Edmo Visit

I've been a bad blogger the last couple of months.  Here's one of those 'catch up posts' where I talk about things that happened (what seem like) a long time ago.

In November, we went up to Edmonton; the first time for me since we moved back here in March.  It was the same old city and I was so happy to see friends and glad it wasn't too cold.  Some friends and I took a day and went out to Celeigh Wool; a shop outside of town (near Millet) that I've always wanted to visit, but never had the chance:

 

 

 

Friends Nickela, baby Violet, Ariel and me.

 

Marg, the shop owner, also has a small flock of Shetland sheep, complete with a matriarch llama, who's very protective of the flock, I hear.

I picked up a few things in the shop, some local merino fleece and (finally) an Elizabeth Zimmerman book:

 

I haven't had much time to have a good sit-down with it, but I'm happy to finally have an EZ in my collection.

After we got back from the shop, we went over to Nickela's house to check out her and Ariel's new spinning wheels; 4 in total including a couple of vintage country spinners, most likely from the west coast of Canada.  Aren't they beautiful?

 

You could put paper towels on these babies!  These wheels are made to spin thick, chunky yarns, probably for cowichan sweaters.   They would be perfect for spinning art yarns.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to get them working very well.  The bobbins pull the wool right out of your hands before you can spin it.  I believe they are scotch tension, and we tried adjusting it, but these wheels just want to pull.  There's gotta be a way to get them to stop pulling, but I wasn't able to figure it out!  I haven't heard whether they have got them working yet either.
 

Anyone out there ever used a vintage country spinner?  

PS: I re-opened the shop today after my little holiday break.