Category Archives: Spinning

What Would You Have Done?

2 Replies

I have a confession to make…. Actually 2 confessions, if I am totally honest….

The spinners among you will know all too well that spinning wheels are a lot like sheep, if you don’t get the tension just right they can be a little skittish, they need feeding (with fibre) and of course they are always happiest when gathered in a flock. 🙂 I suspect you already see where this post is headed….

My first, beloved wheel, is an Ashford Traditional fitted with a jumbo flyer. She is a lovely wheel. I have spent many happy hours learning to spin and making some (prize-winning) art yarns on her but I have been hankering for a e-spinner almost since the first time I plied 2 singles together.

Mr TB likes a good engineering challenge, so he offered to design and 3-D print an e-spinner for me. Three years later we are surrounded by various iterations of e-spinner parts but nothing that could function as an e-spinner.

Sexy eh?

In January a friend posted on FB that she had signed up to the Electric Eel Wheel Kickstarter for his newest e-spinner, the Fold. As the name suggests it is a decent size but folds down to make it much more convenient to travel with. I had to have one! So I signed up but soon realised I would have to wait until March 2026 for it to be shipped! Oh well, I’ve already waited 3 years for my first e-spinner, what’s another year? So I resigned myself to having an only child (wheel) for another year.

Phew! that’s confession #1 revealed, that wasn’t so hard but Mr TB was rather disappointed that I had given up on him producing an e-spinner.

Earlier this month was the annual Pukekohe Spin-in, I was trading at the event, and overheard a conversation about an e-spinner on the pre-loved equipment stand. The other traders were still setting up their stands and the doors weren’t due to open for another 30 min. I was just going to have a look, there’s no harm in looking right?

Ten minutes later I was happily putting the e-spinner through her paces in the hall kitchen, I was in love! I knew I was breaking the first rule of selling at craft fairs – “don’t spend more than you’ve earned”, but I didn’t care, she was coming home with me! 🙂

Next, to “sneak” my new purchase into the house….

Mr TB just rolled his eyes at me.

The first few evenings I had her sitting on the coffee table but it was a little too far away for comfort, so I started looking for a height adjustable trolley and came across various tables that are probably meant for people who are bed-bound. I ordered one and braced myself for the inevitable barrage of jokes from Mr TB, but as yet he’s not made any comment. I suspect he doesn’t realise what the table is…

It’s perfect for spinning with my feet up on the Lazy-boy in front if the TV and the castors make it a doddle to wheel out of the way when not in use.

I’ve only had the spinner for a few days but this was the first skein she has produced for me:

I am delighted with my purchase, she wasn’t cheap but e-spinners seem to keep their value on the second-hand market here. I will probably sell my Ashford e-spinner once the EEW Fold arrives. Mr TB thinks I’m crazy buying 2 e-spinners just a few weeks apart, do you think I made the right call?

Spinning for Pots

Leave a reply

I confess I have not been able to make much felt this month, I have started a new bag using some gorgeous Gotland hogget (1 year old) locks that have that beautiful graduation from black to white that is characteristic of Gotland lambs wool. This lamb wasn’t shorn in its first year so the locks are unusually long for “lambs” wool. More on that bag in a later post.

I have been spinning, this is 2 skeins of merino “singles” that I dyed after spinning:

And here they are plied together, I am liking the berry colours but struggling to decide which pattern to use it on, I am thinking a pair of gloves but I found several patterns in a crochet book that I like….

This was some core spun art yarn, that I am planning to use for some twining (weaving):

On top of this pot:

This pot was a bit of a learning curve from a glazing perspective, as you can see, the holes I carefully created should have been cleared of glaze before firing. I have managed to fix it with a tile drill but would have preferred the smoother edges of glaze at the edges of the holes.

I have been making quite a lot of pottery this month, including several lidded pots, all of which were the subjects of some glazing experiments…..

This one has 3 different layers of my favourite glaze combination (it gives a bluey-purple through to crimson red colour with pretty pink spots) with some wax over red underglaze:

This one is a type of scraffito, where you paint on layers of different coloured clays and then scrape areas aways to reveal the layers underneath. The colours in this photo are not very accurate, they are actually black, lemon yellow, brick red and cream:

This shallow bowl with a cat design was another experiment, to see if I could paint with coloured clay slip (a watery version of clay). I painted the image on clear plastic sheet in black and let it dry so the colours would not mix but that caused all sorts of problems, not least, the black slip cracked and broke up making it very difficult to add the other colours. The bowl is not a total disaster but I have some other ideas on how better to approach this technique in future.