Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Drop spindles on the brain

Despite the fact that I've been spending a lot/too much on spinning supplies in the past few months, I feel the need for a new set of hand spindles. I just bought an Ashford Joy wheel not eight weeks ago, and now I want to go low production again for some reason.

I'm getting very nice lofty sock-yarn singles off my cheap-but-effective Annie May spindles, and I'm on a major sock kick, so I'd like to get a really efficent spindle. This translates into a spindle with LONG spin time of a medium weight that can hold a lot of yarn. A whorl notch would be convenient, too.

Problem is, I'm not terribly comfortable with buying a spindle sight unseen. Claudia sells Schacht hi-lo spindles for about $16 each, which is as good as you're going to get for that price for a midweight, which covers that. However, I also want a heavyweight and a smaller one for traveling.

I've narrowed it down to the Bosworth and the Golding. I've heard that the Golding is a sound design for the heavyweight, but it's very expensive and while gorgeous, I feel a little silly spinning on something so ornate. Plus I'd feel nervous traveling with it.

Everyone says they like the Bosworth spindles so I'm sure I'm going to buy one of them for fine spinning and travel sizes once I can justify spending the money. Still undecided on the heavyweight spindle.

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