YO K2TOG

My wife has me looking at Spinning Wheels.

So help me God, every time I think about it I get stuck humming Blood, Sweat, and Tears for hours.

Anyway, I am sure I have explained that Gail is a prolific knitter. She is quite likely a better knitter than I am woodworker. There is no doubt her completion of projects blows me away. I complete about 0.33 projects per year, and Gail busts out about 2 finished goods PER WEEK. The woman is a machine. Now she wants to start spinning her own yarn. I believe this is analogous to the fact that I use rough sawn stock. Once she starts wanting to raise sheep or alpacas, I’ll have to counter by buying a forest and a sawmill.

I may end up building her a spinning wheel, if only so I can weasel in and take partial credit for all future work she does. Then, at dinner parties I can say things like, this is an Irish Fisherman’s sweater my wife spent 60 hours knitting for me, but hey….back in 2008 I made the spinning wheel that she used during the 10 hours of spinning that was necessary to make the yarn that was needed for the 60 hours of knitting.

While in Dublin last month we visited a knit shop (Cleo) where I saw a different way to collaborate. I first whipped out the camera to get some shots of the clothing racks they used. I thought they were cool.

Then, I saw something on some of the sweaters that struck a woodworking note….6000 year old buttons carved from Bog Oak. (click the photo to read the tag)

So if Gail and I collaborate on some of these sweaters, how might my bragging go… "Well, Gail has about 40 hours in the sweater, but each button takes me approximately 6000 years and 20 minutes. However, you know me…you can’t rush quality."