A funny thing happened...

Every once in a while I have to run away from home and such a thing happened this weekend.  After being woken up at 5am for 3 out of 4 mornings to let people in at work because of a faulty piece of software, I told my boss I was taking today off and running away from home. 

OK, well maybe I didn't go into the running away from home thing with him but on the rest of it, I'm solid.  And I'm in Chicago for the LACE group meeting tomorrow.

It gave me time this morning (in between the phone call from work to turn something off) to get my workout done, pack up and run some errands before I hit the road.  Because I wasn't in a rush, I was free to stop at antique malls along the way.  The one I always look forward to on the way to Chicago is the 2nd Time Around Antiques north of Bloomington-Normal.  It's a proper antique shop, not a mall, and they always have beautiful, clean stuff at what I think are really reasonable prices.

Today I stopped by, wandered through and was ready to leave when I happened to look up.  You'll never believe what I saw.

You know I see lots of spinning wheels in places like this.  For some reason most antique mall stall owners way, way over price them.  I've seen broken spinning wheels with missing parts tagged $350-400.  Where I've found them in good shape, I've sometimes been tempted.  But the second I saw this one and reached to take it down off the cabinet it was on, I knew I couldn't pass it up.  Not only was it reasonably priced, if not underpriced, I got it for $50 less than it was tagged for.

It was marked as a "primitive spinning wheel" and that fits it perfectly.  I believe the wood is walnut.  It's chunky and solid with some lovely decorative touches to it without being prissy.  Certainly the person who made it was a top-notch craftsman. 

Everything is there, the wheel is straight and it has a jumbo flyer.  Most of these old spinning wheels have dinky little bobbins.  Not this one, though!

So I'm in love but the problem is that, for once, I came away from home with no spinning fiber!  Yikes, what a day to leave the house without fiber!!!!!!