Sunday, October 3, 2010

"Full Circle" Spinning















Susie started spinning about 28 years ago when a girl I went to high school with offered lessons in exchange for printing. Kim offered to teach Susie on her Ashford Traditional and like most beginners, spun a nice, fat yarn. I bought Susie her first wheel in 1982 and it came the day our son was born and the rest had been as they say, history! Over the years she has become more and more proficient and her yarn has gotten finer and finer. Over the past few years she has been spinning more in the lines of lace weight or cobweb yarns so the addition of the Ashford Country spinner has been a REAL departure from the norm. One of the things Susie has wanted to work on is rugs and with the larger orifice and bobbin capacity of this wheel, spinning a thicker yarn is a lot easier and efficient. The only problem is having been spinning finer and finer, going to a bulky yarn has proved to be harder than either of us thought. From my perspective, it just plainly looks funny since I'm use to seeing a bobbin filled with yarn that wraps at around 25-30wpi and now this wheel is sitting here with this HUGE yarn that wraps at more like 6-8wpi. I'm telling you, this is going to take some getting use to! The first bobbin is now full and has been skeined off (at 1096 yards) and as soon as we get it washed to set what little twist there is, I will weigh it and post a picture of the finished yarn. Ashford advertises a 2 POUND capacity on the bobbin and I'm guessing that that may be somewhat conservative. Stand by for future updates!

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