Spoiler alert: I bought a spinning wheel! An
honest-to-goodness, real, fully functional spinning wheel. I’ve spun
almost a pound of fiber with my drop spindle and I had another pound and
a half in my apartment ready to spin. So I wasn’t slowing
down, just the opposite, I wanted to spin more and spin faster. I love
my drop spindle and I think I’ll probably still use it from time to
time. From what I’ve read, once you know how to spin with a drop
spindle, you never really forget. But it was time
to branch out to a full sized wheel. So the research began. Most
wheels I saw were clocking in at over 800 dollars. Now, I’d been saving
money for quite a while but 800.00 is still a lot of money. Plus,
since I live in a studio apartment with my fiance,
there wasn’t much room for a full sized spinning wheel. I needed
something compact, simple, and on the less-expensive side. I tried
craigslist and the used equipment sections on a number of websites, but came up with nothing. I was about to give up when I
found reviews for the Ashford Kiwi 2. At 450.00 (for the unfinished
wood version) and a svelte frame of about 2ft wide by3ft tall, it was
perfect. Still a bit on the pricey side, but much better than the 800+
dollars. And the reviews were great! All the
ones I read (on multiple blogs, spinning equipment suppliers, amazon,
etc) said it was a great beginner wheel and one that, depending on what
type of spinning you end up doing, is a wheel that you could use for
years. Assembly is required, but with this video by Yarn Lab Canada, I had something to work alongside with in case I
ran into a tricky part. Luckily, the instructions weren’t hard to
understand (lots of pictures, very few words) and as long as you take
your time, everything should turn out fine.
The wheel comes with 3 bobbins, has a built-in Lazy
Kate, and comes with instructions on how to spin. I had a few different
kinds of fiber in my apartment, all in 8oz amounts. I knew my first
time spinning on a wheel wouldn’t be perfect so
I picked the one that I wouldn’t mind if it was a bit lumpy and bumpy –
some dark grey Icelandic. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the best
yarn to start off spinning but it turned out well enough. Stay tuned
for upcoming fiber reviews for more details.
What I will say is that I was amazed at exactly how much faster I could
spin on the wheel than the drop spindle. I knew it would be faster on a
wheel, but I didn’t know exactly how much faster. I can get a full 8oz
done in a few hours (at about a sport weight
for the singles) Eventually, I would like to go thinner, but I’m still
getting used to the wheel and I figured thicker would be best until I
can get consistent.
As for the wheel itself, I absolutely love it. It is so
easy to use, pulling the bobbins off and putting them back on is super
simple, and it just spins so easily. I was a bit worried that tredeling
would cause my calves to cramp up and that
would shorten my spinning time, but I don’t have to treddle very fast
to get the amount of spin I need. Once I speed up, it may become an
issue, but the fact that I can spin for 4 hour straight and not have any
sort of tiredness or pain in my lower legs is
amazing. I don’t see myself getting another wheel anytime in the
future.
My only ‘complaint’ (and I use that term loosely as this
was a product of my not researching enough) was that the bobbins only
hold about 4oz of fiber. Which is perfect when you have 8oz put-ups and
want to 2ply your singles together, but it
means that you can’t have 8oz of a continuous 2ply. When I use my drop
spindle, I would wind off the singles into a center-pull ball and would
pull from both ends so there was absolutely no wastage. But now, since
I had a spinning wheel, I wanted to try
the traditional 2ply way of spinning singles from two bobbins
together. I ended up with maybe 20 yards left over which I then 2 plied onto
itself. I don’t like joining new balls of yarn, so I’m not a huge fan
of the traditional 2ply technique. At least, not at
this point, not until I can spin consistently and get my yardage close
to the same on both bobbins. I have plans in the future, once my back
account recovers from this initial purchase, to buy the super flyer
which would allow me to spin all 8oz of fiber onto
one bobbin and (in theory) have one continuous hank of yarn. But until
then, I’ll just stick with my plying my yarn from both ends.
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