#spinning wheels

[subtextsays]

Been putting shelves together and moving wheels for the last 2 nights. Close to having the herd collected in one place!

I learned on the antique flax wheel bottom right. It's probably the oldest of the bunch, closing on 200 years I'd guess. About half are functional and the rest projects that need varying amounts of work. Need to weed out a few too. Also these are all secondhand wheels. (My basic rule of thumb is don't pay more than half the new price for a used modern wheel.)

#fiber rabbit hole #i love love the old library bookshelves #spinning wheels #hand spinning

[trashpandacraft]

having sat down and spent a bit of time spinning on all the wheels, i have thoughts on them!

our first contestant: a sheridan scandanavian. kinda.

sheridan was an australian manufacturer in the 70s and early 80s, and this particular model is often mistaken for an ashford traditional. one tell that it isn't is the spokes on the wheel—a traddy has eight, and a scandanavian has six.

another tell is its tension knob, which i actually love—this is a lot easier to get a grip on than the ones that are just balls.

...there's also a nameplate identifying the maker and the model. but that's kinda where things get weird, because this? this is not what a scandanavian is meant to look like.

eagle-eyed readers may have already noticed that it's a double drive wheel, which is weird, because the scandanavian was only ever made as scotch tension. sheridan made a similar wheel, the macarthur, that was a double drive. my understanding is that these wheels were sold as kits, so as best i can guess, someone must have had a scandanavian and a macarthur, and at some point, for some reason, they dropped the macarthur's workings onto the sheridan's stand.

whatever she is, though, she spins nicely—works exactly like you'd expect, even after what was clearly a number of years of neglect. i'd like to get some more oil into the leather bearings, but she's in good shape. this one's a surprisingly slow wheel, even on the highest ratio, but will be great for plying and—more importantly—for @binchickencrafts to learn to spin on.

next up is the tarra...something. maybe the evelyn, but maybe the agnes?

she's beautiful, right? another tilt tension, too, which i like. lovely matching orifice hook with a little storage hole, and integrated bobbin storage, which i absolutely love.

so why's she weird? well. the evelyn was the evolution of the agnes, basically. agnes had a block for a mother of all, evelyn was shaped. agnes had a four-part drive wheel, evelyn had six. agnes had eight spokes on the drive wheel, evelyn had six.

this wheel, though. she has a shaped mother of all, an eight-part drive wheel, and eight spokes.

she also has a really neat flyer.

the flyer is part of what attracted me, to be honest, and no regrets. it needs shined up some more—i was eager enough to try her out that i cleaned off the worst of the rust with some vinegar, but it needs some more attention. those hooks, though, are fantastic. i think that they're a curse for a lot of people, because if one's lost, replacements are almost impossible to come by, but if you have them, they're so good. the screw loosens the hook and lets you slide it as needed, and you can get very close to either end of the bobbin—you can use the stationary hook to wind on right at the front, and the movable hook covers the rest of the bobbin easily. all my treadle wheels have been fixed hooks, so this was a new adventure.

this is the wheel in the worst shape, i think. she needs oiled up, but also needs to have the rear maiden reseated—it's loosened and has a fair amount of horizontal play, which doesn't give the best experience. i feel like when that's fixed, which won't take more than a couple hours and some wood glue, she's going to be a sweet spot of a wheel. even with the movement in that back maiden, i can get from worsted down to cobweb on her, so i'm really looking forward to seeing what she's like when she's been patched up.

finally: the pipy saxony.

please clap.

i can't overstate how small this wheel is. she weighs less than five kilos. that's like. a cat. that's a cat of weight. that's how much this wheel weighs. i knew when i bought her that she was a small wheel, but i hadn't realised how small, so i was a little concerned that she wasn't going to be very effective.

turns out joke's on me, because this teeny tiny wheel is an absolute powerhouse—as long as you want to spin finely. which is perfect for me, because i almost never use or spin yarn that's thicker than a light worsted, and even that's kinda pushing it. i'm the kind of person who knits jumpers out of sock yarn and owns multiple pairs of 1.5mm (size 000) circular needles.

this wheel wants to spin fast and wants to spin thin, and I *love* her. the wheel is weighted so it always stops ready to turn clockwise, and it's a string footman, and something about the combination of the two makes this an absolutely amazing experience. i spun for several hours, and my breaking point wasn't knee or ankle pain, but hip pain from sitting in that position too long.

how the heck does a wheel that—again!—weighs like ten pounds manage to weight anything?

it's easy to miss, but in that first picture, there's integrated bobbin storage again, with room for one on each side of the wheel.

the tension system isn't like anything i've used, and can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally. the tension peg does what you'd expect and moves the slider block (and the mother of all on it) closer or further from the wheel, but you can also move the mother of all towards you or away from you to better align it with the wheel.

she's just really nicely designed. look at this incredibly tidy bobbin release!

for the specific things that i spin most frequently, i'm pretty sure that the pipy is going to be my go-to treadle wheel, though i expect the others will see plenty of use, as well. and my eel wheel certainly isn't getting retired—my somewhat broken body is never going to let me use a treadle as often as i'd like, and there's a lot to be said for the ability to spin while watching television in bed. but i'm really excited to have these, and to use them when i can, even if it's not as often as i'd like.

i know that a lot of people are really dubious about buying used (especially vintage used) wheels, but i feel like they're often underrated. there's a lot of cool wheels out there that are as good or better than what you can buy in a store, and it's worth investigating it, if you're able to. (it's also worth noting that buying all three of these cost us less than half of what buying a single new ashford traditional would cost.)

finally, you want to see my favourite thing about the pipy? i saw someone complaining about this the other day, that their wheel's prior owner had 'gouged' it. but look.

that little gouge means someone else loved this wheel so much that their yarn wore a channel into the wood. and as soon as i stop holding my yarn back, it slots straight into place.

right where it's meant to be.

this wheel is older than i am—they're dated, on the bottom, and she was made in july 1972. she's only had one owner, a woman who used to teach spinning, but is elderly now and can't spin anymore. her daughter delivered it to me, and told me that this was her mother's last wheel—she'd gotten rid of the others, slowly, but held on to this until she was physically unable to treadle. fifty years! that woman spun on this wheel for fifty years.

i'm old enough that i don't imagine i'm going to get fifty years with it, but maybe i'll get lucky. either way, hopefully in another fifty years, someone new will be taking their turn, weirdly touched by the idea that this wheel has been so loved.

#spinning #hand spinning #spinning wheels #vintage #crafts #fibercraft #fibrecraft #i dunno why this makes me so happy #but it does #anyhow these are stunningly beautiful wheels #and they deserve a better end than rotting away in someone's attic #smartest raccoon i know

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

save chloe // save sean

(inspired by this)

#life is strange 2 #spinning wheels #web weaving #lis verse #we are the wolves #pricefield #daniel diaz #sean diaz #bae over bay #chloe price #max caulfield #blood brothers #ep 5 wolves #not to brag but i am fucking cooking #monsters talks life is strange #low morality #diazcest #lis parallels

[viciousewe]

Hmmmm

I'm getting a spinning wheel sized tax return this year so obviously.....I want a spinning wheel. But I have a lot of options, I've never spun on a treadle wheel, and have some chronic pain in my knees and back so I need advice.

My top choices are:

Ashford e-spinner 3: (my top pick currently)

Pros: Ive developed the habit of spinning lying down and this is the best way to continue that. It's small and I will easily find space in my already yarn stuffed bedroom.

Cons: expensive.....there goes most of the return...I've always wanted a treadle wheel so I'll still probably get wheel envy....

Ashford kiwi:

Pros: cheap. At the price of one kiwi I could use the rest of my return to get......another kiwi? (Or save it I guess)

Cons: it’s not….that aesthetically pleasing. I know that doesn’t mean much and I would finish it myself in a pretty color but still. I don’t see a lot of people with one so that makes me nervous. I can’t spin in bed and I would be limited to 15-30min sessions between breaks which kind fucks w the flow of spinning. Also where am I putting this thing

???: if it comes unfinished I am finishing it myself but that means I’ll have to do the walk of shame into my old job at the Lowe’s AND go to the section where I used to work idk if I could handle that. The small hardware store down the street probably doesn’t have the pretty blue gray finish I would want thoooo

Kromski ministrel:

Pros: oh my god this has been my dream wheel for the whole 15 years I’ve been spinning. It’s pretty….and the walnut stain?

Cons: expensive……also the same as the kiwi in terms of needing breaks and taking up space.

???: I kinda do wanna finish it my self and I could get a pretty dark stain at the local hardware store….

Book Charkha:

Pros: the cheapest by far. Easy to store. I bet I could work out a way to spin lying down with this thing.

Cons: it’s strongly associated with Ghandi which as a non Hindu Indian makes me feel some kind of way.

???: honestly could save up for this easily so I’d rather spend my tax money on something I can’t normally save for

If anyone has experience w any of these (or with both e spinners and treadle wheels or thought of smth I didn’t) please chime in. Right now I’m leaning toward the espinner due to the agonies but I also hear that treadling is mostly in the hips and my knees aren’t that bad so it’s mostly my back that’s the problem.

#spinning #handspinning #spinning wheels #spinning wheel

[afewdroppedstitches]

I did my reenactment and demo table stuff this weekend and well.... had a patron that needed help.

Ellowen, one of my guild members, : Ev! Come here, she needs help figuring out what she might need to do to get her spinning wheel working. She can't get the wheel to uptake the yarn.

Me to patron: Well, it might be a brake line issue or a drive band issue. What brand of wheel is it?

Patron: 😅 I don't know.... I just recently bought it from Facebook Marketplace

Me: what's the style then? Do you have a picture?

Patron: no, I keep meaning to take one but keep forgetting to....oh, I can probably draw it! (Patron draws picture below)

Me: oh! That's a Louët. So your issue is that they are a Scotch tension wheel which needs to be fed the yarn as you go and .... (more spinning wheel shop talk)

*Later*

Me: ..... I might be a little deranged being able to identify the wheel off of this drawing with a single glance.....

#spinning yarn #spinningwheel #spinning wheels #fiber arts #handspining #we do rev war reenactment for those curious

[mmmmalo]

Should Latula’s invocation of “rad” be re-evalutated in the context of nukes...? as a “radiation” reference. The rad > red > black chain already worked out pretty neatly in Slurquest, but it wouldn’t be the first time pejorative categories were slurred together... I suppose the difference is, the red-as-black stuff connected Latula’s scene to a racialized black/white dichotomy, and thereby implicated the red/green cherubim as being similarly racialized. Radioactive doesn’t enter into as dichotomy as readily (or at least, I’m not sure if the non-radioactive, the stable, has a signifier to speak of...), so I can’t mesh the motif with others in the schematic way I like. I guess on the model of Watchmen the radioactive might signal all that is deemed socially corrosive (all that threatens to fracture purity and unity) and thereby point towards multiple denigrated categories, but it’d be a pity if that’s all it did... or maybe, since for me at least the renewed interest in nuclear imagery came from Hivewap’s cold war anxieties, it might be a red as in Commie thing? I really don’t know -- references to Russia in Homestuck proper are still pretty scant, there’s like... the Nabokov theming in the Egbert household (even though Nabokov hated the communists), Rose’s Dead Souls quote (though that book’s from imperial Russia), Dave making a hammer and sickle joke, and a series of jokes about Jade hating democracy... if not for lime-bloods remarking that the original image for Alternia is extracted from Russia’s arctic coastline, I wouldn’t be tremendously confident there was anything to find.

I suppose I won’t feel like this has generated any new information unless I reread Latula’s chatlogs to see if this paradigm has anything to offer... maybe red Kankri’s overbearing SJW schtick is acting as the communist smear, sort of like how Z/Xi gets a joke about brainwashing the youth with Tiktok before beginning their nominally leftist transgender clown revolution

#spinning wheels #nukes

[comfortabletextiles]

Time to ply, mister bond

#hand spinning #spinning wheels #4 ply #plying

[copp3rtop]

new baby

This is Violet. I got her for christmas and I've started to learn to spin. This is a great wheel to learn on and so simple in its design. I love her

#Hand spinning #Spinning wheels #Yarn #Penguin

[alanaisalive]

I ordered myself a new spinning wheel to celebrate actually having a little bit of money for the first time since my PIP was stopped almost 2 years ago.

I didn't end up getting the one that would need painting. I was able to afford a slightly better one that should be a good ergonomic fit. That's the main reason for getting a new wheel in the first place. My current wheel is a pretty old Louet S15 with one treadle. It works great, but the single treadle makes me sit a bit crooked, which is hard on my hips and SI joints.

I ordered a Kromski Sonata. It's double treadle with wide spacing between them. I'm excited to get it and try it out. I may also buy the magnetic flyer kit for it because those look very cool.

I'm still looking for a drum carder. It's been hard to find any that aren't ridiculously expensive, so I'm probably sticking with my homemade blending board a while longer.

#hand spinning #fibre arts #spinning wheels #drum carders #also I learned that some brands of spinning wheel cost twice as much in the US compared to the UK #kromski is really expensive in the US but over here they're more of the budget or mid range

[an-sceal]

Yes, I did miss out on Maryland Sheep and Wool for the third year in a row, and yes, I am having fiber lust. Perhaps this afternoon I'll finally finish the singles for the project I've had on my Lendrum forever.

#handspinning #lendrum #spinning wheels

[sittinwithyou]

"Life is a wheel turning forever. Living is learning, and learning is changing. The wheel weaves as you change."

- Moiraine Damodred

#spinning wheels #get threaded #WOT

[subtextsays]

I was the only person who bid on this wheel at an auction. 🥺 It's an unusual design, and from the little I've found about the maker, he built these in the 70s(?) out of whatever wood he had lying around. (This one happens to be mostly oak.)

It's a double drive with a third pulley on a short arm for tensioning. And it works really well? Like the tension is sensitive but it can be cranked up for some very strong uptake, unusual in my experience on a double drive. I also like that it has almost no tendency to backspin when you slow or stop treadling. On high tension it just... STOPS. I'm not super fond of the flyer arms but they function just fine and are jointed for strength. The whorl is a weird combination of screw and press fit. (As in it has no threads but the flyer shaft itself has very wide and shallow threading?) It works so can't complain.

So far I've only oiled it so it needs a cleaning. (It has a nice oil finish and has been protected from the elements.)

Size reference next to the Ashford that is my next project. (A wheel that was left unfinished and at the mercy of the elements.)

#spinning wheels #hand spinning #fiber rabbit hole

[trashpandacraft]

so you may recall that we have a number of spinning wheels, because of who we are as people and also because i love them. and we decided after buying those that we were done, unless the perfect castle-style wheel appealed.

you may also recall that my most beloved wheel is the pipy, made by philip poore in 1972:

the pipy was far and away the most common wheel that poore made, but there was...another wheel. a castle wheel. called the wendy.

when i was gift-shopping for upcoming birthdays the other day, i was on ebay, and one of my previous searches popped up. and i opened it, obviously, just to see, and because i like looking at spinning wheels and seeing what people are selling.

well, there were nine items on ebay that matched that search, one of which was a wendy wheel, made in 1975, not terribly expensive, and less than 50k from my house.

so you can probably guess what happened next.

...ok, actually what happened is that i waffled about it and made sad noises for a bit, and my wife spent an hour or so whispering do it, do it, and then the obvious happened.

so now for real we have our (probably) last wheel (for now)! and buddies, lemme tell you, she's absolutely majestic. she's so small that if you take her apart, i'm pretty sure she'd fit into a carry-on-sized suitcase. she's so small that if i, a normal-to-tall-sized human person stand next to her, the top of the drive wheel is under my knee.

she also has a delightfully unusual tension system! frame flyers were apparently (relatively) briefly popular in new zealand, and honestly, i kinda dig it?

the rod is actually in two pieces, and they're connected by the threaded ball. turn the ball in one direction, and the upper part of the rod moves slightly further out of the ball; turn it in the other direction, and the rod moves deeper into the ball. this changes the tilt of the flyer, moving it slightly closer to or further from the drive wheel, and thus adjusting the tension.

the flyer's slightly cracked, so right now i'm using the single flyer across both wheels, but i'm talking to more experienced people to figure out how best to repair/replace it. other than that, though, she's in amazing condition—it's clear she was treasured, but equally clear that she wasn't used. (there was a giant clump of spiderweb in the orifice, and don't think that wasn't an unpleasant surprise.) but i think we're more than happy to use her enough to make up for the years of disuse.

oh, and in the picture looking down, see that little hole in the frame, just at the bottom of the image? it's so you can screw a block of wood onto the frame and convert her to scotch tension, if you'd like.

she came with her original paperwork, featuring information about how to prepare wool, spin, and knit it, which is also rather charming.

this concludes the most recent (and probably final) episode of 'slightly odd spinning wheels that are older than i am that i have bought for a song'. i know i've said it before, but if you have the chance to play with vintage wheels, please do give it a go. sometimes they're just so-so, but sometimes you find absolute treasures that were made by masters of the craft, and then—hypothetically—you own four of them that collectively have still cost you less than the price of buying one (1) ashford traditional.

#spinning #hand spinning #handspinning #spinning wheels #fiber arts #fibre arts #fibrecraft #i really cannot overstate how much i love the poore wheels #they're just so incredibly thoughtfully made #and well made #and absolutely beautiful #anyhow heart eyes emoji you know? #also i want to be clear that there's no shade at ashford here! #i've used them and they're nice wheels! #i don't love them but i don't love a lot of things #i don't love louëts either and i've owned one #it's just that ashfords are widely available and i know what they cost #because literally everywhere sells them #and i'm lazy and don't want to go look up what a kromski or whatever costs #smartest raccoon i know #also special shoutout to my wife for 100% enabling this purchase #like they'll also benefit since now we have more wheels #but i don't know that i would've done it without the urging #even though it's exactly what i've been dreaming of #so that was nice of them

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

holy war

avatar (2022) / avatar (2009) / the messiah part 3 (job 19: 26, i corinthians 15: 21, i corinthians 15: 51, i corinthians 15: 52, I corinthians 15: 54-56, romans 8: 31)

#id in alt #avatar the way of water #local girl and old man cage fight for custody of the jesus metaphor #the messiah #spinning wheels #resurrection #parallels #kiri te suli kìreysì'ite #grace augustine #miles quaritch #web weaving #avatar #christian imagery #eywa #kiri sully #kiri augustine #colonel quaritch #recom quaritch #canonical character death #alas poor yorick #religious imagery #guns #goddesses #avatar kiri #avatar quaritch #avatar 2022 #merry fucking christmas #happy fucking holidays #bible scripture #avatar series

[callisteios]

Would you like to find out what you would be the god of? Take my new uqiz to find out

#uquiz #have fun with it please #assigning the 30+ results was fucking exhausting #you can get #spins wheel #mascots #emojis #longing #microelectronics #and so many more! #quiz #tag game #etc #mine #callisteios #i will add more answers. when I have inspiration and or energy #muted

[viviennevalentine]

drop everything (except your spindles)

Since my next 3D print project will be a spinning wheel, I decided to make the theme for today's fiber arts workshop (at FamiLab www.FamiLab.org every Sunday from 3-5) wool processing from sheep to fabric. I'm bringing in my drop spindles and some examples of raw wool, flax (linen) and cotton for anyone who wants to give spinning a go.

I also found some very informative videos at You Tube. Each describes how the wool comes off the sheep and gets processed, but each chooses to focus on different details and tools, including both hand tools and more industrialized, larger machines for processing in bulk. I would be interested in 3D printing or woodworking a Niddy Noddy, for example, and there are several other such tools and machines that could be fun to build and use.

One of the videos, ("where do I start - choose your tools - spinning yarn for beginners," by Jillian, Eve), mentions that some Maker Spaces are beginning to make Fiber Arts machines, such as spinning wheels and looms, available. I plan on making a 3D printed spinning wheel, and fabricating a table loom, (probably with more wood and metal working than 3D printing), but I would love to be able to make them and house them at the lab for other fiber arts people to use and learn on!

Here are the videos (you can watch on your own, I may pick one of the short ones to show today, if anyone is interested enough):

 Wool production and processing - Merino wool processing - by the Woolmart company 3:10 https://youtu.be/YwRbyTCqOQY?si=XaHfsfDVC_Kn9GA2

 spinning into yarn - by George Washington, Mt. Vernon, 2:13 https://youtu.be/ltXHYIc015M?si=SdNI7lGNaUROP1TQ

 from wool to yarn - processing raw sheep wall into finished yarn by detlillespinneiet at 11:56 https://youtu.be/1y8Yq-aYW_w?si=B4XTVOFd9kDiGey9

 sheep to cloth and craft tradition by Handcrafted Tradition 13:23 https://youtu.be/ngLoJxssEao?si=5vZA82YGdw-ny4SA

 where do I start choose your tools spinning yarn for beginners, by Jillian, Eve, 19:57, https://youtu.be/MYR8M2Fbllc?si=TH8e6p9k4Z43NUwA

 History of spinning playlist by Jillian, Eve (library of 24 videos) https://www.youtube.com/playlist...

Come learn, help teach others, or just work on your latest project in good company where we can help each other out.

#fiber arts #3D printing #fiber arts 3D printing mash up #spinning #wool processing #traditional crafts #drop spindles #spinning wheels #FamiLab #Fiber Arts Workshop