Purlescence

Here's Miss Bess

Nathania & Bess made a public appearance at the Sub-Zero Festival in downtown San Jose. We were there demonstrating knitting and spinning in front of the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles.

Meet Bess

One of the reasons we so love Ashford products is that several of their spinning wheels come as unfinished kits. The beautiful white beech makes a perfect base for creative finishes. Nathania recently brought home an Ashford Double Drive Traveler and set to giving it a Steampunk finish. 

Minwax makes a wonderful line of waterbased wood stains. Nathania chose a dark walnut finish and mixed it with a tad bit of black. The entire wheel got a layer of stain. She then mixed Jacquard metallic pigment in antique copper with semi-gloss polyurethane finish. That went over all the wheel components. Deep rose and copper metallic pigments were mixed with high gloss polyurethane finish to add metallic accents. The final stage was the inscription of a personal inspirational message on the private (facing the spinner) side of the flywheel and a portion of a Robert Burns poem on the public side using copper leaf. (The photo shows the wheel in the midst of the leafing process).