Spinning Wheel

Ashford Kiwi stained Bombay Mahogany

I’ve obviously been way to back logged this month to keep to any sort of posting schedule. I’ve been trying though, collecting photographs and things to blog about on my magical Itool and half blogging them, but never finishing the posts. Well the result is that now I’m going to have all these new posts with old dates assigned to them. So although it appears right now that I’ve hardly posted in the month of April, expect that to change soon! My strategy? Little tiny posts; like this one:

This is my new and finally finished Ashford Kiwi! I got it from a fantastic online Ebay seller: Copper Moose Fibers and Spinning. They sell unfinished brand spankin’ new from the box Ashford Kiwis for only $320. This comes with free shipping in the US, one pound of corriedale cross (way better than the mystery domestic you get from most places), and an unfinished Ashford Kniddy Knoddy. (You can see my finished one, stained to match below.)

I really like the Ashford Kiwi for my first wheel for a couple of reasons.

It’s fully customizable as an unfinished wheel! Trick it out big time! Go floral themed with some paint stencils, put tire spinners on it so it looks like you never stop kickin’ it, hell glue a whole entourage of tiny metal lady bugs all over the thing. The point being: I know spinners/knitters; we have big personalities and we wont to show them everywhere. So instead of trashing a second hand Louet by trying to sand off the kitschy (and not in a good way) honey-wheat coloured lacquer, start with an unfinished new piece. It’ll still cost less.

Did I mention is costs less? I’m sorry I’m a still to recently graduated college student and I’m po’. Plus you don’t want to invest a lot in you’re first wheel. However, I had a dilemma. I wanted two treadles. I guess due to years of fencing I’ve developed a pair of unbalanced legs. My front leg’s quad muscle could eat the back leg! So for a fear of furthering this gruesome and disfiguring quality I wanted two treadles. Also, I found it easier to maintain a smooth rythm this way. But mostly the giant creepy leg thing. My advice to people wondering if they’re a two or one treadle person: you’ll just have to try both. Go to a store with wheels set up to try and have a sale associate who knows how to spin to assist you in demoing a wheel with one treadle and one with two. You’ll be surprised, some people wind up liking exactly the opposite of what they came in wanting!

All in all it’s a very lovely addition to my fiber tools. It’s light enough for me to car around even though it doesn’t fold, and it still fits in the back seat of my Honda Civic even if their’s a tall lanky person in their too.