Ashford Jumbo ESpinner bobbin of Halloween Yarn.
Why Get an Electric Spinning Wheel?
The Ashford Jumbo ESpinner is allowing me to continue being a spinner. Due to an irritatingly persistent knee grumble that keeps me awake at night, I have been finding treadling on the spinning wheels for any length of time quite painful so I have finally given in and bought an electric spinning wheel. The one I have opted for at this stage is the Ashford Jumbo E Spinner which I purchased from the lovely people at Wingham Wool Works in Yorkshire. I chose this one because I am used to Ashford wheels and because it will enable me to continue to spin 200g skeins of corespun yarn and any flight of fancy art yarn that I could imagine.
The Ashford Country Spinner 2
Until now I have used my Ashford Country Spinner 2 for spinning large skeins and funky art yarns but it is heavy to treadle and will now have to look for a new home. Adapting to the E Spinner has been pretty trouble free on the whole. There is a down side to a constant spin speed when you are creating yarns with inclusions but I have found that using the foot pedal brake allows me to do what I need to do without unduly breaking the flow of the spin. The Jumbo E Spinner is an Irish tension wheel just like the Country Spinner and has the same grabby nature so I loop the yarn over the flier before it goes through the guide to make the uptake a bit more gentle if necessary.
I really like the fact that I can spin standing up too. As most of what I enjoy doing has to be done sitting down and we all know that sitting is the new smoking, to be able to spin while standing is a real bonus.
Ashford E Spinner 3
So now my thoughts are turning to the Ashford E Spinner 3 for my beaded yarn and for the finer yarns. I have tried spinning finer yarns on the Jumbo E Spinner using the orifice reducers but the bobbins are so heavy and the uptake pretty fierce that although I did spin a fine yarn, it was troublesome. Plying it from huge heavy bobbins did not make for a satisfactory job either. I will mull it over and see how I get on. I did spin some of my Summerleaze Beach Huts beaded yarn on my Ashford Traditional wheel this week but I really felt it in my knee during the night unfortunately.
Summerleaze Beach Huts beaded yarn on the Ashford Traditional wheel.
