist that I have seen in vintage pictures, and I’m hoping that when the socks are finished and blocked, I’ll get the right structure. If this does work for my youngest, I see many, many spiral socks in my future.

Throwback Thursday: library sign

On October 16, 2025 By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In October 2015 I was volunteering at my kids’ elementary school library. They had stacks of old dust covers for books and we had the idea of making a library sign using the colorful printed paper. I selected portions of book covers with coordinating colors and made each letter of the word “library” a different color of the rainbow.

Photo description: large paper based letters spelling “library” and two cartoon owls made of book dust covers and chip board hanging on the wall of the library office

Photo description: closeup of the letter “R” showing how many individual book covers were used for their colors, and outlined with black chip board

I did write on the back of each letter the names of the books that went into making up the color. The owls were made to coordinate with a backdrop of a collection of owls that was already displayed at the library.