Serious enhancement of the tool cupboard...

 Three years ago I bought a spinning wheel on a whim, it was a secondhand Ashford Traditional that I won in an eBay auction for £170. I realise now that I could probably have got the same wheel in slightly better condition, for slightly less money, in a Ravelry destash, but I was young and foolish  wasn't a big Ravelry user then. The wheel then sat in the entryway of my flat for over a year, because every time I attempted to spin on it, I couldn't make it work and ended up getting ridiculously frustrated and angry!

I eventually got a half an hour spinning lesson from my good friend Kim of Alterknit Universe, who tweaked my wheel and made sure it was set up correctly. And then I was away - making slubby singles from commercially dyed merino! I spun on and off for a while, but didn't pick it up properly until the Tour De Fleece last year, where my goal was to spend an hour a day at my wheel.

Since then, I've spun a fair amount of yarn, knit with some of it and started to outgrow my Traditional. I've been interested in upgrading my wheel for about a year and I had my heart set on a particular wheel - one that was sadly out of my price range! I promised myself I'd buy it when I finished university, as a graduation present to myself. But things happened and I got sick and I couldn't finish my degree. But sometimes you need a treat. Especially when so many of your friends graduated with a First Class degree and are starting out in exciting new lives. So I saved up money from my retail job, and last week I ordered my very own Double Treadle Schacht Matchless.

Schacht are a US company based in Colorado - a long way away from my seaside town in Sussex, England - and their products are hard to get hold of in the UK - there's only two distributors of Schacht wheels, and the price difference between the US and the UK is crazy - you American folk are so lucky!

Anyway, at just over £1000, I'm pretty sure it's the most expensive thing I've ever bought and I know I could've bought an Ashford or a Lendrum or plenty of other wheels, for less - but I believe in saving up for the things that you really, really want. If I bought a Lendrum, I'd still want a Matchless further down the line.

I haven't had much chance to spin on it yet - work has a habit of getting in the way of valuable knitting and spinning time! But I've been playing with it this afternoon and I love it. It's going to take a while to adjust to, from my Traditional - which is essentially held together with string, but I'm looking forward to breaking it in and I'm already window shopping for accessories for it!

If you're interested - I bought my Matchless from Loch Ness Spindle - based in Scotland. They're a relatively new Schacht dealer but I didn't have any problems with them and Olga, the owner of Loch Ness Spindle was very helpful when I emailed her. The only other UK dealer is George Weil - but they're selling the same wheel for an extra £300 - which I think is really bad business practise.

I just need to finish up some spinning on my Traditional and then my (currently unnamed) shiny new wheel can have pride of place in my spinning corner!

♥

Review: Ashford Kiwi Skein Winder

I love gadgets and I love good tools. I have a tools wish list that is as long as both my arms and runs into the thousands, pounds wise (£'s not lbs)! But, like most of us, I have a limited budget for yarn, fibre and fibre-related tools and have to prioritise over what I want to splurge on, or what I'd rather save on.

A skein winder was always pretty low on my priority list - I used to rewind occasional skeins of my hand dyed yarn on two horizontal umbrella swifts - which works, it's not ideal, it makes your arms hurt like hell, and if your swift slips down as you're winding, then you have to rewind again afterwards... And I used to wind my handspun straight from my Lazy Kate on to my swift - again, it works, but after a big drama when I was winding 1000yds and the swift kept slipping and the skein circumference got smaller and smaller, I vowed Never Again and looked into getting a skein winder.


I currently don't wind a ridiculous amount of yarn - this may change in the future, but I didn't want to invest in a fancy winder if there was a chance that it wouldn't get used, which left me with a choice between the Louet Skein Winder* or the Ashford Kiwi Skein Winder (sometimes just called the Ashford Skein Winder) - the only real difference being the Louet winder clamps to a table, like an umbrella swift whereas the Ashford is free standing.

I settled on the Ashford purely because I don't have a lot of table top space - finding homes for my ball winder, swift and yardage counter is hard enough - and I thought free standing would be more practical. This backfired on me a little - but I'll get to that in a second.


Plus Points:
The Ashford Kiwi Winder is priced at around £75-78, it's at the lower, more affordable end of the winder spectrum (I know, £75 doesn't exactly sound like a bargain, but some winders run to £400+).
It's also pretty solid, considering it arrives flat packed and I put it together myself! I don't feel like it's going to break as I'm winding yarn - which I used to worry about in the umbrella-swift winding days.

Down Sides:
The freestanding structure doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. The base of the winder isn't very heavy and as you're winding, it moves across the table top, or the floor, depending on your set up. Which might not sound like a big deal, but it slows you down and can get mighty irritating! I've taken to clamping the base to the table with G clamps - which solves the problem nicely.
The biggest problem I have with it, is the circumference of the skein that you can wind. It's adjustable, which would be useful, except that at the largest width it's still not very wide - and winds a 60 inch skein (that's just over 1.5m or just over 1.6yds). I can't think of a reason you'd need a smaller circumference than this, except perhaps if you were winding mini skeins...
Also - and this goes for any hand operated skein winder - be prepared for your arm to ache!

It's a case of getting what you pay for - if you're looking to do some occasional winding, you're not bothered about the length of your skeins and you've got a couple of G clamps or a stack of heavy books to weight it down with - then go for it! It's a lot easier than winding with two swifts, I can tell you! But if I ever have the need to wind a larger volume of skeins - then I'll probably be destashing it and switching up to a Crazy Monkey winder (y'know after I've saved up / sold my soul..!)

I purchased my winder from Sara's Texture Crafts, but it's no longer listed on their site - however if you're interested in getting one for yourself, UK folks can find it here and US folks can find it here.

*The Louet Skein Winder is the only piece of fibre related equipment that I have ever seen be more expensive in the US than in the UK. It's listed at $185 (around £120) on Louet's site, and it's £87.50 right here. Most intriguing.