My Big Wheel for Big Art Yarn

This is old, but found it unpublished.  Still making art yarns with it.

I’m pretty excited about my latest purchase.  It’s the fantastic Ashford Country Spinner.

My bobbin from the Kiwi Wheel - too quickly filled-up.

I have used my smaller Ashford Kiwi wheel for years.  It’s good for a lot of stuff, but it couldn’t really handle large, bulky yarns.  The bobbins fill up way too fast, and the flyer isn’t really optimized for dealing with bulky yarn.

The problem was that I really had my eye on art yarn.  It appeals exactly to my artistic sensibilities.  I want to create something unique, something one-of-a-kind.  I have a whole herd of sheep of varying breeds - each one’s wool bringing it’s own unique qualities.  I have angora rabbits happily growing luxurious hair.  I have an eye for color, and I love dying my fiber to suite my taste.

So for heaven’s sake, I needed the right tool to take advantage of all these opportunities.  

You know how it is, when you get into that “shopping / research” mode.  It feels almost like a little obsession.  I spent a long time looking online for the larger wheels.  I compared products and prices.  I finally found the wheel on eBay, where the guy added spinning oil and an extra bobbin for the same price as most people wanted for the wheel itself.  So I snatched it up.

It took a couple of hours to assemble - and that was with the help of my husband and a delicately-wielded electric drill to screw everything together.  But I must say, I am impressed.

The bobbin swallows 2 1/2 pounds of yarn!  The larger flyer is especially designed for  big yarn.

Note the difference.  It's like night and day.

I’ve haven’t had the chance to spin very much with it yet, but what I've done has turned out wonderfully!