You Spin Me Right 'Round Baby, Right 'Round

I finished spinning the Malabrigo Nube in Zarzamora.  This center bobbin is the the full four ounce braid, ready to be plied with the two bobbins in the Aguas colorway, on either side.  I started spinning the first bobbin of singles in 2015 and then spun the last two this year - so I'll need to let the singles set a bit before I ply.  I'm thinking a week should do it.  That means sometime this weekend or next week I could begin plying these together.  That will be 12 ounces of fiber!

That bobbin isn't the only spinning news around here though - we have a new addition to the spinning stable!  It arrived late Friday afternoon but I was tired so I just left it boxed up that evening.  When morning came, and I had started the process of caffeination, I opened the box, and promptly had assistance.

I took my time putting it together (and of course the help continued), but by lunchtime I had it all finished.  Meet my new Schacht Flatiron Spinning Wheel!

It's a Saxony style spinning wheel but it has a very modern, industrial look.  I know it doesn't appeal to everyone, and I don't think it's going to be moonlighting in any fairy tales, but I really like the way it looks.  You can see the size compared to my Kromski Symphony (which could easily show up in a fairy tale or two).

I've been getting things adjusted and set the way I like them and I've been able to do some fine, even spinning.  This is a braid of Malabrigo Nube in Aguas (I ordered it when I ordered the Zarzamora, just in case I didn't like the Zarzamora for the other spinning project) and I'm spinning it to be a light fingering weight three ply just to get a feel for the new wheel.  I'm spinning the singles at 50 WPI.

 

I've got it set up for Scotch Tension right now (it can also do Double Drive AND Irish Tension) because that's the system I'm most familiar with and I figured that would be easier to use to get things going.  I'll probably do the plying (for this single braid of Aguas) in Irish Tension.  At some point, I want to get familiar with Double Drive.  (The Kromski can do Scotch Tension and Double Drive but I've mostly used it with the Scotch Tension system.)  So I hope to get some experimenting and playing done on all my wheels and relearn some spinning techniques that I haven't used in a long time and maybe learn a few new spinning tricks!