AKA Meet the Mullet!

David and I had a lot of fun brainstorming about how to decorate the S17 for the Skein Shop showroom.  In fact, we had so much fun that we found ourselves with too many ideas, which is an excellent problem to have.  In the end, we opted for a "mullet" themed wheel - business in the front, party in the back!

For the front, we decided to try wood burning to keep the color palette simple and classy.  We put the names of the parts on the main wheel itself and our logo on the treadle.  My favorite touch, however, is the front upright.  There we put markings that will function as a ruler and protractor for all of that mid-spinning measuring that goes on when you want to get really consistent yarn.  It's beautiful and functional!

The wood burning wasn't too hard.  We tried our best to foolproof it by printing our designs on the computer and using graphite paper to transfer markings onto the wheel.  The one tip I have for you from this step is to work inside.  We started outside, and the breeze was enough to cool the wood burning tool's tip and make it way less effective!

On the back, we went absolutely wild.  We started by chucking the wheel into David's drill and making "Spin Art" all over the back.  We used watered down acrylic paints for this, and we held the wheel/drill assembly in a box so the splatters wouldn't get all over the deck.  This was a lot of fun, though it was hard for me to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and just let the paint do what it wanted.  For the back upright, we considered a lot of different options, but in the end our favorite was good, old-fashioned finger painting.  It was fun to get messy, and I think the result is lovely.  We used the same colors as we did for the spin art so there would be some consistency.

After the painting was done, we got some stain at Home Depot and rubbed down all the parts and pieces of the wheel.  Then we assembled it, and finally we sprayed a protective clear coat over all the exposed wood.

Although the planning took a long time, the actual decorating and assembly only took a weekend!  And honestly, who can resist a gorgeous, custom spinning wheel?