Fine spinning

Last night and part of this morning I spun the Romney. It's exceedingly easy to spin, maybe because it was a fairly long stapled fleece and the roving still has the oils from the processing at the mill. I didn't attempt to go for a specific weight of yarn, and for fun, tried to spin as fast as I could. At least two hours of spinning later, I now have a bobbin full of naturally heathered single.

In addition to how to ply, think I actually learned something else very useful at yesterday’s class – how to spin uniform, lace-weight singles! I thought my mohair was pretty nice, but this is just amazing. There are small sections that are thinner and thicker than is shown in the close up, and there's the occasional slub or two, but greater than 90% of it is about the diameter I pulled over the rulers. After I spin another bobbin of the Romney and ply it, I'm going back to the mohair to see what I can produce. (Yes, I have both a metric and archaic scale in the picture for you! The smaller ruler is divided into 10ths and 100ths of an inch, whatever that is. Didn't want to use a coin as reference, not everyone carries my currency in their pockets.)

This has all been done on a double-treadle Canadian-made Lendrum folding wheel. I used to have an Ashford (NZ) Traditional. I go places with my wheel, usually driving a Miata, and having that thing riding shotgun in traffic with the top down, was kinda unnerving. My new wheel fits in the trunk, with room to spare for lazy kate, fiber, and my bag. Since I've had such success with the standard flyer, I think I need to try this again with the fast flyer and see what I get. Lendrum also sells a very fast flyer, but I’m unable to imagine that I’d need anything other than what I currently have to make lace-weight yarn. (Maybe it eliminates the need to treadle like a squirrel on crack, but it does require its own bobbins. For the record, I hate special bobbins.)

I'm not really into the look of traditionally built wheels. Turned wood isn't my thing – I like a Spartan simplicity that's functional, then pretty. Translation: the Babe (US) PVC wheel, though functional, just doesn't make me happy. In some other life, I'd like to have the Schacht (US) Matchless Spinning Wheel (double treadle, of course). It’s sturdy, spins oh so smoothly, and would never fit in my car. The Louët (Holland) wheels are very nice as well, though I believe they were originally designed for medium to bulky yarns. I keep seeing refurbished ones on eBay from someone in Holland, but the shipping to the US makes them a little less attractive. Those little Majacraft (NZ) wheels are intensely cute – especially the Little Gem. I also like that you can adjust the height and position of the orifice, swap out the whorls, and that they flyer arms are ceramic. Maybe when we visit NZ, one will follow me home...

If you wondered what the difference between a regular flyer and a fast flyer is, it's all about the whorls. Notice that the regular flyer (still on the wheel) has three grooved rings where the drive band can go. The largest is about the same diameter as a hockey puck. On the fast flyer, the largest is about the diameter of an apricot. The smaller the flyer wheel, the more rotations it makes each time you treadle. I was using the highest ratio (rotations : treadle) on the regular flyer. Now I'll try the Romney using the lowest ratio on the high speed flyer – smaller even than the smallest wheel on the regular flyer. The concept very similar to the gears on your bike, though I'm one of those odd people who insist on using the larger gears, even while attempting to ascend a hill.

There are so many wheels out there, and no one place has them all to try them out... well at least not near me. If I had tried out other wheels before I got this one, I might not have made the purchase. (See, this is where the Internet fails me.) My Lendrum is less stable than the Ashford I had. The drive wheel, flyer, mother of all, ... the main workings of the thing, are centered between the treadles, so as you use it, it wobbles a little. The Ashford had three, widely spaced points of contact with the floor, and you treadle beneath and between those contact points. Since mine was a single treadle, there was even less movement introduced while treadling. I do think that I'll get an additional wheel someday, and maybe even change the type of portable wheel I use, but don't tell my husband. He already cringes when a box appears on the front porch.