My New Toy...

I got an early Mother's Day present... or maybe a belated birthday present, since we're right in between the two.

I have been looking at alternatives to drop spindles that would let me crank out yarn a bit faster but still be fun and fit within my budget as well as my tiny living room. I looked into charkhas and possibly making my own wheel or charkha.

Enter the Mother Marion kick spindle. While I automatically fell in love with the idea, the original models, however, are still a bit out of my price range.

I decided to look for them on eBay and found someone whose engineer husband not only figured out how to make them but improve on them. He added ball bearings to reduce friction so the spindle can spin longer between kicks. I've included links to their YouTube videos on the left that demonstrate how these work.

After patiently answering my many questions (including a "yes" to whether I could buy one directly) I settled on a wooden model with a scalloped wheel. My total cost was about half of what I'd pay for an original Mother Marion, not to mention I'm plain impressed by innovative these are. I should be getting it pretty soon.